To think that the health visitor should have known what 4 month sleep regression is?

[acer12]

I didn't know what it even was but when I posted on MN about my DD2 not sleeping, it was suggested by some fabulous ladies and it was a bloody revelation, I literately had a tick list of symptoms. She was waking every 90 mins through night and only cap napping during day and I was hallucinating! Googled advice and fixed the problems. Learning self settling, more sleep, swaddling...ect and it worked!

Went to get baby weighed, my usual lovely HV wasn't there and the HV that I spoke to about it was really about it and lectured me on the dangers of swaddling.

No one else seems to know either?! Mil was trying to force calpol down her convinced it was teething (luckily DH fended her off) as she was cranky ALL the time but she was just shattered!

is this widely known???

Well, it's a developmental stage that some babies of through, so the only 'cure' is really maturing, and moving out of that stage and onto the next one.

Just like there is no 'cure' for those toddlers that go though a biting/hitting/pinching stage when playing with other children.

But, there are plenty of techniques you can use in both instances to try to bring about the next developmental stage more quickly.

With the sleep regression, it depends on the baby, but swaddling and teaching the baby to self-settle can help. Sometimes there is nothing you can do, but ride it out.

I thought you weren't meant to start swaddling at that age unless you had been doing it since baby was a lot younger, as it was otherwise dangerous? Don't know where in the Internet I read that though...

I think just knowing about the stages is a bit of help because you are prepared, unfortunately the changes the brain is going through mean that the baby is likely to be unsettled or irritable, its a side effect of what is happening.
sleep and relaxation techniques like skin to skin, baby massage etc can help some babies. It's daunting for them feeling these big changes happening and they often just want to hold onto someone safe and reassuring, which means lots of waking up.
but there isn't a cure for being a baby :) being wakeful and demanding and really really hard work is part of their development...even 'angel babies' are likely to go through this...or experience some behavioural change at this stage...the good news is its a transient stage, it will finish, and they will progress or make a developmental 'leap' :)

I'd heard of sleep regressions and growth spurts and wonder weeks at a few baby groups and my local breastfeeding cafe.

www.thewonderweeks.com/

kellymom.com/parenting/nighttime/4mo-sleep/

kellymom.com/bf/normal/growth-spurts/

It just seems to be a word or phrase used on here probably somebody noticed a pattern and put a label on it, many babies sleep through and never regress as you put it, so I can see why the HV didnt say this is what it was because it is not really a thing as part of a bbay development it is just a blip in sleeping ,

From what I understand dd sleep cycle has changed in to a more older state rather than deep deep sleep that new borns get in too.

And because I'd always rocked or cuddled her to sleep when she when through a very light sleep phase she woke up and couldn't get back off with out me. This led to waking every 90 mins or less! Which led to her not even sleeping during day, just 10/15 mins cat naps !! Hideous !

So just having the idea it could be that enabled me to look for tips on encouraging better sleep ie swaddling, self soothing also looking for tired signs, like ear rubbing ect ( I thought she was teething, bad ear last week)

The first morning I put her down swaddled, awake at 9am and she went off like a light! For two hours ! Did the same at 1pm and 4pm for an hour. Bed time after bath at 6.45, she shouted a bit but went off [shocked] couldn't Beleive it 3 weeks we had struggled !

I don't think it's recommended after 6 months, not sure really. It's just working for my baby !

I think though that Hv should be aware of this or even to talk on general tiredness of baby and that it can manifest in all sorts of ways that you would blame on some thing else.

The silly thing is last night was the 3rd night she went off with out me, I sat out side the bedroom on case she started crying feeling pretty redundant... Well at least for about five mins before I skipped down stairs and had my tea in peace ... Golden!!

I'd heard of it before MN. My first HV told me about it with dd1( 13 years ago) and it being a growth spurt time.

Current HV has mentioned it & bf support often does.
All 4 of mine have regressed at 6 weeks, 4 months & 6 months as they readjust.

mrsjay have you actually had a look at any of the links?

Possibly it is something that breastfed babies are more likely to go through, and given that fewer babies are, in fact, still exclusively breastfed at that age, could explain the, um, scepticism, of some.

It most certainly is a thing when your baby is in the thick of it, believe me...!

I don't know what it is. I first heard about it on MN and still can't get my head around it. A bit like how everyone on MN makes an issue out of baby led weaning (anothr MN favourite). Raising a baby shouldn't be complicated. I just winged it with my babies and they turned out fine and eat and sleep well.

It's not something you do to your baby, right?!

It's something they bloody well do to you!

absolutely grandstanding! It's not comparable to a BLW craze at all. It doesn't even need a name, but it is a THING that SOME babies go mental between 3-5 months in very similar ways. DH and I had been so sure that it was all our fault, so it was very comforting to hear that other babies dd's age were doing the exact same thing as her. So yes there's no cure besides maturing.

However

I will say that being absolutely on the ball wrt maxium awake times must vastly help, and just making sure that baby naps wherever (arms, sling, buggy, it doesn't matter as long as they nap). DD was chronically overtired at times and I just didn't realise. If I ever have another that's the only thing I'm going to try to be super strict about :)

Spot on faddy me too!

Acer, you were incredibly lucky that your baby went from being cuddled to sleep to self settling so quickly. Most babies don't transition quite so easily.

OK, shock comment this: babies cry, babies don't sleep well.

Some babies cry a lot/don't sleep well at all and some cry less/sleep better.

It's not rocket science.

Wonderweeks appears to be a profit promotional thing. And the paper linked to earlier was based on a study of 18 babies, yes, just 18. So not really sold on the science-based nature of this sleep regression idea .

hardboiled I know! Incredibly lucky. It's not been a miracle 'cure' by all means but it's been a marked improvement. She fussed a couple of times last night and that was fine. That's standard baby stuff but the past three weeks were horrid.

Dd is a sociable sunny baby and the change in her was so big, I thought she was irritable, ill, teething, hungry , hurt ad at one point she was hysterical.

lebfg I did get any info or advice of the wonder years so couldn't comment.
Have you look at any other links or studies by other prople regarding it or is that book your only source ?

didnt sorry

Nobody's asking you to 'buy it', LeBFG.

Buy it. Don't buy it. It makes no odds to its existence.

Some babies cry a lot/don't sleep well at all and some cry less/sleep better

LeBFG you are either reading a completely different thread or massively missing the point.

Why is it so difficult to believe that a substantial number of babies experience similar things while they and the world around them matures. And can sometimes affect their sleep.
Families have changed, instead of mothers as grandmothers being present all the time and passing on their experiences (not their scientific knowledge simply one persons experience), we now also rely on friends and forums to get advice. Why is this wrong?!
We are making life a little bit nicer for each other by helping out. Giving something a 'label' makes it easier to talk about succinctly.
It's really no biggy. If its not for you, don't read/listen/ask.

eh? Not quite sure what you've not understood.

Babies frequently don't sleep well. Sometimes it's at 3 months, sometimes at 4, sometimes it's every month. That's why forums like MN are good to share experiences.

Books/websites like wonderweeks (which I haven't bought, nor ever will) make money out of these unrestful periods. And lead to people cleverly asserting that 'baby's transistioning/on a wonder week/having a 4m sleep regression' instead of just saying 'baby's not sleeping well at the moment'.

What difference does it make?

I take back the it's no biggy. It's a massive help when you're in the middle if it and feel you will never sleep again, for someone to step in and say: yeah same thing just happened with us. It's just a phase they'll grow out if it. Maybe try this this or this.

We're humans, we don't just accept things happening to us without questioning why. That fact you can't, and wouldn't want to, prevent it is neither here nor there.

It's also interesting to know what's going on in their little world that may have sparked this unsettled behaviour. It makes it easier to sympathise sometimes

I've heard of it and my DS went through it. He was ff by that time too.

I hear quite a lot that the four month growth spurt is also mistaken for meaning they're ready to wean.

I am sure the Harvard Medical school would be very interested to find that so many people are so sceptical about the research of one of their most famous and respected scholars...please contact the Brazleton Institute for more information. www.brazelton-institute.com/ Mr Brazleton by the way endorse wonderweeks, yes wonderweeks is a little gimmicky and it does sell lots of books...but those books are based on solid scientific facts.

This regression is a BIOLOGICAL change in BRAIN development which funnily enough effects behaviour...you dont need a thousand large sample peer reviewed journal articles or books to tell you that, but they are out there if you want to read them.. i didnt want to have to type these out..but if anyone would like to do some further reading all of these will lead you on to hundreds of further resources which explain the basic biological fact which is developmental regression/fussy periods during infancy and many of which recognise a 14 wk - 19wk gestational window for this..yes some of these are old..that is because biology remains the same :) yes some of them draw from primate studies..as their neurological development is very similar to ours.

Bell & Wolfe 2004 Emotion and cognition: An intricately bound developmental process. Child development 75, 366-370

Bever 1982 Regressions in mental development: basic phenomena and theories. Hillsdale

Cools 1985 Brain and behaviour; hierachy of feedback systems and control of input (part of perspecitives on ethology) Plenum.

Feldman et all 2004 Going backwards to go forward: the critical role of regressive movement in cognitive development. Journal of cognition and development 5 (1) 97-102

Heimann 2003 Regression periods in human infancy. Erlbaum

Plooij et al 2010 The 4 whys of age-linked regression periods in infancy (in nuturing children and families, building on the legacy of T. Berry Brazleton. Wilely Blackwell.

I hope some of those help