The regex you have removes the first digit only because it matches just 1 char - either a digit, {, 4, }, space, |, ., * or $ (as [...] formed a character class), just once (there is no global modifier).
You may use
/^\d{4}\s+|\s*\d\..*$/g
See the regex demo
Basically, remove the [ and ] that form a character class, add g modifier to perform multiple replacements, and add .* (any char matching pattern) at the end.
Details:
First alternative:
- ^ - start of string
- \d{4} - 4 digits
- \s+ - 1+ whitespaces
Second alternative:
- \s* - 0+ whitespaces
- \d - a digit
- \. - a dot
- .* - any 0+ chars up to...
- $ - the end of the string
var rx = /^\d{4}\s+|\s*\d\..*$/g;
var str = "1999 some text here 1.3i [more]";
console.log(str.replace(rx, ''));