Desperately need 5 month old to sleep better before she has surgery!

[cupcake.girl]

Hi I haven't posted in quite a while but am desperate for my almost 5 month old to sleep better! She is going to have hip surgery and be in a cast for 3 months soon. So I need her to learn to sleep for longer stretches because i'm guessing after her surgery things will only get worse.
During day naps she sleeps for one sleep cycle and wakes. At night she is up between 2-4 hourly. I feed her and she goes back to sleep. I have tried letting her cry, patting her, cuddling her, bottle of formula before bed (she is breastfed). Nothing seems to work! Any advice? My son slept through from 6 weeks. Didn't get so lucky this time

 

[jessmke]

Unfortunately she sounds completely normal for her age so I'm not sure there's much you can do. My DD was exactly the same, her naps didn't start to lengthen until around 8 months old, and she was up every 2-4 hrs at night until she turned a year old and just suddenly started to sleep through the night. My DD also would go right back to sleep after a feed, so I was only up for about 5 min at a time each time she would wake. Sorry I guess no real advice here except to say it will eventually get better with time, and I wouldn't do any sleep training at her age.

 

[KatO79]

Has your daughter started eating solids yet? If not, then I think it sounds pretty normal for her to be up every 2-4 hours when she's breastfed. My son first started sleeping for longer stretches once he was eating 3 meals a day. He started eating when he was 4½ months because he dropped a growth curve. Now at 8 months he sleeps 11-12 hours at night the vast majority of the time.

I don't think sleep training is recommended until a baby is at least 6 months old.

 

[noon_child]

My LO was a crappy daytime sleeper too. Food didn't help (for a while it made things worse!). I think what really did help slightly was for me to concentrate on getting her past that first wake up during daytime sleep cycles. I timed her daytime sleeps and then when I knew the average time she'd wake, I'd get to her 10minutes before hand and watch for the first signs of stirring. Then as soon as she started stirring I'd shush, or sing or pat to get her back to sleep before she properly woke. This allowed her to not be as overtired at bedtime and her night sleep improved. However I wouldn't really expect a baby that age to go much more than 4hrs at night max.

 

[cupcake.girl]

Thanks for the replies I will try working on the day sleeps and maybe a bit more solids