I really hope that I'm not jinxing myself by writing this, because I have to admit that we're not 100% in the clear yet. Charlie Mae isn't back to being the rockstar sleeper that she was as 10 weeks (when she was sleeping 12 hours straight at night), but at 4 days shy of 6 months--and after struggling through the 4-Month Sleep Regression for over 2 months--I'm hopeful that we're through the worst of it.
For those who have really young babies and don't yet know about the 4-Month Sleep Regression, here's a super quick rundown for you: around 4 months (or 3.5, if you're lucky like us), your baby goes from sleeping like a newborn to sleeping more like an adult, and they begin to have sleep cycles that last around 45 mins or so. Unlike us adults who simply roll over and put ourselves back to sleep when we wake up in the middle of the night, babies don't yet know how to self-soothe when they wake up, so when their sleep cycle moves into the lightest phase, they often wake themselves up and then can't put themselves back to sleep. Some babies make it through this regression in a few days, most take at least a few weeks, others a few months (like us), and from what I hear (horror of all horrors), some babies won't be a good sleeper again for a few years. There are approximately 1 million books written on baby sleep and how to help your baby "sleep through the night," and I am no expert at all, but I've been asked what we did by enough of you to think it was worth sharing what has worked for us as we've muddled through the past 2.5 challenging months of sleepless nights. Again, we're not working with a perfect sleeper now, but we've got a baby who is sleeping in much longer chunks, is putting herself back to sleep often, is taking at least two good naps per day at pretty regular times (in her crib!), and is in bed for 12 hours each night, so we're doing MUCH better than we were 2.5 months ago when I thought we weren't going to make it (only a slight exaggeration). Before I go into the details of what we've done to try and remedy our sleep regression nightmare, I should lay out our sleep set-up when this regression hit:
Of course, when the regression hit and she started waking up every 45 minutes no matter what, we started tweaking things. Most of the changes that we made came from lots of online reading, recommendations from friends who have been here before, and the book, The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. I should also note that from my reading I found out that naptime sleep really affects nighttime sleep and vice versa, so we did a lot of work on Charlie Mae's nap setup, as well. Here's what we did/what has helped our baby learn to sleep (obviously keep in mind that every baby is super different):
She's still been needing me to go in and help her go back to sleep 1 or 2 times per night, but that is WAY better than the 5-6 (or 8-9!!) times per night that it was just a month or two ago, and now when I go in, it usually takes no more than about 10 minutes to get her back down. We've even had a few 7 to 10-hour chunks of endless sleep lately, which has been life-changing! All of that being said, for those of you in the thick of things, just know that you're not alone--many of us have come before you and you WILL get out of this sleepless hell. For those of you who have other great ideas, feel free to post them to comments for parents who find this post in months and years to come! And good luck...you'll make it through! 2/27/2017 11:49:29 am
Oh dear...All I can say - you are so lucky to have such a good child. We also tried everything that you mentioned, but our baby was still waking up every 40-45 minutes at night time. The only stuff that could calm her down was running water in the bath tub! Well, we had to set up something like bed beside the bath tub for me to sleep. And also teaching Yoga during the day time :) People keep telling us - it is going to be easier when the child is older. It does not matter, we will not love them less if they sleep more. In just a matter of a year she will start practicing Yoga with you. Try to nap during the day time, it helps Comments are closed.
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HELLO!I'm Mary Catherine, a Cape Cod-based yoga teacher, painter, designer, writer, mom, and list-maker extraordinaire. My goal is to inspire you to start living a more creative, simple, joyful, + purposeful life.
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