We seem to have hit the notorious 4 month sleep regression phase. Everything I’ve read about this seems to say:
Babies are now sleeping in more mature patterns (lighter sleep phases, waking to check their surroundings, etc.)
That they’ll get confused if they fall asleep elsewhere and are transferred and wake up in their crib.
They need to “learn” to connect sleep. (HOW???)
We shouldn’t assist them to sleep anymore.
The thing that irks me is that none of the info I’ve found is backed by data or research. It’s so hard to weed through the muck of “sleep consultants” who are trying to sell me their hidden secrets. Of course I appreciate experts, but I can’t help but feel like there is a lot of projecting adult behavior here.
I’d love any DATA on this subject. I’m obviously exhausted, but my instinct tells me to keep helping my LO back to sleep. I’m hoping as she matures and continues to develop these skills will happen naturally. Do I need to be teaching her something? If so, how? Must I stop assisting her between cycles? Will she ever connect them on her own?
I’m looking for data on this phase as well as anecdotal information about how you best supported your babe during this leap. Thanks so much for your support!
@iaian You will find both pro sleep-training and anti sleep-training research. The fact of the matter is that it is very hard to conduct research with babies because of ethical barriers as they cannot consent in the same way adults do.
Pro sleep-training professionals will state that sleep is a learned ability, and anti sleep-training will tell you that it is biological and everything has its time, including connecting sleep cycles, dropping naps etc.
It seems, though, that either way there are no long term effects to sleep-training or not. But there isn't a concrete way to tell you for sure what your baby goes through emotionally when you don't respond to them when they cry for you short term (as far as I know).
I like to think that babies are people too and their feelings matter as much as the feelings of an 8yo. So I prefer to respond to her cries. Even though I'm not sure she's distressed, that's what my brain is programmed to think when I hear her calling for me.
@iaian People have REALLY strong opinions about this. I think the 4 month regression is a thing. My baby started waking even more frequently at 3.5 months. If your baby's sleep got worse, then it probably happened to you. It's kind of irrelevant if someone else doesn't think it exists if you are experiencing it.
I am a SAHM who likes to sleep and be active during the day. I'm always busy and doing something. If I can't be, my mental health declines rapidly. My friend who is also a SAHM is a homebody. She will sleep throughout the day and sleep when she can at night. Her baby is six months old and she is up all night and napping frequently during the day. It works for her.
If you are like me, it would be beneficial to help guide your baby into getting better sleep. I read precious little sleep and it saved me. I was literally suicidal. (I had a cmpa baby. My life was a living hell)
@iada Is precious little sleep a sleep training program? Hard to tell from the website. I don’t want to let the kid just scream his head off - it’s not for me.
@iaian There are a number of citations to take a look at here.
Here’s a small study on eighty infants that does suggest that progressive delays in response leads to greater self soothing at 12 months. There is some data but not super high quality that modifying responses to night waking at age 3-4 months can reduce night waking. Here is a higher quality but very small RCT that compared graduated extinction, bedtime fading and no intervention, which found no impact on attachment and decreased sleep latency and fewer awakenings in the graduated extinction and bedtime fading groups.
This study (on ONE infant) also suggests there are periods of significant change in the development of circadian rhythm. You might also appreciate this review on circadian rhythm development.
@iaian Sleep, babies, and science? You can only have 2.
The available science is either super low quality (eg. This doctor thinks this! Looking at you dr ferber, also most of precious little sleep), really general (yes babies do need sleep!), or grossly exaggerated/misapplied (hi happiest baby on the block tell me more about botswana).
Is there good science for if sleep training is harmful? No
Is there good science for if sleep training of any sort works to help babies get significantly more sleep or sleep faster? Also no.
Is there any research for if sleep regressions even exist? No.
This article addresses some of the issues in that review pretty well. Notably that few of them are high quality and varied definitions are used. Id also add that most of the referenced studies are from the 80s and 90s and relied on the parents perception of their infant's sleep rather than testing.
@iaian It’s all theory. Anyone who tells you anything with any certainty about baby sleep, other than that most babies wake up a lot, is probably talking bollocks. They can’t tell us why they’re waking so there’s no way of knowing. How on earth could anyone prove that a baby cries because it’s woken in a different place from where it went to sleep? Pure hypothesis, and a poor one. For every parent that’s successfully applied a cry it out / Ferber method, there’s another one that tried and it didn’t work, those people are just much quieter about it. It seems to me like rather a blunt instrument to approach infant sleep with.
Anyway, regressions aren’t really a thing, baby sleep gets worse then better then worse etc. Babies are strange and unknowable.
Your baby will sleep better again, this I can promise you. It is unlikely to be a result of anything you do or don’t do. You are not to blame for what’s happening now and you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s not within your control. Please just love and support your baby and rope your partner in for more support.
@iaian I’ve always helped mine to sleep and respond when he wakes. He learned to connect sleep cycles all on his own without help. I’ve witnessed this through the monitor, he’ll sit up in bed, rub his face, maybe let out a quick ‘waa’ and faceplant back down and go to sleep. That’s if he doesn’t need anything else at the time. Plenty of wakeups he needed something though, and that need might have been comfort and closeness just as well as hunger, and that’s fine by me, he’s a literal baby. He can have hugs whenever he wants!
On point 2: babies aren’t stupid. They know their bedrooms. If you fall asleep on the sofa watching telly and sleepwalk into bed without remembering it, you don’t wake up and panic that you’re now in your bed.
We coslept after the 4 month regression for several months. Around 8 months I transitioned into a floor bed so I could nurse to sleep and roll away, and he wouldn’t get seriously hurt if he rolled off the bed like he might if he rolled off a higher bed, so I started getting evenings back. He’s now nearly 14 months and started sleeping through a few weeks ago. We still assist him to sleep by bouncing or cuddling.
@iaian I think that a lot of the sleep consultant info on the 4 month regression comes from Richard Ferber's book. For example, Precious Little Sleep specifically notes that her graphs come from his book, and Taking Cara Babies is well known as a Ferber ripoff with pretty graphics. I don't have his book handy but I remember it as having a lot of info, but it hasn't been updated in a while. Still, that's probably where I'd start.
@iaian It’s incorrectly labelled “sleep regression” it’s actually when a babies circadian rhythm starts to form. Knowing this, we took it in our stride and used a modified ferber to work through it.
@iaian People recommending Dr Ferber’s book/theories, but I also recommend Safe Infant Sleep. Dr James McKenna looks at sleep through an evolutionary and anthropological perspective. Forewarning, he is pro co-sleeping and anti-sleep training, and I feel like it’s been helpful for me to look at “sleep experts” from all angles to decide what’s right for my family. He doesn’t encourage any sleep situation because the right thing is different for every family.
I found reading hard with a new baby, so I listened to a bunch of books on audible.
@iaian It's a long article, and not purely about sleep regressions (although there's info in there arguing that sleep regressions, the way sleep coaches describe are a myth), but I found this article really interesting.
@sharkdive1 I found this one helpful as well. They describe one of the better studies on sleep training, which showed it helped parents sleep better, but did not affect the number of times babies woke up (just their likelihood of calling out for help to get back to sleep). It helped me to focus on what I could change with sleep training and what I couldn't when I was making my own decision about how to care for my child.
@iaian I’ve read a lot about sleep and have never felt super into any of the recommendations I read. Mostly because I have a strong preference for attachment based parenting, so I ultimately respond to what I instinctively feel my baby needs.
Sometimes naps happen with a feed, sometimes they happen with patting, sometimes with a bit of rocking or on a walk/car ride, and sometimes with nothing at all. For reasons that I do not understand, my baby sleeps through the night and has been doing so since 6 weeks. Most nights there is 1 wake up for feeding and changing, some nights it’s 0, some 2.
I’m not sure if I personally believe in regressions as I think kids will just go through phases where they need us more. For me, focusing on the need in front of me feels more simple than trying to anticipate an X month regression or leap.
