4 month sleep regression - your experiences

[Littlef00t]

My LO is 17 weeks and just beginning to sleep for longer stretches and I'm bracing myself for the sleep regression that I've read about. Except I'm hoping she might not get one. Am I mad?

Did all your children go through a period of disrupted sleep around 4 months?
When did it start?
How long did it last?
What did you think 'fixed' it?

I'm hoping as she self-soothes she might be ok...?

My DS went through it, but my best friend claims that none of her three DDs did and had never heard of it til I mentioned it (not that I was jealous at all, oh no).

DS started at 18 weeks and he had been sleeping through (7-8 hour stretches) for the 6 weeks prior to that.

Cover your eyes now - it lasted around 2 months, I think. My memory of it is a haze of sleep deprivation!

I don't think anything 'fixed' it or can fix it, he just grew out of it and suddenly was only waking once/twice a night instead of 4-5 times. However he was still waking once every night until a few weeks ago (and still does occasionally, though not for a feed now). He's now 10 months.

I can't comment on the self-soothe thing as DS only acquired that ability after the regression!

My DS has always been a crap sleeper, only ever had even a handful of 4 hour stretches. 3 hour stretches are rare, mostly we get anything from an hour to 2.5 hours at night so I always joked that we would have nothing to regress from!

However, at around 12-14 weeks he suddenly started only waking twice in the night for feeds - hallelujah!

Then as suddenly as it started, it stopped! He went to 2 hourly wake ups (so no more than about an hour and a half sleeps) by the time I'd settled him and got him back down I was getting an hour between feeds if I was lucky, sometimes staying awake from one to the next and getting almost no sleep of a night.

We've had 2 weeks of this except for last night he was back to two feeds at 1 and 4. He is only 16 weeks so it's earlier than 4 months but he has just learnt to roll which is a classic developmental milestone that coincides with this regression. Of course tonight could be a shit show again, but am hoping we've seen the back of it!

Try not to worry about it, it might not happen - my DD didn't have a sleep regression and DS is only 12 weeks so I'll have to keep you posted on that one!

My DD was sleeping through by that point and nothing happened at 16 weeks. She just carried on sleeping through.

DS was sleeping through but has started waking once a night again. Quick breastfeed and back to sleep so not a big deal.

He is a lot bigger than his sister at the same age so I just think he can't go 12 hours without a feed at this point.

Ever so slightly worse here at 5 months than at 3. Normally 2wake ups rather than one. Don't think it is sleep regression really, I'm putting it down to the heat thinking he may be thirsty.

My mum hadn't heard of it and there's 3 of us. I was dreading it too so I hope this makes you feel better about it.

We just went through it. He was sleeping 6-7 hours the first part of the night and then waking once or twice to eat. All of the sudden it was like he was a newborn again, wanting to eat 1 1/2-2 hourly or need a hand rested on him to stay asleep (he's not really fussy just restless and wanted to constantly eat). It lasted about two weeks. I read on a sleep site to just go with it, don't introduce new sleep associations but do what you've been doing (for us that was the dummy), feed if they need to feed, etc. just ride it out. It was hard but we made it through relatively unscathed and now he's back to long stretches, sometimes longer than ever!

I'll come back and repost the two sleep site pages that helped me get through it. I just kept re/reading them whenever I was in despair. Repeating to myself 'it's just a developmental phase and will pass.'