Four Month Sleep Regression: My Baby Won't Sleep
- The Involved Dad
- Jul 20, 2018
- 2 min read
Adventure: What's a Sleep Regression
Oh, the dreaded 4 month sleep regression! Up until a couple weeks ago I didn’t even know this was a thing. But I do now. Oh boy, do I know now. I never considered Rose to be a great sleeper, but I would say that she’s decent at it. Yes we had/have our swaddle struggles but overall she sleeps fine through the night. Or should I say slept fine, until the regression hit. It was like one day she was sleeping fine and then BAM! Worst sleep since week 3. The Mrs and I knew that something needed to be done. So we searched the web to see what we could find on sleep regression. Based off of what we found, sleep regressions seem to happen when babies make developmental leaps. During these times, sleep patterns change. In our instance, Rose was making the transition from 4 naps to 3. It’s not something we were trying to do, she seemed to be doing it on her own. However, because of this change, her (and our) night time sleep was struggling. Oh and I forgot to mention that Rose has always been a horrible napper. 30 minute naps were her norm. Anyway, The Mrs and I knew we needed to make changes. One thing we changed that I think had the biggest impact was was adjusting Rose’s bed time. Before, she would typically go down around 8:30-9pm and she would “sleep” through the night. I say “sleep” because she would wake up many times throughout the night and we’d have to soothe her back to sleep. So what we did was move her bed time up to 7:30-8pm (sleeping by this time). Believe it our not. She’s responded by sleeping better through the night. She’s slept for 5-6 hours without needing to be soothed. Plus the earlier bed time meant more time for The Mrs and I to spend together. It was a win all around! Another change we’ve made was bringing back a night feeding. After about 5-6 hours, Rose seems to wake up and we used to just soothe her back to sleep. Instead we’ve actually been feeding her a small feeding and putting her back to bed. This has seemed to work out beautifully. After her feed she sleeps another 5-8 hours. It’s fantastic! So far so good.
These changes seem to also have an affect on her naps too. Well at least one of them. For the past couple of days, her first nap has gone from 30-45 minutes to 60-90 minutes. Let’s hope this continues.
Tips & Lessons Learned
- Tracking your baby's sleeping and eating patterns is very helpful. Check out my post about which apps we use.
- Pay attention for pattern changes and adjust with them.
-Earlier bedtimes are awesome!!
- Remember, baby is really the one in control of all the changes. Don't force it, just be there to help them through it.