Sleep Regression

Have you heard of it? I didn't really until a week ago when Sofia started waking up a few times in the middle of the night with her piercing cries, would scream right before her naptimes and only manage 30 mins catnaps. I started to wonder if this was ever going to end so one morning at 4am, I googled, baby sleeping 4 months and results pointed me to sleep regression in babies. After talking to a few moms, it turns out this is a very normal occurance, that some babies from the age of 4-6 months could regress from their normal sleep patterns. I did not know this. It is caused from the continual rapid development in the brain and the baby processing all the new skills and absorbing in all the new sights and sounds surrounding them.

We went from a good 7-8 hours of solid, uninterrupted sleep to being woken up to screaming cries a few times in the wee hours between 3-4am. One of us would go to her crib and shshh her or turn on the aquarium music and she would go right back to sleep. In fact, I don't think she is even awake; it is more like she is having nightmares in her sleep. After a few of these wake-ups, I would have a terrible time falling back asleep again urgh! Then her naps would regress and she would put up such a fuss with going down for a nap. I had to leave her crying as me being next to her crib did not help with the crying and I was getting a headache hearing her cry. I found it draining and sad to have to hear her cry from the other room. I would really prefer to be right next to her crib to sooth her with lullabyes and kisses which worked before but not last week. So the only alternative is to leave her to cry. Lucky for me, it usually didn't take her too long to tire out and fall asleep. Unfortunately, the nap didn't last long so I didn't get much down time to relax or get any housework done.

It LOOKS like there is some improvements with her sleeping this week so far. She's still waking up crying but usually before we are in bed and we haven't been woken up from her cries in the middle of the night! It is still slightly challenging to put her down for a nap but yesterday she had a 2.5 hour nap which was great. Perhaps she is making her way back to the days of easy breezy sleeping? I'm not holding my breath on this one and just take whatever sleep and free time I can get. The one thing I did learn is anything is possible with babies, just because they are good sleepers to begin with doesn't mean they will stay that way.