Sleep regression

Have any of you ever heard of sleep regression?

I hadn’t.

Kory has always slept through the night in his own room, he’s slept through the night since being 12 weeks old and has slept through the night in his own room from being 5 months old with no problems.

As soon as Kory hit 7 months he’s just been terrible at sleeping.

Not just at night time but even getting him to take a nap is a challenge! Kory is now 8 months old and we’re still experiencing the same problems, we have tried everything but nothing seems to work. After doing some research, that’s when I learned about sleep regression.

Typical sleep regression sounds something like this:

• Your baby goes from sleeping through the night to waking several times a night ✔️
• Your baby can’t fall asleep or stay asleep ✔️
• Your baby fights naps during the day and at night time ✔️
• Your baby wakes frequently at night, often crying ✔️
• Your baby is usually clingy, cranky and super needy during the day ✔️
• You have ruled out teething, illness and this has been lasting way too long for it to just be caused by a growth spurt ✔️

Kory ticks all of those boxes!

It could be that this phase is being caused by something else but after reading more about sleep regression, I believe that this is the culprit.

Sleep regression occurs most commonly at around 4 months, 9 months and 12 months. This is around the time that your baby is going through some major milestones: rolling, sitting, standing, crawling, walking, etc. Your baby is going through tremendous cognitive development. Basically, they’re learning new skills and are practicing them over and over in their head until they master the skill, their little brains are working overtime which then, terminates the sleep regression. The common clinginess and neediness the next day is caused by all this interrupted sleep resulting in them being overtired.

So what do you do?

• Try your best to keep to your bedtime routine. You may have to make some adjustments during a sleep regression but you don’t want to completely change your routine, this will only confuse your little one more. It’s best to keep things consistent
• Extra hugs and kisses to settle your baby!
• Lullabies are a great way to calm your baby before bed and slow down all that brain work
• Give your baby lots of practice time during the day to practice their new found skills
• Remember that sleep regression doesn’t last forever (on average between 2-6 weeks) keep reminding yourself that this will pass!

If like me your little one isn’t sleeping through the night like they once were and you’re now thinking it could be sleep regression. I hope you find this information helpful.

Oh and I feel for ya! I really do.