The 4 month sleep regression

Just when you thought you had your baby's sleep routine down, the 4 month sleep regression hits.

Your baby who was sleeping long stretches starts to wake more frequently, maybe every 2 hours, and their naps fall apart.

During the 4 month sleep regression naps are shorter, settling feels harder, what did work with your newborn, your baby has outgrown, waking occurs every 45 minutes, and overnight, they may wake up every 2 hours.

Exhausting!

Let's navigate the 4 month sleep regression together!

What will I cover in this 4 month sleep regression article?

• Whats going on during the 4 month sleep regression?
• What do you need to know about the 4 month sleep regression?
• What can you do to help your baby during the 4 month sleep regression?
• Solutions in the 4 month sleep regression. [3 steps] 
• What not to do during the 4 month sleep regression.
• When does the 4 month sleep regression stop?

When your baby was a newborn their sleep was much less structured, and they didn't have complete sleep cycles.

Around 8-16 weeks, sleep starts to mature. We see proper sleep cycles forming, and during the day, this looks like 30-45 minutes of sleep, and at night, 2-4 hours of sleep.

In this time your baby cycles through the 4 stages of sleep and then does what is called a checking wake. (see the sleep hynogram below).

What happens during a checking wake is your baby wakes full from a sleep cycle, and checks their environment, they are checking that nothing has changed and it's safe to go back into another cycle of sleep.

The problem arises when the environment has changed.

Consider the baby who is rocked or fed to sleep, or held to sleep then transfered to their cot or crib.

This baby wakes after a sleep cycle, does a checking wake and notices where they fell asleep has changed, and now they can't get back to sleep without that same sleep association (rocking, holding, feeding, dummies, pacifiers). 

Therefore they cry out and let us know they're awake and can't get back to sleep.

We have to come and assist them back to sleep with that same sleep association, over and over and over. This is the 4 month sleep regression.

This is what sleep consultants and parents refer to as the 4-month sleep regression.

Fundamentally it is actually more a progression in terms of your baby's sleep maturity, but it is a regression in terms of how well they are sleeping, and likely how little you are sleeping!

What do you need to know?

It’s 100% normal for your baby to suddenly start waking after 45 minutes.

This is a full sleep cycle for a baby, they take 15-20 minutes to drift off from a light sleep to a deep sleep, and this deep sleep is over 25 minutes later. If your baby is napping for more than 45 minutes, they are completing more than one of these sleep cycles. (See the above diagram)

If when your baby falls asleep they require a sleep association such as rocking, holding, feeding, or a dummy, often when they wake from a sleep cycle, this sleep association is gone, and instead of a brief checking wake up, and back to sleep, they'll fully wake up and cry out looking for that sleep association.

Overnight in the first 3 months often your babys sleep is less structured, just active sleep and quiet sleep.

This means they sleep in 4-6 hour long chunks!

Once this 4-month sleep regression hits and your baby’s night sleep patterns change, babies often start to wake every 2-4 hours overnight looking for that same sleep association.

Exhausting!

Sometimes, short daytime naps can mean your baby is going to bed overtired, which makes the night wakes even more pronounced. Sometimes an earlier bed time can help with frequent night wakes, sometimes its more of a focus on self settling that is needed.

But an overtired baby or a baby who falls asleep with a sleep association can't re-settle themselves they'll fully wake when they reach that checking wake up, and often cry for assistance to go back to sleep.

This then creates fragmented sleep for the two of you, and fragmented sleep is not quality sleep.

The affects of sleep deprivation actually usually come more so from fragmented sleep than just not sleeping all night. This is usually a big suprise to some parents who wonder why they are so tired when they are in bed for 8 hours a night, but getting up 2-3 times in that 8 hours.

Solutions for the 4 month sleep regression

As the 4-month sleep regression is not really a regression but a progression in your baby's sleep maturity, it is not something that your baby will “come through” or something that passes by.

I have clients come to me at 10-12 months; their baby is still catnapping and still waking every 2 hours; they feel their baby never came out of the 4-month sleep regression.

But don't panic their sleep will improve with time and a little help from you!

Babies need to adjust to the changes they are experiencing, and you can help them with small easy changes to their sleep hygiene and self-soothing skills.

Step 1

First and foremost when it comes the 4 month sleep regresison sleep hygiene:

• Sleep environment
• Sleep cues
• Pre sleep rituals
• Timing

Ensure their sleep environment is conducive to good sleep, a nice dark sleep space will promote melatonin production and be less distracting when you baby wakes after 45 minutes’.

Ensuring your baby has an age appropriate awake window, one which means baby is not over or under tired. We generally aim for around 2 hours awake time by 4 months, this is of course give or take depending on the baby.

Some positive sleep associations such as white noise, swaddles and sleeping bags will also be useful in good sleep hygiene.

Once your basics are in place, you can consider if your baby can self-soothe or if they are heading in that direction.

If your baby relies on your to rock, hold or feed them to sleep, once their sleep cycle finishes......... they're looking for the same association to get back to sleep.

Therefore, your first goal should be to teach your baby to self-soothe to sleep initially, before worrying about re-settling after a short nap or at night.

Sometimes when your baby is taking short naps and waking frequently overnight, this fragmented sleep causes a big increase in sleep debt...............The result? ............. even shorter naps! Often 30 minutes long, and more and more crying from your baby throughout the day.

Make sure you can understand a sleep cue vs a hunger cue, vs an over tired cue, often during the 4 month sleep regression we are getting these wrong, feeding all night and creating a reverse cycling situation. 

Pre-sleep rituals are your first step to self-soothing before you start any sleep training. They indicate to your baby that its sleep time, and they start to expect a nap or night sleep following a consistent routine. This makes settling easier, even in the throws of the 4 month sleep regression.

Timing is a big one. The most common problem I see with timing is that your baby will start to wake more at night and cat nap, so they appear tired in the day. We reduce their awake time to that of a three-month-old.

Thus, they are not able to nap for more than 1 sleep cycle because they don't have enough sleep pressure to nap for any longer.

They're miserable.

This is often when we receive a desperate phone call from parents.

We need to work on sleep hygiene, better timing, self soothing and consistency to set your baby up for success for the next 6 months.

Setting up good sleep habits by 5 months has been proven to reduce the incidence of further sleep regressions for the next 29 months! That is a pretty good return on just a couple of weeks work.

Step 2 work out....are they hungry at night?

I don't want to assume to know your baby, but.......if they previously slept well at night, and are suddenly waking every 2 hours (to the minute), it is very very unlikely that this is a growth spurt, especially if their feeding in the day has become fussy, which is another common problem associated with this regression.

This fussiness comes from a lack of hunger due to multiple night feeds putting them off their feeds in the day. 

A growth spurt typically lasts 48-72 hours, which is long enough for your supply to pick up, and is characterized by longer feeds, and possibly an extra feed at night, not 2 hourly feeding.

Avoid this situation which is called reverse cycling, by trying to settle your baby without a feed, as long as....

• Their weight gain is tracking well
• They previously slept longer
• It has been less than 4 hours since they last fed
• You have no supply issues
• Baby has no milk transfer issues 

Using self-soothing strategies to gently teach your 4 month old to go back to sleep independently is the key to those longer stretches of sleep at night.

Hang in there!

If your baby has started taking these short 45 minutes, and their night sleep is regressing you are probably finding yourself in a very stressed, overwhelmed and exhausted state!

You are not alone, this is one of the most common issues we deal with at Baby Sleep Consultant.

Concentrating on more night sleep will help both of you to feel less over tired, and consequently you will both have more patience to deal with the short naps once you are ready.

Step 3

Decide you are ready to tackle the regression and you have the enery. Work out what self soothing approach will suit their temperament. Take our Quiz and get started.

The 10 steps to solving the 4 month sleep regression will take you from exhausted and sleepless, to confident, and having a sound sleeper!

The 10 steps are designed for you to take them at your own pace and see the improvements day to day.

No more stress and CIO, just a sound 10 step plan suitable for any baby over 4 months old. 

 When does the 4 month sleep regression stop?

It doesn't.

This is the most common question I get asked. Like the regression is some crazy ride your baby has gotten on and they can get off? 

No.

It's a permanent change in the structure of sleep. The regression part, their poor sleep, broken nights, and short naps, this gets better as they learn to self-soothe, and we set up really good sleep hygiene. Some people will tell you it stopped or got better, but really they changed what they were doing, which enabled their baby to pick up self soothing skills, and thus sleep better.

Others will tell you, their baby's sleep was never the same, and at 10 or 12 months they finally decided to sleep train.

It doesn't end, but your baby does get better and self soothing and thus they sleep better!

Chloe “My daughter went through it between 3.5 and 4.5 months and it was a month of hell. Went from sleeping through the night with a dream feed to waking multiple times and crying, and she was just unable to be settled. Her 45 minutes’ naps dropped to just 20 minutes! It was worse than when she was a newborn. I ended up contacting Baby Sleep Consultant as I was exhausted physically and emotionally, Emma sorted her day sleeps and her night sleeps.”

Kelly Johnson “The 1 big thing that helped me was research, so by the time I had my 4^th child I learnt about the 4 month change in sleep patterns. I was prepared, I had a baby carrier so he could be if I needed a long nap and it wasn't happening, and I was made sure I was eating properly as I was breastfeeding and he was on a nap routine by 4 months. I followed the Baby Sleep Consultant 3-8 month sleep program and we got through it with less drama than my other 3!!"

Kate Gentile “ I have four kids and con honestly say if the 4 month sleep regression hit, I didn’t notice it! We had a strict nap routine by 3 months every time, and I made sure my babies took at least 2 naps a day in their bassinet”

Sharai de Klerk “ My little one seems to have started it at 13 weeks. We went from great day sleeps and sleeping all night, from 5/6 weeks to waking every 1.5-3 hours, worse than a newborn! I had some advice from a Baby Sleep Consultant to ensure good day naps, I baby wore for the first few days, and it really helped. We are back to 1-2 feeds max a night. Try the sleep program, it works!!!”

 

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Emma Purdue

Emma is the owner and founder of Baby Sleep Consultant, she is a certified infant and child sleep consultant, Happiest Baby on the block educator, has a Bachelor of Science, and Diploma in Education.

Emma is a mother to 3 children, and loves writing when she isn't working with tired clients and cheering on her team helping thousands of mums just like you.