Is the 4 month sleep regression inevitable? Did anyone NOT experience it?

[firstbabyfirsttimemum]

My baby is 3 months old and seems to have always liked her sleep at night. She has done 2.5 hour stretches as a newborn and it’s slowly increased to 6 hour, then over the past week she has been doing 8-9 hours. She doesn’t nap much in the day (maybe 3 naps) and won’t be put down at all so I guess that is the trade off! Is this guaranteed to all change at 4 months? I know sleep is developmental but everyone goes on about how 4 months is particularly horrific and I am anxious about it now, even though I know we have been so fortunate so far

I think the phrase sleep regression has come into fashion since my two were babies, late 70s/early '80s, they'd certainly never heard of it! They both dropped the 2am feed at about 8-10 weeks and other than when they were teething slept well.
They were in their own room from birth, no doubt frowned upon today but trends and advice change, we were told to put them down on their front. Things change.

My older son has always been a good sleeper. He pretty much slept through the night from about 14 weeks and has ever since (he’s nearly 3 now).
Occasionally he’ll have a few nights where he wakes up multiple times (or won’t settle/gets up early), but the 4 month regression was very minor and he was still much better than a lot for babies are at their best 😂.

My daughter also started sleeping through the night from about 14 weeks but her sleep regression was much more obvious (and slightly later). Her sleep is also much more variable and she is much more sensitive to sound/light, illness, teething, developmental leaps etc. Although saying that it’s also been temporary every time and after a few days or weeks she goes back to sleeping through. At 8 months she has slept from 7-7 for the past 2 weeks.

We haven’t sleep trained and this is just their normal sleep cycle (they’re both terrible at napping in the day though!)

So no, you won’t necessarily have a regression at 4 months and if you do then it might just be temporary. The PP who said that sleep changes a lot in the first year is completely right though, although for us most of the changes seemed to relate to daytime naps rather than nights.

Totally agree. So much about which parents worry and fret was just normal 'having a baby' years ago. I wonder how much anxiety that people claim to have is a result of too much internet?

The sleep regression does happen, as it's a biological change in how the baby produces melatonin, but the differences are in how it's experienced:

• some babies are terrible sleepers and remain terrible sleepers.
• some babies sleep exceptionally well and remain good sleepers.
• some sleep better as they get towards 4m, but regress.

My son was like yours, became a great sleeper by 12w, and regressed at 15w.

I have a 7mo DD, she slept through the night with only 1 wake since she was 8 weeks old... but she reached 6 months and we are making up for it now!!
Make the most of it while you can

First baby: very noticeable at 4 months. Second baby: not at all

Nope not definite! My DD only slept on chests for the first 8 weeks, then 8-10 weeks was suddenly able to be put down and sleep longer stretches. Then 10 weeks to 6m slept through every night! From 6 months onwards split nights and normal night wakes.

Well, possibly.

But there's a flipside in that there's lots of support for issues that are just taken for granted.

For example, I could work out that my son was dairy intolerant at 12w old with online support, which was dismissed as wind by the health visitor, and "all babies cry, it's tough, let's have a moan and deal with it".

He was in horrible upset and pain. I used SM to identify the issue and solved it rather than assuming it was just what babies do.

My first didn't have it at all.
My second has just done through it but lasted less than a week!

We didn't have it. DD started doing decent stretches of 12-6 at about 3 months and bedtime crept gradually earlier from there until by 6 months she was pretty reliably doing 7-6. Her sleep was only interrupted by identifiable factors like teething or illness or getting out of routine.

Hi OP, wondering how things are getting on now? Are you still getting long stretches a few weeks later? Mine has hit four months and still seems to get one decent stretch, but all other sleep seems to have eroded… settling for naps and bedtime feels so soul destroying…

No - never experienced it but my DS was a very good sleeper from Day One ... I'm not sure if it was just luck or because I followed the Gina Ford method which of course is (& always was) very controversial... can't believe it's over a quarter of a century ago !

I never had it with either of my children. One slept 13 hours from 6 weeks the other slept all night from the same age but an early riser.