Sleep regression (?)

[Jillian123]

Hi mum's 😊
Just looking for a bit of advice re sleep please. My baby boy is 3.5 months old and has always been an OK sleeper (never less than 2 hour blocks), recently he has been better than OK, sleeping 9/10 hours straight at night. If he did wake up he would suck his thumb and back to sleep. His daytime naps were getting a bit difficult, he was fighting them & crying if he couldn't find his thumb so a couple of weeks ago (possibly a mistake) we started giving him a dummy to help him nap.
The past few nights he has started waking every hour, crys as he isn't finding his thumb, I give him dummy and he falls back asleep, then repeat an hour later. Does this sound like it could be the 4 month regression? Also I am wondering should I change anything, up until now he contact naps in the day, then night time he goes to bed with us between 10-11 and sleeps in his next to me, wondering if I should change any of this to help?

Thanks in advance

We had a very similar experience to you at that age! It's probably the 4-month sleep regression and will pass in a couple of weeks. It's a great sign that he's already been sleeping so well, as it's likely that he'll slip straight back into being a great sleeper once he's over this leap. We decided the get rid of the dummy at 5 months when ours started waking up crying because she couldn't find it. We had one tough night, but she'd pretty much forgotten it ever existed by the next day, so unless you think it's helping to soothe your baby, I'd consider getting rid of it.

As for naps, we were pretty much only contact/pram naps until she decided she wanted to sleep in her cot, which was about 6 months. Yours is still so little that I'd say just go with the flow!

Don't worry, sleep WILL improve! By 6 months, our LO was back to sleeping through the night and at 15 months, now sleeps 13 hours a night.

Thanks so much for your reply. I have been bracing myself for the regression as I have heard so much about it! I think we will try to ditch the dummy as he had been doing well self settling with his thumb, just sometimes it seems he forgets how to find it lol! & I'm keeping with the contact naps as long as I can, after some resistance at first as I was worrying about housework etc, I have grown to love them lol 😊

Thanks x