Your baby was doing fine up until 4 months, 6 months or even 12 or 18 months and all of a sudden now is having short naps, wakes up constantly at night and takes forever to fall asleep.
You are probably wondering if this is a sleep regression or if there is something really wrong with your child’s sleep.
This is a common concern because we hear so much about constant regressions at different ages that you might just think your baby is going through a regression, teething or sickness. It just never ends! But it SHOULD and this is one of the common misconceptions about regressions.
So how do you know if this is just a sleep regression or a potentially long term sleep problem that requires help?
Let’s start by really understanding what a “sleep regression” is.
A sleep regression is a period of time, usually about two weeks, when a baby who’s sleeping well suddenly has trouble settling down for sleep, wakes up fussing in the middle of the night, starts having short naps or wakes early.
Regressions are actually huge developmental leaps. Your baby’s normal course of development. Your baby’s brain is growing so fast that it causes temporary changes in their sleep patterns.
The key word is TEMPORARY. It’s a blip and should not be lasting more than a few weeks at the most (typically 5-9 days).
An example of a common regression is when your baby is learning new skills like: rolling, standing, talking, walking, object permanence (separation anxiety).
Sleep problems however, often start off as regressions and develop depending on how they are handled.
A sleep problem develops when we are not aware of what’s causing the “regression” in sleep and don’t know how to manage it.
We don’t know that it’s really a schedule adjustment that’s needed (day sleep needs change-here’s a guide and schedule), that the environment is hindering sleep (as your baby gets older this will make more of an impact) or that we are now starting to assist to sleep and creating a new sleep association.
If you are in this situation and unsure, here are three things to ask yourself:
Was my baby sleeping independently and now needs to be assisted?
Is my baby now waking for feeds when they didn’t need it before?
Have I been consistent with my response and it’s still going on after 2 weeks?
I you answered YES to any of these, then it’s likely more than just a regression.
This is where the next step would be booking a call so I can assess and we can come up with a game plan together.
If this is a regression then it’s common and you should be back to normal next week!
Again it’s all about how you handle it. Reach out and I can help xx
