South Texas Roots: 4 Month Sleep Regression

I never knew that this even existed! But it does... and the books don't lie... the internet doesn't lie... blogs about sleep don't lie... It STINKS!

Charlotte has never slept through the night. She had progressed however to doing about 4-5 hour stretch right from when we put her down, waking up to nurse and then going back down for another 3-4 hours. I was handling this perfectly. I actually loved it. I was still getting snuggle/nursing time with my baby at night but only waking up one or two times. And then Charlotte turned 4 months...

I think my baby is a textbook baby because every growth spurt she has been BAM right on! So when she turned 4 months her sleeping patterns drastically changed all of a sudden I was wondering.. WHY is she waking up so often. Okay maybe this is a growth spurt? Check! It was! She was waking up so frequently to eat. She's done this before, in a day or two she'll be back to normal. WRONG! It last TWO weeks... and I'm talking waking up every 45 minutes to every hour. I was one exhausted mama. So I started reading books, googling sleep, and that's when I discovered that this was not just a 4 month growth spurt. It was actually the infamous "4 month sleep regression" and my baby had it bad!

Basically what this 4 month sleep regression is, is their sleeping patterns are changing. They are growing rapidly and their little brains are changing the way they sleep. This totally explained what was going on. But, that didn't leave me satisfied because I was still exhausted. I started researching sleep training methods because I truly believed that this was the only solution to helping her sleep better at night and to get herself back to sleep if she wakes up (self soothing).

I bought the No-Cry Sleep Solution, Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child and The Ferber Method. I read them both and decided the best decision for our family was to do The Ferber Method. It is definitely not "Cry-it-Out" but it does lend itself to allowing them to cry but in time intervals of you checking and soothing them.

SOOO we did it! And literally within one night, Charlotte was sleeping longer!! I layed her down after nursing her for the night and she immediately started crying (normally I would rock and rock and rock until she was out cold and then to only have her wake up like one hour later, crazy!) So I went in after 5 minutes of her crying, gave her the paci, rubbed her head, told her I love you and left the room. She continued to fuss and cry for another 10 minutes and then something crazy happened... while watching her on the monitor she stopped crying, started sucking her fingers and then soothed herself to sleep! WOWZA! We did it! She slept 4 hours straight that night and I was in heaven!

Since then she's been doing 5 hours and then another 4 and then another 2-3 hours. We are loving this and we are both finally getting some much needed rest. I think it's safe to say now that we've kicked this "4 month sleep regression" out the window :)

And by the way, Charlotte is still sleeping in her crib wonderfully and we've stopped swaddling. We decided to stop swaddling the first night we sleep trained and we've had bliss ever since.