Sleep regression is real! If you are lucky, your baby might be starting to sleep through the night at 3 months. That first full night’s sleep is magnificent. But right around 4 months and again at 8 months, our daughter went through a sleep regression where she would wake up several times throughout the night. Here is my advice on how to best deal with this tough developmental milestone.
Harsh truths:
Sleep regression is real and can't be avoided - it's a developmental thing.
The most notable regressions come around 4 months and 8 months (plus/minus a couple weeks baby to baby)
Not so harsh - it only lasts a couple weeks, if you deal with it right (see below)
My Advice:
As long as the pediatrician says your baby can go through the night without feeding, RESIST the urge to breastfeed your baby back to sleep. Turns out this re-enforces the waking up behavior. Note: Every time her mother came to soothe her back to sleep, our baby wanted the breast. So we switched to a model where early in the night I would soothe her to sleep, and in the morning (5AM onwards) if the baby woke up, mom would soothe here, and might feed her as well. Within a week she was waking about right around 5:30AM for her feeds.
When the second sleep regression hit at 8 months, our daughter was well into solid foods. We started giving her oatmeal as part of her last meal of the day before she started her night time routine. The heartiness of the oatmeal seemed to help her sleep for longer periods.
Sometimes babies put themselves to sleep - you just have to practice patience.: If she woke up and was whining (not crying), I’d be nearby (she cant see me) and would be on standby to come in and soothe her if she needed it. After doing this a few times, she actually started to self soothe. Not always, but it was an improvement.
Soothing technique is unique baby to baby. I like to categorize it to two main levels of soothing. As much as you can try to stick to level 1. It will help you in the long run.
Level 1 - You patt and/or shush them while they lay down - usually works when they are just whining and not crying. Our baby likes to be patted on the bum when she wakes up and is laying in her crib. Some babies like back rubs, some babies like being pet on the head/cheak areas (per nanny).
Level 2 - When just a patting or shushing doesn’t do the trick, you pick em up and rock them. For our daughter, bouncing (up and down at the knees) worked best. Sometimes side to side works well too. Ultimately you want to get to the point where just holding them with very minor movement helps them go to sleep. This helps you graduate to level 1 methods.
Blanket - this was a surprise, but our daughters sleep was triggered with her blanket. If she was being put down to sleep, and woke up, by placing her blanket on her, she would quickly grab it, roll to her slide and knock out. I don’t know why, and I don’t care, it just worked.
Pitch dark - Just to make them drowsy, it helps if you can walk into a corner or a room (maybe a walk in closet or a bathroom that doesn’t have windows/light. This seems to accelerate them falling to sleep by removing any distractions.
Important: YOU need to sleep early. My advice is to try to be in bed within 30 minutes of your baby falling asleep. This will prevent you from being agitated and tired as you wake up multiple times through the night, and you being calm means your baby will go back to sleep quicker at 3AM.