What is a sleep regression?

This is what a typical sleep regression looks like:

Your baby goes from sleeping through the night to suddenly waking up several times a night. They cannot fall asleep or stay asleep. They fight naps, bedtime, and wake up frequently at night, often crying. Your baby is clingy, irritable and super needy during the day. She has ruled out sickness, teething, and is much longer than a few days of growth spurts.

A sleep regression most commonly occurs around 4 months, 9 months, and 12 months. This is the time when your baby is going through some important milestones: rolling over, sitting up, standing up, crawling, walking, etc. What is actually happening to your baby is quite interesting. Your baby is going through tremendous cognitive development. They are learning new skills and practicing them in her head. Over and over again, until they finally master the skill, which usually ends with regression. Your baby’s brain is in overdrive during this time. Try to imagine for a minute how she feels the night before a big event like going on vacation or the night before her wedding. You stay up all night thinking about everything, making sure you don’t forget anything. You go round and round, and you keep looking at the clock.

It’s getting late and no matter what you do, you can’t turn off your thoughts and fall asleep. You start to get angry, which makes it even more difficult to fall asleep. At this point you just want to scream! The next day, you are too tired, in a bad mood, and just want to get back into bed. This is exactly what is happening with your baby. Her baby can’t turn off the work of the brain. She tries to settle down to sleep like she always did, but that doesn’t seem to work. She often wakes up crying and screaming for help, because she can’t do it on her own. Her baby gets too tired from all this interrupted sleep and ends up cranky all day.

Then what do you do?

1.) Extra comfort during this time. Extra hugs and kisses. Do your best to calm your baby down.

2.) Don’t let your baby cry. It responds to your need.

3.) Pull out your bag of tricks (most of which you probably used when your baby was a newborn). White noise, bouncer, binky, “lovie”, whatever it takes to lull your baby to sleep.

4.) Remember that a sleep regression does not last forever, on average 2-6 weeks. Keep reminding yourself that this will pass and that your life will be back to normal soon.

5.) Sometimes there’s not much you can do, but hang in there. Stay strong, don’t get frustrated, and take naps during the day to handle the tough night.

I’ve been through this and it’s not pretty. My baby went from sleeping 12 hours to waking up several times a night. She was so confused and frustrated, until my pediatrician told me about the regression. She made a lot of sense to me once she explained herself. Brianna’s sleep regression only lasted 2 weeks. I thought to myself, “I’ve gone months without sleep, sure I can handle a couple of weeks.” So I hugged her more, responded immediately, and even fed her more. I was very afraid that the extra feedings would be a big setback. I thought I would have to start sleep training again. But he knew that she needed him during that time, and he firmly believed that since she had already mastered the skills of falling asleep independently for several weeks, she would do it again once she finished the regression. And guess what? That’s exactly what happened. Once she figured out what she was working on in her little head, she immediately went back to sleeping 12 hours a night.

I watch sleep regression like when you bring your baby home for the first time from the hospital. Anything goes at that point, anything she needs you to provide. No set rules. For the two of them to get some sleep, otherwise they will slowly start to lose their sanity. Don’t be afraid you’ll have to start sleep training all over again. Like I said, once your baby has those skills, the most she’ll have to do is remind him, not start over.