The Thing About Sleep Regressions
Every once in a while your baby’s sleep will mysteriously become a disastrous mess. At the same time your baby will become really fussy which is either the cause or result of the sleep deprivation. The slender thread of normalcy you’ve been clinging to will disappear and you will stumble into the void of parenting despair wondering “Why did we think this baby thing was such a great plan anyway?!?!?”
If you’ve ruled out all the obvious causes of sleep stoppage (teething, colds, ear infections, etc.) then what is probably going on is a “sleep regression”. Lots of people have written about sleep regressions but the best post I’ve found, bar none, is to be found over at Ask Moxie.
Moxie recommends a sleep regression book called “Wonder Weeks” by the Danish researchers Vanderijt and Plooij. I don’t recommend this book for two reasons. One – it’s pretty expensive. Two – the only thing you really need to know (which comes from Wonder Weeks) is this:
According to Vanderijt and Plooij, the spurts happen at weeks 5, 8, 12, 19, 26, 37, 46, and 55.
This seems like a lot of growth spurts and if you’ve just survived one you’re probably looking at that long list and fighting back a wave of nausea. Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it seems. I’ve never known anybody to have more than 2-3 rough sleep regressions. In my experience the most COMMON sleep regressions seem to come at 6 weeks, 4 months, and 6 months.
What Happens During a Sleep Regression
Sleep stops.
Naps get short, helping baby fall asleep takes forever, baby wakes up constantly, baby wakes up miserable, baby simply won’t sleep, etc. Unsurprisingly this often leaves parents a bit shell shocked.
Fussiness starts.
Perhaps it’s due to sleep deprivation but your sweet happy baby will morph into a fussy cranky little gremlin. And since they’ll be barely sleeping you’ll have ample opportunity to enjoy it.
Nursing/feeding is endless.
Sometimes regressions are also called “growth spurts” and (especially for nursing moms) the idea is that your baby is demanding more from you to amp up your supply because they’re getting bigger and need more food. Thus if you’re nursing you may find your baby is glued to your boobs endlessly. We’ll it’ll feel endless because even a few days with a baby attached to your boob can feel like an eternity. Bottle fed babies also demand more/frequent food.
Must. Be. Held.
Babies often become clingy and needy during regressions. No longer content with some playtime on the bouncy seat or play mat, your baby ONLY wants to be held. Generally ONLY by you. Note: in case it’s not clear, sleep regressions are a bad time to try to end co-sleeping.
How to Live Through a Sleep Regression
Regressions generally last anywhere from a few days to a week (although I’ve talked to people who swear that their baby took up to 2 weeks to navigate a regression). And I won’t lie to you, sometimes they can be really rough. Especially if things were already feeling a bit shaky. But…
Don’t Panic!
You’re already feeling pretty beat up so when things take a determined turn for the WORSE it’s easy to flip out. But this is temporary. It’s a bad week. It’s shorter than having the flu, right? You can do this!
Do What Works (for now)
Your baby may need extra soothing. Crib sleepers may go back into the swing. You may need to break out the swaddle and paci again. Babies who were going down awake may need to be nursed/rocked to sleep. You may find baby sleeps better in your bed. Don’t look at this as a “step back”, look at this as taking steps to help everybody sleep. Right now.
Get Back on the Sleep Path
Sleep regressions are temporary. Unless you let it push you off course permanently. It’s OK to do what works (nurse to sleep, rock to sleep, use pacifiers) to navigate a sleep regression. However if a month has gone by and you’re still doing these things then you’ve fallen into the classic sleep regression trap – you let a temporary survival tactic become the new sleep norm. Which is OK until you want your baby to start napping longer and actually sleep through the night.
Don’t let a temporary sleep regression become a permanent sleep problem.
Anybody have any experiences with sleep regressions to share? How long they lasted? Did anything help?
Photo credit: {Tosdatophoto & Lisa Schaffer}
I'm Alexis and figuring out how to get your kids to sleep better is my secret superpower (I was hoping for the ability to shoot laser beams out of my eyes but c'est la vie). I swoon for pop culture references. I'm not nearly as funny as I think I am. And I believe you can never have too much wine, cheese, or Game of Thrones. 
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My 5-1/2 month old wakes at 5:30am due to our work schedule and her bed time is at 8:30 – usually falls asleep around 9pm. She will take about 4 30-45 minute naps a day with the last one being around 7pm. Do you think this last nap is too late?
Angela, I was wondering the same thing about the last nap of the day. Just yesterday I tried to see if we could skip the last nap (so she only has 3 a day) and go to bed earlier. That blew up. She went to bed at about 7:30pm and woke up at 8:30pm, 9:30pm, 11:30pm, 1:30am, 3:30am, then 7:00am. What a nightmare. My little one is 20 weeks old, so maybe that has to do with a sleep regression… I’m not sure.
Chelsie recently posted..Four Months
Just want to let all those people know who are in the midst of wonder weeks or sleep regressions that there is hope! About 5 days ago my son ( 4 and a half months) calmed down and we are back to the standard 2 feedings a night. Phew, I’m like a new woman! I actually baked a cake last night! I highly recommend the wonder weeks app since it shows you what’s coming and more importantly, when it ends!
Hi Alexis,
My 14 week old girl is having sort of a sleep regression and I’d like to get your advice on it.Since introducing the swing,white noise, and swaddling at 6 weeks (it was a horror show before!), she has consistenly slept from 10pm to at least 4am each night (sometimes longer but never shorter). I would nurse her, and she always fell back to sleep within minutes of being back in the swing, and slept until 9am. I always make sure to put her in awake. About 2 weeks ago (12 weeks old), she woke up at 1am to nurse, then 7am, then up at her normal time. I assumed it was her 3 month growth spurt. This lasted 2 days, then she started waking up for just 1 feed again, but much earlier (3am instead of 4, then 2am).She still went back to sleep no problem and would still sleep until her usual wake up time. This went on for about a week, and now, for the last 3 nights, she has woken up at 1am again, and then every hour until morning. Except for the 1am wake up (which I nurse her),and her usual 4am feed, I let her fuss for about 5 minutes and she always goes back to sleep. She never cries, just fusses. Loudly. But I guess I should be grateful that she falls back asleep on her own!
So my question is, is this a growth spurt? Sleep regression? The start of a bad habit? It’s been 2 weeks now. She’s still getting about the same amount of sleep (minus the 5 minutes of fussing every hour), and her naps are normal. She’s not extra fussy or hungry during the day either. I’m not sure how to proceed. She hates the paci, and I don’t want to crank up the swing speed becuase I was hoping to start weaning her soon(she’s only ever needed half speed). Any advice would be wonderful. Thank you!
What an amazing site!!
My son is 19 weeks. I have been sleep deprived for a few days. It sounds like he is going through sleep regression (which I didn’t even know existed until going onto this site). At 12 weeks he started sleeping through the night, 7 PM-6 AM, so we got spoiled. A few days ago he started to wake up 2-3 times through the night crying. Of course I jumped up out of bed cause I got nervous not being used to this. When I went Into his room his eyes were closed and he seemed to be crying in his sleep. A simple touch of his hand or rubbing his tummy put him right back to sleep. My question is should I keep doing that for a few days or let him cry it out?
Thanks in advance for the help!
Hi Alexis,
My 4.5 month old used to wake up 2-3 times per night, but for about a week has been waking every hour to comfort nurse. We co-sleep because I kept falling asleep during feedings (breast feeding…..) so up until now we all got pretty good sleep….now, though, I feel like she is used to having the deli open all night and it’s becoming a habit. If I didn’t comort nurse her she would scream all night and nobody would sleep….. Don’t know what to do!!!!!!! How do I break the habit without collapsing from exhaustion?? I need to wean her from our bed too, just don’t know where to start, it’s all a bit of a mess…. Please help….
Hi Alexis,
My 4 1/2 month old started rolling from back to tummy about a week ago. She had been sleeping pretty well until this happened. Now she keeps rolling on her belly in the crib and can’t seem to roll herself back (she rolled a few times from tummy to back about a month ago but hasn’t done it since she learned to roll from back to tummy). When she rolls on her tummy, she plays for a bit but then gets frustrated and starts screaming. She won’t put her head to the side either, she just smushes it into her mattress face down so I run in and flip her. Do you have any advice for this? When we put her on her back for play time she immediately rolls on her tummy (she’s a little obsessed with her new skill) until she get’s frustrated. When we put her back on her back, even though she was just crying because she was on her tummy, she rolls right back to her tummy again… this repeats multiple times! I don’t know why she can’t seem to roll to her back since she has done it before. How long does it usually take for most babies to figure this out? Is there anything I can do to help her?
We’re doing the same thing right now as well!!! Crazy frustrating, I am ALL ears if anyone has offered up any sound advice to you as to how to correct this and that is pretty much when our sleeping went out of whack as well shortly after this new skill was learned! (We’re now pushing the 6 month marker…still not corrected
)
sounds really familiar! i am flipping her fifthteenthousand times a day… sometimes during play time i let her complain for a while. Read somewhere, its helps the development to leave them frustrated, not immediately running to their help (but i havent notice any improvement by doing this)
but at night? i cant do that, she wakes up the whole house!!! i was having nightly heart attacts, running to her in the night, cuz i thought she was dying an aweful painful death, just to find her on her tummy….
so if any moms of dads have any tips how to help us get back our rested nights, please do share
I had the same problem and found if I put my little one in a sleeping bag then tuck her in nice and tight with a sheet she rarely flips over. its worked really well for us.
I am afraid we just have to wait it out. It’s a new skill and they practise whether it’s day or night. It seems to me that there are babies that will sleep through any developmental stuff and those who will be up all night rolling and crawling and what have you. I still get up at night at 8 months to put baby back on his back because he rolls over and then crawls and gets stuck somewhere or bumps his head. He is only now learning how to sleep on his tummy so I cannot really just let him be because he will cry and cry not knowing how to go to sleep on his tummy. I expect it won’t get much better with sitting and standing. I am trying to accept that he is simply one of those babies…
How long does sleep regression last?
Hello all!
While i find this information reassuring that all people go through these sleep regressions with their young ones i am still concerned about my nearly 6 month old son and what the issue could be, he was sleeping like a champ from 2 1/2 months to nearly 5 months, he was going 12 hrs a night, which i know is rare to begin with but it was heavenly he put himself to sleep and woke up talking to himself at about 8:15 every morning he was amazingly pleasant and Nov 8th, just 2 days before he turned 5 months it all stopped
It’s TERRIBLE at night he screams and throws these horrible temper tantrums and even trying to give him a bottle to try and calm him down is a feat in itself, soothers don’t work he never took one, wrapping him up doesnt work he screams even louder and I am still waiting for the end to near…he is 6 months next week and no sign of stopping his sleeping issues…i actually have the book the wonder weeks and feel like i’ve surpassed the 19 week spurt already and just do not know what to do….anyone else able to relate to what is not technically a “normal” time to be going through a sleep regression and if any techniques helped turn it around??
I need advice/help/thoughts! My almost 17 week old son used to nap so well, and now his naps are 30-50minutes long. He’s still sleepy when he wakes up and therefore hes fussy until hes put to sleep again. But its hard to put him down again sometimes. I used to put him in his cot in the afternoon to come in the room 5-10mins later and find him asleep–so he was able to fall asleep on his own apparently! but now theres no chance of that. He hates being put in his cot, he hates being put down when hes sleepy (which is most of the time since hes not getting his longer naps). I thought it might be the sleep regression so i let him fall asleep whichever way–now hes gotten used to sleeping while feeding/using me as a pacifier, he doesnt take his pacifier as much anymore either when its time for nap/sleep until hes really drowsy then i can exchange myself for the paci lol (im sort of glad, I wanted to ween him from that by 6months too, but was debating if i should teach him to sleep on his own first, or do them both together??)
Anyway how do i get his naps to be longer? I sometimes walk in and see his eyes drowsy and think he’ll fall back asleep like he used to, but then 2 mins later hes awake, and frustrated.
And Ive always had to rock him, sometimes i can lay with him and pat him to sleep but thats not happening anymore. I just use my ergo… im afraid he’ll stop liking that soon, too.
So iguess my questions:
-Is this just a phase?
-If not, how do i get him to nap longer? since he wants/needs it too.
-Should i ween him from paci at the same time as teaching him to sleep on his own?
-Does putting him down while drowsy really work? ive tried that for 4 days and he still wants me there until hes really really drowsy but he’ll become more alert if i put him down before being extremely drowsy/almost asleep. so, i didnt see much progress. i guess i need more encouragement :-p
-I forgot, i tried moving his bedtime earlier too. he sleeps around 10-11pm, he used to sleep 7pm and wake up 10-1030 for a feeding but keep sleeping..now he just takes naps until then. I tried waking him earlier, i tried giving him bath and doing routine earlier…I tried moving it just by 15mins a time…but hes keeping it a nap.
we’ve been co-seeping but i use his cot for his naps. I do want to move him to his cot at nighttimes too, but by the end of the night of struggling to put him to sleep and all, im too exhausted and just keep him by me. He doesnt fall asleep with his dad unfortunately, he just screams and cries until he comes back to me.
Anyway sorry for the long post.. Advice would be much appreciated. I’ve been reading your posts for weeks now!
Hi Alexis,
My 6 month old is definitely in the middle of a huge sleep regression. He used to sleep 11-12 hours overnight with one waking to eat and napped 2 sometimes 3 times a day for 1-2 hours each. A lot has been going on in the past few weeks. We recently moved, and my little guy is also learning to crawl. He is constantly up on all fours rocking during awake times and when I put him into his crib to sleep. He has been able to go down for sleep awake for months with loud white noise, a dark room and a small comfort blanket. For the past week he has been going to sleep ok but then waking during the night 2-3 times and then waking up early around 5:30-600 when he used to wake at 7. His night feed used to occur anywhere from 2-5am but for past week I have started feeding him once he wakes after midnight thinking maybe he’s hungry? He will usually fall asleep quickly once he returns to his crib but then wakes a few hours later again. I don’t think its a physical growth spurt as I am sure this happened already a few weeks back where he wanted to eat constantly day and night and it only lasted a few days. I realize that regressions are normal and that they need to be endured but I am worried about making matters worse. My son used to have a pretty predictable nap schedule, 9am and 1pm with sometimes a third nap anywhere from 4-5 with bedtime of 6:30-7. Now because he is so overtired from poor night sleep, early wakings and short naps I have returned to short wake times and multiple naps to keep him as well rested as possible. I have read that keeping baby on his normal schedule during a regression is the way to go but if I did that he would continue to spiral into a deep dark pit of sleeplessness from being too overtired. Do you recommend I continue what I have been doing and worry about his schedule once this has blown over? His naps are all over the place so there is no consistency but what else should I do?
Hi Alexis! I just found your page and we are currently going through a sleep regression with our 4 month old daughter. However, she isnt waking up fussy or crabby. She is just waking up for her 4:30am feeding and staying up for 2 hours talking and giggling. Better than crying but still exhausting.
So my question to you is when and how should we wean/eliminate her nightly feedings? Im exclusively breastfeeding. I plan to try the CIO method but dont know how to do it if your little one is still needing to eat in the middle of the night. Thanks!!!
Hello there!
I’m sure this has been asked before, but with 141 comments I just don’t have time to read through them all! We are currently in the 4 month sleep regression. Up until this month our little one has been anamazing sleeper at night. Sysrted sleeping through the night by week 7 or 8. Then all of a sudden the whole month of December consisted of nights waking up at least 2-3 times, sometimes 4. Seemed the trifecta happened. We started sleeping her in her crib v. her co-sleeper, she started teething, and realized she had bad allergies.
So my question is how do you stop this from spiraling out of control? You mentioned in #3 if its a month later and you’re still on the same track yoire in bad shape. I should mention we exclusively breast feed, as she won’t take bottles. We’ve tried a million ways and she just won’t take it.
Any thoughts or suggestions welcomed!
Im right there with you, 17 days in and very tired. I cant give advice as struggling with same type of thing but I can offer my sympathy as its crappy.
Good luck I just keep telling myself this too will pass
I tried sleep training after a month of the same thing..worked like a charm (until the 9 month regression we hit last week). I used the book called ‘The sleepeasy solution’ by Jill spivack. It’s a modified CIO with checks and within 3 days she was sleeping 8-9 hour stretches for a total of 12 hours of night sleep and only ‘waking’ to feed. I hope this helps!! Good luck and I’m right there with you!
I don’t have any advice either, just have to share my woes. I hope it ends sometime. My LO has wakened 4-5 times a night since birth pretty consistently until hitting the 4 mo sleep regression. He is 19 weeks and two days and has been going for 3 weeks already with the regression – we are at 7-8 night wakings plus shortened naps during the day and I am just about ready to have a breakdown
Another frustrated mama with sleep troubles. My lovely 6 month old daughter has turned into a screaming banshee the past week or so and I am VERY confused and sleep deprived. The confused part is that so much is going on for her I don’t know what to tackle first and what to let go of for now. Prior to last week, she was sleeping 7 to 4ish most nights. Then back down after the 4am feeding. That totally worked for our family. Now we are dealing with a bad cold (she is all sorts of congested), 6 month growth spurt, 2 new front teeth and holiday travel. It started when we were traveling that she was up on and off all night. I nursed her most times she was up as she sounded very hoarse with her cold. Now we are home and she is still showing this same pattern. She goes down awake but with a pacifier. Then she is up on and off through the night often for hours at a time. She still has the cold. The teeth have finally broken through and I don’t know what is growth spurt feeding and what is bad habit.
Okay sorry for the extremely long word vomit. I get wordy when I am tired
Here are my questions:
1. She still takes a pacifier. I am guessing that object permanence with the pacifier is only adding to our problems. Should we try to wean her off the paci in the middle of everything else?
2. After the pacifier, what would you tackle next. Right now, she goes down fine but once she is up in the middle of the night, she is up screaming. This continues even with pain medication and even sometimes after nursing her.
3. How long do growth spurts last? Most times she seems like she is really eating. How long until I am creating horrible habits?
Please help. We are desperate.
I don’t know what my other questions are.
Hello!!
I have a very needy 9 1/2 month old boy. He co-sleeps and crib sleeps. We’re trying to get him in the crib more, been gradually working on it for a couple of months now. He is still nursing and he eats 3 good meals and snacks per day. He takes very very very short naps. In the morning its usually about 15 minutes in them morning and we might get an hour nap in the afternoon if one of us falls asleep with him. I basically only nurse him to sleep nowadays but he wants to crawl around so it doesn’t work anymore. Recently we brought back swaddling (but with a huge blanket) and its kind of scary to leave him in a crib like that as he wants to roll all around, but he just wont sit still, ever! He has eczema that he is finally growing out of and it kept him up when he was younger by itching, but he has to keep his hands or feet moving constantly so he still wants to itch out of habit.
I feed him mostly organic foods and i do not give him dyes or artificial flavorings. I spent a long time blaming teething for his fussiness but i guess that would only count if it took him since october to get this new tooth in, ha.
I am a softie and it’s really hard to “condition” my baby. Mike is very adamant about being consistent and on schedule and we have dinner, lavender (dr. bronners) bath, play and bed time at the same time every night. We have been trying to get him asleep for over an hour now and it’s not working, yet we know he’s exhausted.
He will fall asleep after so much fighting it and then wake up 5-20 minutes later and its a vicious cycle that we want to end.
I give him hylands teething tablets and gel at least once a day and it has the calming chammomile in it. I also tried some hylands nerve tonic today ( 1/4 of one) and it seemed to have zero effect, he was still parading through the house screaming and carrying on, whining and even attempting to talk back! (babble)
I really don’t know if I made him this way or how to break it at this point but I know that I have no life, We both had 2.5 hours of sleep last night and something’s gotta give. My 9 month old is running us!
i think I am going to try calm’s forte again but until I can get ahold of it, do you have any suggestions? Anything at all?
Thank you so much,
Danielle and Mike
I used controlled crying when my daughter was six months – it was good because she was not able to move. i needed to use it as she is very spirited and the softly softly approach does not work. it took two days and she was going down awake and sleeping sloundly. things will distrupt her sleep – teeth, sleep regressions – but when she is ready I use controlled crying again and it seems to work really well. i have to say it was when I was extremely exhausted that I tried and wished that I had done it sooner. Worth thinking about but if you are going to do it, you need to stay consistent and see it through. good luck
Hi there
I just wanted to say that my 17 month old daughter appears to be going through her 18month sleep regression and I have been trawling through the internet to find some tips on how to manage it. all the other sites were telling me that it was normal and not to worry but were not telling me what to do. Eventually, I have come across your site telling me that it is ok to pick her up and cuddle her (she previously was going to her cot awake and happy and sleeping 13 hours). I feel so relieved and not scared of introducing bad habits after I had worked so hard to help her successfully self-sooth. so thank you loads, I will feel happier when I am cuddling her tonight.
Cheers
What a relief. My daughter has been doing this for the past 2 days and i was so confused until now. it’s so stressful and imagine it’s only been 2 days. i cannot wait for her to get back to her normal routine.
Hi everyone
I really hope someone can help and offer advice as I’m DESPERATE!!!
My LO (nearly 16 weeks) has never been a great sleeper but the last 4 nights have been awful. Previous to that he had a litte spell where he was going from 7 pm to 4 am before a feed and then sleeping until between 7 and 8 am. Amazing!! But lately hes been waking up between 9 pm and midnight and then on and off from 4 am with me trudging in and out putting his dumy back in. Last night he came back in with us in his travel cot as it was feeling like the wall of doom to his room and back. He sleeps in a swaddle (tried to break him of it a couple of weeks ago and after 7 nights of sleeplessness he went back in!) and he has a dummy. Both of which I wish i’d never started. Naps are on and off, pretty much always wakes after 30 mins but can be soothed back to sleep normally and then will have between and hour and a half and 2 and a half hours with a few dummy stops. He has half an hour nap about an hour and a half/2 hours before bed time as oherwise its complete meltdown, but even with that hes shattered by bedtime (6.30/7). Have tried later bedtime but he still wakes early so pointless as he just gets even less sleep. I’m assuming this period we’re going through is the 4 month sleep regression a little early. So what am I asking here?! I think its this…
1) should i try taking him out of the swaddle again or is that crazy sleep deprived talk?! The reason I want him out is that I want to get rid of the dummy but I think its cruel to leave him no access to his hands for soothing as hes a really oral baby.
2) should i try to get rid of the dummy even if I can’t get rid of the swaddle or again is that just crazy?
3) can anyone offer hope that this will end?! I’m so scared that its permanent as we’re a much happier house with sleep!
I feel confused and like i’ve no clue what i’m doing anymore.
Thanks in advance everyone. And I love this site btw, a breath of fresh air so thank you!! x
I think we have just exited this 4 month sleep regression (fingers crossed). I contemplated all things like getting get rid of dummy as i was back and fore every 30 mins etc. I failed halfway thru the first night of trying that. Anyway what I would say is just ride it out (mine went on nearly 2 weeks)and seems to have stopped as suddenly as it started. Have you read the link above to the Moxie blog? I found that very helpful in understanding. My mum stayed over 1 night for me to get some rest. Is there someone who can do this for you to get you thru it?
Thanks bambini. It’s good to hear your LO is through this phase, fingers crossed. It’s so hard not to panic it’s going to be endless! I guess my reason for thinking about the swaddle and the dummy is because he’s already not sleeping well so should I try to get it all out of the way in one go! But it’s probably not wise. That thoughts a bit out of the window today anyway as he had his jabs on Tuesday (great timing!) and is poorly today so we’ll leave him hanging on to his dummy!
He used to always wake at 4 am and be hard to settle and this is what he’s back to doing. Am I wrong to be feeding him more than I would have done before do you think?? He’s quite hard to settle without a bottle.
Thanks so much for replying! X
Ps sorry, my partner does a night when he’s not working and you’re right, it makes all the difference. Sometimes I wish he worked less!!
Hi. My little boy is almost 17 weeks. Up until about a week ago he was a fantastic sleeper, sleeping 8-10 hours straight a night without waking up. But from about a week ago he has started waking after about 5 hours & needs fed again at that point. He is feeding quite a lot during the day too. He is a big baby (at his last weigh in at 12.5 weeks he was 15lb) He is exclusively breast fed. Also, he is rubbish at naps, only sleeping for 45 mins at a time but not at the same time every day. he always wakes up crying after a nap. I was just wondering if you might be able to explain why he has started waking up again at night (I am missing my sleep!!) & how I might rectify the problem. Is it a growth spurt? Do I just ride it out? Do I need to start on solids to keep his tummy fuller for longer?
Thanks
Hi Alexis,
I posted to you maybe a month ago about a paci addicted reflux baby.
He is 4 months old and I am happy to say we made a seamless transition from swing to crib for both naps and night time!
We had been in a tizzy because we thought his zantac was losing its potency every 10 days-2 weeks. We increased the dosage and nothing happened. Finally we realized that the pharmacy we were going to gave us the wrong syringe and he was being way under dosed. We hoped it would fix the problem to start giving him a proper dosage (we are still in the process of figuring out what that is. He is 18.5lbs and we started with 1ml and today we started increasing it to 1.5ml). However I think we just hit a major regression and I’m not sure if it’s reflux or a regression. His eating has decreased a lot. A lot of the times he just doesn’t want to eat and gets upset when we try to feed him. For the past week he was waking up 3 times a night instead of once (usually he wakes up twice MAX) and last night he topped it off with waking up 6 times. He wanted to eat every time and I’m not surprised because he eats so little during the day (maybe on average 3oz every 3 hours). Other than the lousy appetite and lots of night wakings he is great. He’s not fussy, he laughs constantly and generally seems happy. When he wakes up at night after we feed him he goes right back to bed and now sometimes he can fall asleep on his own with no fuss and no paci. I am reluctant to stop feeding him every time he wakes because of his reflux and his small appetite.
Do you have a hunch on whether this is a regression, reflux or both?
Thanks so much!
Hi Rosie
I posted above in the same situation as you and I think (like bambi) we’ve just come out of a sleep regression. We have had 11 nights of regular wakings sometimes needing feeding, sometimes not, refusing to go to sleep by himself, needing rocking etc. Awful after he’d been a decent enough sleeper (apart from naps) previously. Then one night he just stayed asleep like he had done before. So I would say ride it out. Ours was particularly long but 4 days in he had his jabs which meant he reduced his bottles from 7 oz a feed down to 3 oz for a week. I think he’d have got through the regression quicker if it wasn’t for the jabs.
For ladies still struggling with the regression there is hope! For me the worst thing was the thought that it might be permanent but it wasn’t. I was worried about falling in to bad habits after reading this blog and it really helped that I was aware of trying to make sure that didn’t happen. I kept trying to put him down awake and back in his own cot and only gave in when it was clear it wasn’t going to happen. He has slept with me from about 3 am ish through the regression. But then as I say one night I put him down awake and he stayed down and didn’t wake up until 2 am (from 7 pm which is normal for him) and I knew it was over. He’s woke up at 5 am a couple of times and struggled to go back to sleep but after a few nights of him waking ever hour that’s ok!!
We’re now working on getting him out of the swaddle as he’s starting to roll to one side so we need it gone. We’re currently one arm out for naps and I’m making sure I follow a routine for naps like we do bedtime and he’s now going down awake for every nap and bedtime. I’ll give it a couple of days and then try the other arm. Think it’s going to be a slow process and I’m not even thinking about the dummy yet. One thing at a time! Don’t quite know how I ended up with so many things to need to work him off but there you go. We’ll get there I hope. X
Is there a possibility that our 7 month old is having a sleep regression?? As soon as she hit 7 months her naps have fallen apart, and I’m feeling shell shocked…. She had been sleeping for 60-90 minutes per nap, and now sleeps between 10-30 minutes, if she sleeps at all…. We did CIO two weeks or so ago and it was wonderful, she slept for up to 6 hours at a stretch at night and stopped fighting naps. Now, while she still puts herself to sleep easily at night, she wakes every two hours
i do not nurse her to sleep anymore, and have a gap of about 30 minutes between nursing and bed at night. She is fussy, attached to my boob all day, cries when I leave the room, when I put her down…….. Similar thing happened at four months, minus the excessive clinginess….. Could it be a bad regression combined with separation anxiety? She is also learning to walk and stand while holding on to something
….or maybe she’s teething?
The mind boggles when I consider the number of things that could be wrong. She has taken to biting me while nursing over the past week (about as long as she hasn’t been sleeping well and been really fussy etc) even without any teeth yet.
Ouch…
Hey Kristin, I was just wondering what, if anything, worked for your daughter or if it was just another phase that (hopefully quickly) passes. My son is 7 1/2 months and has been going through the exact same thing as you commented about for the past week. I’m wondering if I should try to give him something for possible teething pain, or if really it is just seperation anxiety because he calms down and is quite happy once he is picked up and cuddled.
Hey Janee, it was so long ago I’m not sure if anything we did made much difference, but I’ve a feeling it was just the beginnings of separation anxiety. She still has periods of terrible clinginess where she will just lose the plot if we walk awake from her…. and she still has no teeth!!! If your son stops crying when you pick him up then it’s not pain, he just wants cuddles because he misses you
Now when our daughter cries during the night (sometimes every hour on a bad night even though there are no sleep associations) I will go to her, rub her back and reassure her that we are still there. When I started doing this at first she wasn’t happy, she wanted to be picked up. Pretty quickly she got the message that while we won’t pick her up, we are always there for her. It requires patience but it works for us. She puts herself to sleep without any problem but I don’t feel comfortable leaving her to cry in the middle of night- I want her to know she’s not alone when she’s scared or lonely.
I am so glad I found this page. After wondering why my good sleeper turned into a complete monster at night I googled “4 month not sleeping”. Of course I found this page and realized my little monkey is in his 19th week! We are going on night 3 of terrible sleeping at night. All I can say is I see light at the end of the tunnel now!
Yep just when I thought I had naps mastered (she was going 2 hrs to 2hrs and 30 minutes) my 16 week old turned on me. Last week naps were going great. I wasn’t letting her stay up more than 1 hr and 15 mins, rocked her a few minutes till drowsy, laid her down and she went to sleep. I only had to use the pacifier to extend the nap.
Now, with naps I’ll rock her, but she won’t settle. She’ll be calm but not drowsy or sleepy, but will yawn endlessly. I’ve had to put the pacifier in just to get her to go to sleep. The same thing happened at bedtime Monday night. She would not settle. I gave her an extra two ounces (on top of the 8oz she gets before bed)and it worked. She was able to settle and go to sleep. Last night at bedtime I didn’t do that, instead used the pacifier and she woke up every hour demanding it (which is a first as she has never done that)! The pacifier is now the bane of my existence.
If this is the dreaded 4 month sleep regression, and you say in your post that babies eat a ton during this time, should I have gone with my gut and given her an extra ounce of formula and not worry about creating a bad habit (feed to sleep) if it helped to settle her?
And will the pacifier evenually become a useful tool in my sleep regression arsenal, or will I have to ditch it and find some other way to help soothe her?
I should mention that we have a bedtime routine that we start at 7pm (bath, bottle, bed – I know the order of things will eventually have to change, I just don’t know when to make that change). She will sometimes fall asleep when she finishes her bottle (I know this will have to change too). Other times when she doesn’t fall asleep after the bottle, I’ll give her the pacifier to help soothe her to sleep. She usually spits it out before completely going to sleep. She doesn’t wake for nightfeedings, but will fuss at about 2ish and I’ll give her the pacifier and that usually gives us a few hours. Then our day starts at 6:45am.
Is it okay to be giving her a bit more food at night if it will help settle her to sleep during this regression?
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I need some help here! We started our 20 week old baby girl on the teaching her to fall asleep on her own. She likes to be walked around the house to sleep so we thought the swing was the best thing. For the first 4 nights she did great. Fussed a bit, cried bit but went to sleep fairly quickly… the 5, 6 and 7 night, (tonite) have been very weird. She will not fall asleep on the swing, and tonite specially she is fighting her sleep so much. She is so sleepy and she keeps closing and opening her eyes and fighting her sleep. It almost seems like she knows I will put her down to sleep on her own…
Do sleep regressions happen so quickly?? Please somebody help me… I was very encouraged we were on the right track but now I am very confused…
Hi Alexis,
I’ve been having problems with my 4 month old baby sleep. Hope you can recomend me something..
At the first two monthes he was doing 7-9 hours of sleep straight during a night. When he turned 2 month old it broke in once. He’s been doing maximum 4 hours of sleep straight. So he does 2-4 hours at the first sleep than he wakes up every hour untill the morning. I still feed him only once at night (I put him in sleep at 8pm, feed him at 2 am, and he wakes up at 7 am). The times when he wakes up before 2am feeding I don’t pick him up from the crib, just calm him down by padding and pacifier. After the feeding he might sleep for another 1-2 hours, then I just put him in my bed for the rest of the night.
During the day he takes short naps, normally 30 minutes. Even when he takes a long nap after walk or car ride (2 hours) he still does the same at night.
Please give me some recomendations.. BTW he does not cry when he wakes up, s I don’t think that he’s hurting.
Thank you,
Kate
Im having huge troubles with my 6 mo little girl at the mo. Up until a few weeks ago she was a pretty good sleeper, has gone down awake in her crib, falls asleep on her own (but does have to have a paci) and slept until half 8 am waking once for a feed. Amazing. The 4 mo sleep regression hit us really hard as it came at the same time as her first two teeth butafter 3 weeks things calmed down and she went back to normal. But now a few weeks ago she began battling bedtime and would cry and cry everytime i put her down. After hours she would fall asleep and sleep all night but would not go to sleep on her own. I decided to try cry it out and the first night took 40 mins of crying which i felt was pretty good for a first night and felt ready for the second but it turned into a disaster as after an hour of crying it turned to screaming and choking and stuggling to catch her breath i had to rescue her. Now after a week or so of this she is back to going down pretty easily but will wake up after and hour and cry and cry for ages then if i can eventually get her back to sleep she will wake up a few hours later, and will not go back to sleep no matter how much soothing i do. I have also tried feeding her then and she will drink the bottle but then be up for hours still after and i can not get her back to sleep! What could this be? As you can guess its making me and her incredibly grumpy in the day and her naps have become awful, 45 minutes at the most
please if you have any advice? Your site is the only one that i feel you truly know what your talking about!
HELP! My 5 1/2 month old baby boy is sleeping on average 10hrs in a 24hr period… he had colic the first 3 1/2 months and just transitioned to the crib from the newborn rock n’ sleep in play 2 weeks ago. I am not a fan of the cry it out method, he has cried enough. The only way he will get to sleep is if he is nursed and falls asleep in my arms, then I can place him in the crib and he is out like a light for a good 6-7 hr stretch, until recently… now he will wake up almost instantly and it takes hours to get him down for the night,some nights he’ll sleep a 6 hr stretch others he will wake every 2 hrs or so, naps aren’t happening either, he’ll fall asleep in my arms and when placed in the crib wakes and cries. I am worried that he is overtired as am I. Any advice will be greatly appreciated! One more piece of info, he was breastfed exclusively until 2 weeks ago when we started rice cereal once a day only about 2 tablespoons.
This is such a wonderful article- I am def sharing this with my friend who is going through a first month growth spurt with her baby and it can be so frustrating!
thanks!
I would also love to have you write a guest post for our site since our momma readers would totally benefit from this info! Check out our site: http://www.chaimommas.com and contact me if that sounds good to you too
My son is 8 months. Two weeks ago this started every nap every night is nothing but screaming and moving. He.recently learned to crawl. Amy’s I keep hearing during sleep regression the baby is always hungry my son is being the complete opposite he does not want the bottle. I have.so many questions and want so many questions I have.no idea where to start. Guess its partly exhaustion. I guess I’m wonder how much longer, should I let him sleep as long as he wants. Does his schedule go out the window since.he wont go to bed till 3am. I’m so confused. Its Ben two weeks with non stop fussing always wanting to be held putting up an hour fight everytime its time to sleep. I will rock walk sing read nothing works to keep him alseep after he wakes up at 10pm he always stays up till 3am. I’m sorry this is everywhere I’m extremely sleep deprived and very upset my baby is having a hard time.
Plus sorry the spelling is so horrible my phone couldn’t keep up
I feel your pain. Our daughter is now 11 months and has been sleeping like crap for THREE MONTHS now. At some point around 9 months she got sick and I think that plus a really bad sleep regression messed everything up….? She still has no teeth. I am so tired I am seeing spots and dizzy. Sometimes she wakes in the night and is wide awake and crawling all over the bed for hours. Sometimes she wakes every hour and cannot resettle herself. Every night is different but every night is awful and I’m starting to go insane. Have you had any breakthrough?
Had to review this once again and of even though I’ve been through each one, the 53rd week regression is here ! I feel like now that I’ve finally figured out these stages I can cope when it happens. The first thing I notice is that for the first few days, he is active and happy. Then I get two great days of 2 hr morning and afternoon naps then boom…. Resistant to sleep, sleeping late and this time, he is well aware of signing “milk” so you can imagine when I get into the groove of working, cleaning or just sitting down, I get this boy of mine signing milk… Lol. I can’t thank you enough for this post to refer to. It’s kept me same and much more patient with my self and my son.
Just wondering how you are meant to rule out the “obvious” causes of sleep regression? In my experience they aren’t always so obvious. Eg. My 16 week old is drooling a lot and sucking/chewing on her hands. She’s also started waking at night and become really hard to put down in her cot – she just wakes up and cries. How do I know if this is sleep regression or teething? Ditto if she seems cranky all day, how do I know whether that’s because she’s a bit unwell (no fever, but I have been unwell recently) or just sleep deprived?