Dreaded sleep regression - think it's hit!

[MaltipooMama]

Hi all, so my 20 week old, previous great sleeper, has gone from being put down to bed at 7pm and going straight to sleep until 3am bottle, to waking up up to 20 TIMES in the night! Either stirring, crying or spitting dummmy out and needing it put back in. Daytime naps are the same, he used to nap from 9-11am and then 1-3pm and now he can't get through more than 20 mins without needing to be settled and put back to sleep. Seems like this has hit almost overnight, is this the infamous sleep regression that I've heard so much about? I'm a FTM so it's all new to me! Did your little ones go through anything similar and how long did it last for? Also what was their sleep pattern like after it ended? I'm really lucky to have a partner who alternates nights with me so the sleep deprivation never gets too bad for either of us, but still I miss those days of being able to say "oh he's a great sleeper", now it's come back to bite me in the bum 😂

Hi @MaltipooMama

Sorry to hear you’re going through this! Our DD went through this recently, although with her it started from about 3 1/2 months. Pretty much the same thing… used to go down at 6:30 and wake once for her bottle in the night and then went back down again. The sleep regression started with catnapping in the day. After about two weeks, it started to affect her night sleep and she was waking every hour. Also, waking super early in the morning. However, she has just turned 5 months and she has slept through (7-6) the past two nights, without even waking for her night feed! Hoping this is now her norm. We ensured we kept to our routine during the regression. Bath, book, bottle before bed, put down awake in cot with dummy, blackout blind and white noise. Also did this for naps (except bath, book, bottle part - unless she was due a feed of course). When she woke in the night we either put dummy back in or if she needed more soothing, soothed her whilst still in the cot by putting our hand on her and obviously fed her when she needed it. Also with the early wakings (4:30am) I refused to start my day then. So I got her up, changed her nappy to ensure she was comfortable, and put her back down and she would settle again and if she woke up I kept soothing her in the cot until 6am, which is when I consider an ok time to start the day. We started to see her naps improve first, a couple of weeks ago she started having longer naps. Now her nighttime sleep seems to have followed suit. Hang in there, it will pass but I definitely think sticking to our routine helped.

Thanks so much for your reply @Fleur240 and so happy that your little one has hopefully come through the worst of it! Really reassured by your message, we're doing the same in terms of maintaining consistency and the bedtime routine etc. same for the oh so many frequent wake ups with not taking him out but more stroking his face/hair until he drops back off. So hopefully perseverance will be the key! Hope your routine continues to work as well as it sounds like it is!