I used to think the 4 month sleep regression was a myth. An excuse for moms whose babies didn’t like to take naps. Boy, was I wrong. I know that sleep regressions can happen at any point of a baby’s life, but I have a lot of friends who had sleep regressions hit at around 4 months. For us, the sleep regression started at about 3 1/2 months old.
Update: January 2020. I’ve written a new post about the four month sleep regression after having my second baby! You can click here to read it. 🙂
Bastian has always been a fantastic sleeper. From day one, he’d only get up twice a night, with very few exceptions. He started sleeping through the night occasionally after 2 months. But then about a month ago, all of that went away. Out of the blue, he started waking up every single hour of the night. After three nights in a row of a cranky, sleepless baby, we realized that a sleep regression is, in fact, real.
The first step for us, was realizing that’s what was going on. Once we realized Bastian was experiencing a sleep regression, we were able to handle the entire situation a lot better. We had planned to start sleep training at 4 months, so we started just a few weeks early.
Implementing a schedule has been the key to our success beating this sleep regression. We started using the Baby Wise schedule of Eat, Wake, Sleep. It only took a few days for him to adapt to being on a “schedule”. Having a routine instantly made everything easier. Neither of us have to guess when the next time he’ll need to eat is. I no longer wait for him to fall asleep in my arms. As soon as he wakes up, I feed him. We play for about an hour and a half(read: watch tv shows in French while he throws teething toys around the room), and then I put him down for a nap.
We’ve also implemented a sleep routine that’s really helped us. For naps, we do a diaper change, swaddle him(we love Sara Noni swaddles, they’re the only thing that’s long enough for him to still use), and then give him his pacifier. I turn on his fan, sound machine, and then I leave. He’s pretty wiggly, so I have to go back in a few times and reswaddle him before he manages to put himself to sleep. Some days go better than others. Some days there are a lot of tears and I end up rocking him to sleep. But others, he falls asleep as soon as I’ve finished swaddling him. I’m trying to just stay focused on the successes of the good days, haha.
He hasn’t slept through the night since he started teething a few months ago, so I’m hopeful that once these teeth finally cut through, we can get him sleeping through the night again. At night, we’re back down to waking up about twice a night to nurse, which is a huge improvement from what it was a month ago.
Once he’s sleeping through the night again I’ll write a detailed post about his sleep schedule. When I initially posted on my Instagram that we were going through a sleep regression, I had a LOT of moms tell me they were going through the same thing and wanted my tips on how to get through it. My biggest tip to get through a sleep regression, is coffee. I don’t know how moms who don’t drink caffeine get through a sleep regression, haha.