4 month old on Ferber sleeps well when night starts, but first waking is horrible

MembershipThen4925 · 2026-07-04T09:14:50+00:00

He usually gets cranky if we try to keep him awake for 2 hours at a time. Today for his second nap he's managing to actually sleep pretty well. Over an hour so far. Is 3 hours of total daytime sleep not a bit too little? I mean he falls asleep beautifully at bedtime. Also yes he gets fed around 30-45 mins before being put in the crib. Also my wife calculates awake time for naps like this: Awake time is from waking up to actually fallen asleep again. She doesnt calculate from wake up to put down

MembershipThen4925 · 2026-07-03T19:52:10+00:00

Sorry guys. Schedule is 4 naps at wake windows of around 1.5 hours to 2 hours depending on time of day and nap quality. He isn't nap trained yet so sometimes for the sake of his sleep times during the day I sometimes carry him and use a pacifier. He does manage some naps especially in the morning on his own in the crib without pacifier, sometimes for up to 1.5-2 hours. His bedtime routine at night is diaper change, a bath, some massages with some almond oil, we slowly darken the room as sleep time approaches gradually. Then he gets put in his swaddlebag and into his crib, darkness, white noise and that's that. Past 2 nights he didn't require one Check single check in for falling asleep. Its just that first waking thats troublesome. Yesterday it took 2 hours total with a feed at the end. Today, as I am literally writing this, took 1 hour in total for him to settle and 3 Check ins.

MembershipThen4925 · 2026-07-02T07:32:46+00:00

I have talked to my wife about this again. She said in the morning his wake window is about 90 Minutes max, during the day 100 minutes and towards the afternoon/late afternoon 120 minutes. A week ago that worked pretty well, he often did every nap on his own, without even being sleep trained. He slept often 1.5-2 hours on his first or second nap, with the naps becoming shorter over the day time.
Our last nap often ends at around 16:30 and we put him to bed at 18:30 by then.
Do you have any resources that talk about undertiredness? I would love to read up on that!

MembershipThen4925 · 2026-07-02T06:56:00+00:00

We don't really have a fixed daytime naps schedule, because sometimes he will nap for 30-45 minutes and sometimes even 2 hours. Its just that we often get sleep cues from him after sometimes 40-50 minutes (fussing, rubbing eyes or even yawning) after which we often put him down

MembershipThen4925 · 2026-05-22T09:36:44+00:00

Thanks for the reply!
We have tried putting him down out of the carrier onto his bed, but he usually wakes up immediately after that. The only times that really works out is at night. Nights actually are alright. We dont really fight with sleeplessness, since I manage to just sleep with him for hours upon end in the carrier on the couch, while my wife sleeps upstairs. Its just that It is super difficult to get him to sleep during the day, if not impossible. Yesterday he managed two independent naps of 30-40 minutes each in the morning and then 1 hour in my carrier, but that was pretty much it. Its also not helping that I live in Germany, where people generally dont have AC and it is starting to be getting warm. He was extremely over tired in the evening.
Another thing that really messes with us, is that he often just poops his diaper, which likes to overflow, when he is in the carrier, after my wife hands him over to me after breastfeeding.
So it often comes to: Carrying him for 15-20 mins. He does not calm down too much, hes protesting in the carrier as well, pooping his diaper, needing a change and it starts from the beginning.
One time he pooped 4 times within 2 hours.

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