4 Month Sleep Regression.. Everything you need to know!

If you have or have ever had a 4 month old baby, you’d know that there is a lot happening for little ones at this age! From their sleep maturing, to learning to roll and starting to biologically develop the skills to link sleep cycles, the 4-6 month period can be really overwhelming for a lot of parents (and bubs!)

It’s at this age that a lot of parents reach out and tell me that their previously “perfect sleeper” now wakes up every 2 hours overnight. Hello 4 month sleep regression!

Firstly, I call BS on the name “4 month sleep regression” and here’s why.

What’s happening?

I prefer to think of the 4 month sleep “regression” as a 4 month sleep “progression”! It is a cognitive, physical and/or emotional development that disrupts a child’s normal sleep pattern. This happens due to the second burst of melatonin that occurs at this age.

During this period, your babies’ night time sleep is maturing from a 4-6 hour cycle to a 2-4 hour cycle, which is closer to an adult sleep cycle- that sounds like progress to me!!

Why has my baby started waking up overnight now?

The truth is- they haven’t. All babies (and adults) wake up overnight, that’s biologically normal! What’s happening now is that due to the shorter sleep cycles, if your baby is unable to link their sleep cycles and settle themselves back to sleep, you are noticing these wake ups more!

What do I do about it?

There are a few things we’d need to look at;

1. What time is your little one waking overnight?

If your baby is waking prior to 10pm, they are most likely overtired, so we’d be investigating whether we need to make tweaks to their routine to get on top of this.

2. What is bub’s sleep like during the day?

If your baby is cat napping (45 min naps or less) and we are getting up at every wake up, we are teaching them that it is OK to get up at each wake up, therefore reinforcing the wake up. In this case we’d want to start teaching bub to consolidate their daytime naps, which will help with night sleep!

3. What does bub’s routine look like?

Do we need to make tweaks to your little ones’ awake windows? Are they staying awake for too long between naps causing them to be overtired, or perhaps not long enough and not building up enough sleep debt, causing catnaps?

There are a range of things that could be contributing to you feeling the 4 month sleep “regression”, but if there’s anything I want you to take from this blog, it’s that at 4 months, we can start to teach your little one to link their sleep cycles. Research has shown that bubs who know how to do this from a young age, will feel later regressions less than those who cant.

So let’s start now- you’ll thank me later!!