Only display Wordpress posts that are older than current post

Question

I've done my hour+ research to find any answer but cannot find a solution.

Anyways... I have a wordpress posts page and on individual posts I have a query to display the latest 4 posts at the bottom of each post page.

What I'd like to do is only show 4 posts that are older than the current post page a visitor is on. Currently it shows the latest 4 entries no matter which post you're viewing.

Thank you.

<ul>
<?php $the_query = new WP_Query( array (
'post__not_in' => array( $post->ID ),
'posts_per_page' => 4, 
'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1
) ); ?>

<div class="row">
<?php while ($the_query -> have_posts()) : $the_query -> the_post(); ?>
<li class="col-xs-12 col-md-3">
<?php if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) : ?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="<?php the_title_attribute(); 
?>">

<?php the_post_thumbnail( 'post-thumbnail', ['class' => 'img-responsive 
responsive--full'] ); ?>
</a>
<?php endif; ?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><p><?php the_title(); ?></p></a>
</li>

<?php 
endwhile;
wp_reset_postdata();
?>
</div>
</ul>

Answer 1

You can use get_previous_post() to get the previous post. use this in a loop (assuming $post variable is updated for every post) to get previous 4 posts.