Do babies go through sleep regression at 7 months? My daughter has started waking at 4:30-5 am she used to sleep till 6am…..

The classic sleep regression around this age is 4-6 months when night time sleep cycles change from 4-6 hourly to 2-4 hourly. This can mean your baby begins to wake more frequently if they haven’t yet learnt to self settle, or consolidate their sleep cycles during the day.

But if your 7 month old is only waking one at 4.30am I would firstly assume hunger depending on where she is on the continuum with her solids. If she is eating 2 good meals a day with plenty of carbohydrates and protein she might not be hungry, but it is very normal for a baby at 7 months to still be having a feed between 7am-7pm.

The fact that her feed has moved to 4.30am indicates that she is possibly sleeping 7pm-4.30am which is great! 9.5 hours in a row is amazing, and I would recommend you treat 4.30/5am as a night time feed and feed her and pop her back to bed until 7/7.30am. She will out grow the need for this feed as her solids increase.

If this is in fact her second feed of the night, or she is trying to start her day at 4.30/5am then I would be looking firstly at the timing of her first nap ensuring it is not too early, or too long, and then secondly have a chat to Megan from nourished nutrition about her solids to ensure she is on track and not lacking something which is meaning she is regressing and suddenly waking up for more feeds. She might even need less solids and more milk if you have moved too quickly with solids! So best to speak to the experts on this one and ensure that everything is on track.

If you are wanting to drop a 4/5am feed at any age, a good way to work out if your baby “needs” this feed and you should wait a few weeks before trying to drop it, or if you can drop it now….is work out if they are hungry at 7am when they start their day. If they are not overly hungry or you think the 4am feed is bigger than the 7am feed, chances are you can knock on those calories from the 4am feed to a 7am big feed and consolidate your babies night sleep a little bit.