Q - 4 months regression & Timing of Sleep Training

[zelena_sljiva]

Hi all,
I have a 13 weeks old girl and we are looking to start sleep training at the beginning of 17 weeks. However, i'm wondering if the 4 month regression would throw a wrench into this?

Another question is the beginning of her bed time. We have been entering night sleep at 11:30 pm. Is she going to slowly move her start time earlier by herself? Or is this something I have to slowly adjust?

 

[vyrzaharak]

@zelena_sljiva We moved our LO’s bed time from 10pm to 7.30pm gradually over several weeks. We started working on it at about 10-11 weeks. Not every night was a success, but now he sleeps 7.30pm to 7.30am with two wakings for a feed at 16 weeks. According to most sleep resources I’ve read, 11.30 pm bed time for a 13 weeks old baby is very late. I would definitely work on a solid bed time routine and will try moving bed time 15-20 minutes at a time till you get to somewhere between 7-8 which is the ideal bed time for most children, again according to what I’ve researched.
I also second sleep coaching for now - putting baby down drowsy but awake, weaning off swaddle, making sure there’s adequate nap time during the day, giving baby a chance to try and sooth themselves for 5-10 minutes during night wakings before responding.
Taking Cara Babies for 3-4 months old is a great resource and has very clear instructions on what to do before you can sleep train at 5 months which is what she recommends. Not earlier.

 

[zelena_sljiva]

@vyrzaharak Thank you for your response.

I've looked into TCB's courses. Should I start with the 3-4 months course even tho it's mainly about Sleep Regression? Does the content contain sleep coaching or prepping for 5 months and beyond?

 

[vyrzaharak]

@zelena_sljiva It talks a bit about the regression, but mostly it is about teaching good sleep habits. If you don’t mind spending the money, I would definitely recommend getting it just for the clarity of things and knowing that you’re moving in the right direction. It contains a very well structured guide on teaching good sleep habits, many helpful tips, example schedules and I believe you also get one call with their sleep consultant in case you need it. I would even call it a guide to gentle sleep training for younger babies as it does allow some crying. It is also possible that by following the guide during months 3 and 4 you may end up not needing to formally sleep train at all if you’ll get to the point that works well for your family. We are still waiting for the regression to start, but if we will be able to maintain what we have now, I don’t think we will be sleep training at all.

 

[musicman5509]

@zelena_sljiva I used to put my son to sleep at midnight when he was around that age. It's just what worked best and in time, he did naturally go down sooner. I've never forced a schedule, just ran with the motions and his signs. His bed times changed from 12am,10pm,9:30pm all on his own nd now we've recently settled on 8:30pm (he's 9 months old now). He seems to wake up at the same time every morning still which is 9-9:30am.

 

[lbltf]

@zelena_sljiva Personally, I'd focus on sleep coaching now and save training for when you're in the thick of the regression. Work on putting baby down awake and removing the feed to sleep association if there is one. Make sure baby is familiar with their sleep space (let then hang out in there a couple of times a day for a few minutes). If baby is swaddled, might be worth having baby start trying to nap in whatever transition product you want to use or in a sleep sack or jammies if that's your plan. Also have then nap in their sleep space if you can. The regression will cause some chaos, so the more good habits you can instill now, the better. For us, the regression happened when our baby started rolling and we had to stop swaddling and moves him to his crib in his nursery (he had been in a bassinet in our room and some bed sharing). Unfortunately for us, he was barely over 3 months old when this happened :/ But, we got through it! A rough 2 or 3 weeks of sleep coaching, then we did CIO and it went well (less than 10 minutes total crying that first night). By the time we did CIO, he was still having at least 4 to 6 unnecessary wake ups and we'd have to go in and continually replace his pacifier and give him his lovey. For us, the regression was mainly cause by the rolling because he wanted to roll so much in his crib and touch everything and he'd roll onto his tummy and lose his pacifier and just start crying. He now goes to sleep without his pacifier and loves sleeping on his tummy!