What's with the 4 month sleep Regression?!

 Many babies increase their waking at night around the 4 the month.  They seem more distracted and sleep goes out the window.

There is tons of brain development going on in their little head. 

The vision changes. Your baby can now see farther away and with all the added detail to her world,  she is more perceptive and therefore more distracted.  

Sleep falls apart and naps are hard to get and often feeding is harder as she is more easily distracted.  

This is when the baby is ready to lean sleep skills. Previous to this, sleep is innate. Either she can do it or she can’t. Sleep self soothing is a learned skill. This skill enables her to relax and organize  her body to sleep when she is tired and it also helps her to better manage her emotions when in stressful situations. This doesn't mean you have to jump into sleep coaching, many parents wait until after 6 months, hoping it will get better all on it's own.  Sometimes it does.  It's all about temperament.

Many parents tell me their child’s temper tantrums stop and their child is more even tempered once they are able to sleep without a sleep crutch. So, your child is reaching this time. It’s very exciting and frustrating at the same time. If you want to do sleep training, it’s still a good idea to wait until 6 months if you are going to follow a book. If you need better sleep now, that’s where I can help. To do something gentle like I do, your baby still needs to be at least 18 weeks old and at least 2 weeks into the more distracted phase of the 4 month sleep regression and you would want to maintain appropriate night feedings as part of your plan. 

Until you have a plan in place that you feel confident in and can be consistent about, keep doing what ever crutch gets you both as much sleep as possible. Swings, nursing, co-sleeping, rocking etc. these are blessings until you are ready for change. Please check out my website www.GetQuietNights.com and read the success stories of parents going through what you are going through.  I have recommended books and a blog on there too. 

I wish someone has explained it to me when my babies were that age.

For sleep consultations, visit www.GetQuietNights.com

Tracy Spackman is a certified gentle sleep coach. That means she will teach you how to help your child sleep through the night without doing Cry It Out.

Free 15 min sleep assessments. Call 602-524-7610

6 Things That Cause Early Rising

Early Rising is one of the most frustrating parts of  Baby and Toddler Sleeping Issues.  You have put great effort into helping your child learn sleep skills and even though they are generally sleeping through the night, the early rising is slowly killing you. (I'm being just a little dramatic)

Early Rising is when the baby or toddler wakes and can't get back to sleep well before you are ready to wake up and start your day.  More technically, it's likely before 6am.  The body's sleep cycles are different in those early hours and it's harder to get back to sleep anyway.

Here are the things that typically cause Early Rising and once you have identified the cause, you can work on the solution.

      1.   Lack of day sleep.  Your child's body has a period of time it can stay awake and when she runs out of energy, she has a sleep window.  If she is not falling asleep by the end of the sleep window, her body produces a hormone called cortisol.  This is the stress hormone.  The fight or flight hormone reaction.  It gives you an adrenaline like burst of energy.  It's hard to go to sleep for her nap with that pumping through her system and it stays in your system for a while, messing with naps and night sleep.  Often causing early rising.

2.  Too late bedtime.  Similar to Lack of day sleep, missing your bedtime sleep window also causes a rush of cortisol and its residual affect can cause early rising.

3.   Lack of sleep skills from going to bed too drowsy at bedtime. If you used a sleep crutch at bedtime, like rocking or nursing or holding to sleep, your baby didn't get the practice relaxing their body falling asleep.  She will wake between sleep cycles, that's normal but she will need you to help her fall back to sleep, especially when falling back to sleep is the hardest in the early morning hours.

4.  Lack of skills from being put to bed asleep.  If you hold or rock or nurse your baby to sleep, they are in a different place when she wakes up between sleep cycles and needs you to help her fall back to sleep.  Again, she has insufficient sleep skills.  She may get more cortisol in the night from waking and needing help and by the early morning hours, just can't get back to sleep.

5. Tummy discomfort from food issues.  If your baby had a food sensitivity or is having a negative digestive reaction to a new food, that can often manifest in the early hours when sleep is more difficult.  Have you ever woken from a bad headache or a tummy ache? It's in the early hours that it wakes you over and over again.  At least you can mostly go back to sleep. And as an adult, you likely have pretty good sleep skills. It's a rough time. 

6.   Developmental milestones like crawling and walking. These are major skills that require brain and muscle changes.  When your baby is working on a new skill, they want to practice this new skill when they wake up between sleep cycles. It's a very exciting time.  The sooner she masters the skill, the sooner her sleep can get back on track.

  

Tracy Spackman is a Certified Gentle Sleep Coach.  

Call her if you need sleep help.

www.GetQuietNights.com

602-524-7610