I'm going to address a few readers' questions that have been piling up in my inbox about sleep. But I'd like to open up the floor more in the next couple of weeks to any kind of question you might have about your child's development. Feel free to email me your non-sleep questions as well as the more sleep-specific ones and we'll try to tackle them as soon as possible. Here's a fairly typical question from that dreaded 4-month mark:
My son is 3.5 months old; born June 12th. He was a really great sleeper
right from the get go. By 2 weeks old he was sleeping atleast a 6-7
hour stretch every night. I did very little to encourage this, he sort
of developed this pattern on his own. He kept this up until about a
month ago, when he randomly starting waking up every 2-3 hours. I am
tired! I miss my sleeping baby! Every times he wakes in the night I
nurse him. He goes right back to sleep after a feed, no problem, but I
am getting sick of the frequency of wakings now.Some background
information for you: my son is huge! he was born weighing 9 lbs 14 oz.,
and at 3.5 months he is a little over 17 lbs. Do you think he could be
extra hungry because of his size, and he needs these extra feedings? Or
do you think he is mostly habitually waking? I am reluctant to do sleep
training because he is still so young, but I am also sleep deprived. I
have a 2.5 year old at home as well, so napping during the day rarely
happens!Also,
my son seems to be teething, and he is also obsessed with grabbing for
toys right now. Do you think all this stuff going on is disrupting his
sleep, and he may start sleeping well again in a matter of time?
First off, congratulations for being one of the lucky ones who got more than 2-3 hours of consecutive sleep at night in the first 3 months or so. Many parents don't experience that early sleepy phase. Having said that, it seems like your baby has hit the first major sleep transition with full force. We've talked about the 4-5.5 month developmental stage at some length here and here. Go read those posts first, so you have a sense of what's going on in your baby's head — the new and amazing ways he can see the world differently and interact with you and the world differently (yes! Reaching and grasping is a new and fabulous skill he's going to be practicing). That will give you some context for what I'm about to say next: I'm very, very sorry, but there's not a whole lot you can do about his sleep in this transition stage. At least not in terms of successfully sleep-training. That doesn't mean you can't try one of the variety of methods out there, if you're so very desperate that you just need a plan of action. But many of these methods are doomed to fail because this stage is just an inherently volatile, senstive and difficult time for sleep.
To answer your last set of questions directly: Yes, I DO think that his sleep is disrupted because of these new cognitve capacities that are coming to fruition just now. Yes, he may start sleeping well again afterwards. But my guess is that he won't go easily back to "old" patterns of sleeping because children don't "regress" to old patterns, they continue to develop new ones and continue to adapt to new contexts as they are able to understand more and more about their environments. That means he MAY turn into a good sleeper again, or he may need your help learning new sleep skills. The good news is that you have only a few weeks before things re-stabilize for a while (it will not SEEM like a few weeks, it will seem more like a few DECADES, but nevermind…). At around the age of 6 months or so, if your baby HASN'T developed his own better sleeping habits after pulling through the transition period, you can choose a sleep-training technique that best suits your family's needs and implement these strategies then. Between 5.5 – 8 months, you have a much better chance of success in whatever method you try.
If you are indeed at your wit's end and need to try some sleep-training method, first read the posts I linked to above about the milestones he's hitting. Then, armed withthe "why" of what your baby's going through, pick what you think will have the best chance of working for your child and for your sanity. Just make sure that whatever sleep-training method you pick, you stick with it consistently for 3 days. If you don't seen any noticable improvement by then, you may want to cut your losses and wait for that next window of opportunity.
GOOD LUCK!
4 months was rough. The kid’s room used to be the guestroom so there’s a futon in there, and between 4 and 5.5 months I basically slept there most nights either because I had just nursed the boo back to sleep but wasn’t sure whether he was going to wake again in 30 mins (hence not worth me getting back into my own bed) or because the boo was actually sleeping next to me. we co-slept on that futon about 2-3 nights per week just because it was easier (my husband had our whole bed to himself…don’t say i wasn’t jealous). but after that we sleep-trained (at around 6 months) and it only took 2 nights. and then at 7.5 months we night-weaned and it also only took 2-3 nights. we have subsequently had to sleep-train again, after a long vacation of sleeping in the same room as the boo which meant he was co-sleeping _and_ night nursing (at 10.5 months!). i agree with bella about how they don’t really regress back to good sleep patterns, but move forward into whatever new patterns/habits/developments are going on and so you kind of have to plan your strategies according to what’s going on now (as opposed to what used to be the case).
@OP
My kid and yours are twins! Mine too slept 7 hour stretches at 2 weeks and at 6 weeks began to sleep 12 hour nights. This went on until she was 16 months old and then wham, she started waking every 40 minutes ( till round midnight and then once or twice depending on the night afterwards) She was a tiny-tot though ( 3rd %) and definitely needed the feed, at least the ones in the heart of the night. I was devestated to see this change in her sleep. I so hoped she would go back to sleeping well but we ended up resorting to sleep traiing her at 7 months which improved all aspects of sleep for her, including naps. In our case the sleep training wore off at around 18 months and then the s..t hit the fan as they say. She has been a poor sleeper since then. Now at 33 months she wakes at least 5 times a night ( but does fall asleep immediately) and there is nothing we can do about it (sob sob). Hope you have more luck than we did with our ‘excellent’ sleeper.
uppppps!!!
Sorry, that should be 16 WEEKS old. I wish!!
@Paola
Oh Geez, I hope I have better luck with my early good sleeper too! I am still swaddling my son as well, but he will probably need to stop that soon, as he is getting so big. I’m a little worried about how that will affect his sleep. Right now, if its a good night he gets up 2-3 times. On a bad night it could be as much as 6-7 (!!) times a night. CRAZY-MAKING! Uggggh.
My daughter woke up every 2-3 hours from birth until about 12 months, at which point she randomly slept through the night on her own, without me doing any sleep training. She is 2.5 now and still sleeps through the night, no prob. I think I lucked out with that! Although…she did give me a hard time in that first year! I know I won’t tolerate that much waking for that long with my son… Having already gone through it, and knowing how much it sucks to be so sleep deprived, I CANNOT do it again!
Oh–and thanks so much Isabela, for posting my question! I will definitely wait to sleep train. 6 months sounds like a good time. I know I can make it to 6 months. I am still kind of hoping that things will go back to the way they were when he was younger, but I doubt it! I’m not setting myself up for disappointment.
Last night was actually a little bit better. In bed at 8 pm, up at 1:30, 3:30 and 6 am. Then up for the day at 7 am. He fed each time he woke up. That is tolerable, but probably a fluke.
Can anyone comment of the nap patterns of there 4-ish month olds? My son has a morning nap (usually between 9 and 10) but after that, there isn’t a whole lot of rhyme or reason to his napping.
@sarah
When my daughter’s nightime sleep went skewiff, so did the napping. I would say it is related. She also made it down for the morning nap ( slept an hour say), and if I was lucky, got another 40 minutes in the afternoon. Sometimes if I was really lucky, I’d catch her just as she was waking after 40 minutes, bf her and she’d sleep another 40. Good luck
@Sarah…same here with my little guy, not much rhyme or reason beyond taking a first nap around 9. just when i think that he’ll fall asleep in the carseat he won’t, then falls asleep in the stroller, and won’t again…and he’s nursing so much right now which is fine with me, but like you mentioned, I’ve already gone through the ‘bad sleeper’ gig with his older sister, and i’m not too interested in revisiting those long nights and sad days of being exhausted and confused!