Sunday, March 28, 2010

4 month sleep regression

The last couple of nights have been really difficult with Avery.  I remember hearing that the three month growth spurt was the worst, but for us it has been the start of the fourth month that has brought about the most frustrating events.

Miss A had been sleeping quite well, with the exception of a random night every so often, over the last month.  You could say we were getting spoiled.  She was going to be between 7:30 and 9pm, waking once between 1:30 and 3am for a feed and then not again until the start of her day between 6:30 and 8.  We were getting enough sleep that we were no longer super cranky.  Her dad was even giving her her bottle most nights for the middle of the night feed.  We thought we had an amazing sleeper on our hands.  That was until....

Wednesday she had her 4 month check-up which included vaccines.  She missed her morning nap due the the appointment time.  And ever since her napping and night time sleep has been off.  Not that she was on some perfect schedule/routine, but it was becoming predictable.  On Thursday and Friday she was waking every hour to two hours and not wanting to go back to sleep.  Super frustrating to her dad and I.  At  5:30 Saturday morning she woke-up, I fed her, then she refused to go to sleep.  She was awake until 11:30am and had to cry pretty hard to crash into sleep.  Last night she did better, as I really worked at keeping her asleep during nap time after that super long stint of being awake in the morning( I feel like if her naps are bad during the day, her night sleep is that much worse).  But she still woke many more times than she had been before Wednesday.

So I think we are going to try the Ferber Method , or some form of it.  I was reading that a lot of the 4 month sleep regression is due to their brains processing all of the information that they take in during the day and also that they may be trying to practice and process new skills.  Hopefully we will be back on some kind of night time sleep schedule that is not so disruptive for both Miss A and us.

Moral of the story: Don't get too comfortable, it all changes!!

3 comments:

  1. I feel your pain! We're getting ready to start some sleep training tomorrow actually. Good luck with the Ferber method. I'll look forward to hearing your updates. Hopefully we'll all be sleeping more soon.

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  2. I'm a huge fan of the Ferber method! It worked wonders for our lil' GG. We began sleep training around 4 months and it took about a week to see a big difference. There are occasional set backs but we just start fresh and within a night or two, she's back to sleeping through the night. What a blessing! Good luck! (Found you from Theta Mom and look forward to reading more.)

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  3. I can not explain to you how much this sounds like my daughter! As much as so many babies are different, they sound so similar! I was beating myself up over it! She had always been a good night sleeper, to bed anywhere between 8:30 and 10, up around 5 for a bottle and back to sleep until 8:30, sometimes 10, this was from about 6 weeks until about 3 months. About 2 weeks before I went back to work, in fact the day she had her 4 month well visit, the sleep regression started! It was AWFUL! I feel like she didn't sleep from 4 until 6 months. Then around 6 months she cut her 3rd tooth, had an AMAZINGLY AWFUL night, like up ALL NIGHT LONG screaming which was so out of character for her, and the next night she woke up around 5 for a feed because she hadn't been eating right, went bak to sleep until about 7:30, and then a few night later, she fell asleep around 7:30 and slept until 7:30 and that's pretty much her new normal. She goes to sleep around 7:30 and wakes up anywhere between 6:30 and 7. We don't get her our of her crib until about 7. It was awful and I am so glad she has a new normal, she of course has an off night every now and then, but that is to be expected and we're grateful it's not every blessed night like it was from February to April. Hope A is also growing out of it!

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