Why is it when people talk about the dreaded sleep regression, they only really talk about issues at 4 months? We sailed through the 4 month regression, and I remember feeling quite thrilled at the time that I seemed to have such a good sleeper. I think Jack woke up a handful of times during the night, then realised he’d rather sleep than cry or be awake. Like his mum, he loved his sleep early on. He couldn’t do much else I guess, so sleep was the best option. I felt rather smug about the fact that my little wonder baby continued to sleep on, right through one of the biggest sleep changes of his life.
Then we hit the 10 month sleep regression. Which no one ever really talks about. One day you have this baby who sleeps like a little angel, and the next he’s up in his cot banging on the bars, screaming his lungs out. Not cool.
For us, the 10 month sleep regression started right when Jack learned to crawl at 9 months. He went from crawling to standing and cruising within a couple of days, and worked out pretty quickly that he could do the same thing in his cot. And that was MUCH more fun than sleeping. This also co-incided with the end of Daylight Savings, which was really just the icing on the cake. Bedtimes and nap times were completely out of whack, and we had a baby who would rather test out all his cool new skills than sleep.
Almost overnight he went from sleeping through the night to waking multiple times during the night. It was usually because he had been ‘exploring’ and gotten stuck and couldn’t roll over, or he was standing up and couldn’t get back down. I swear those two or so weeks when a baby learns they can stand but can’t get down are two of the most challenging. One night I went in 15+ times to put him back down, and by the end he was just about asleep standing up. I made a point of not talking to him or even looking at him when I went in, I’d just go in, pick up him calmly and lie him back down. The dummy was a lifesaver at this point, as was our Gobstopper blankie as it made it so much easier to find everything in the dark. I’d then leave the room, sometimes he’d go right back to standing again so we’d repeat the process over and over. Sometimes he’d have a grizzle and I’d just leave him and he’d finally fall asleep.
He was also waking at crazy times of the morning. 5am was common. If he woke up crying we would go in and calmly resettle him in the dark, until he went back to sleep (which sometimes he didn’t and he’d be up for the day around 5.30am). If he wasn’t crying we would just leave him and eventually he would just go back to sleep himself. This happened for about a month. We refused to get him up before 6.30am (unless he was really, really upset), and kept him to his normal routine.
Before all of the sleep regression started, he was on a great routine, so we didn’t want to mess with this as it would be harder to get him back into it. After a bit of trial and error, we also changed up his bedtime a bit, going from a 6.30pm bedtime until a 7pm bedtime. This made a huge difference, and helped him sleep later in the morning.
Like all times in a babies life, this passed by and I survived (with a little help from coffee). Without sounding all-righteous or selfish, I find it really hard when Jack doesn’t sleep as he has always just been such a good sleeper, so blips like this are actually really tough going for me as I like my sleep, and I don’t go back to sleep easily once woken. Keeping to the routine and, after a bit of trial and error, changing up the bedtime made a massive difference and settled Jack back down. By 10 &1/2 weeks he was back to sleeping right through and waking anywhere between 6.45am-7.45am.
Tips for surviving a sleep regression
Here’s a few things that I think made it easier to get through, obviously this is just my opinion and were things that I found helpful to get through this phase.
- Remember it is just a phase. Just as quick as it started, it will be over. Your baby is not going to wake every hour for the rest of your life, I promise.
- Keep to the routine. If your baby is in a routine, don’t change it, just keep doing the same things at roughly the same times. Changing anything now will make it so much harder to get back into routine at a later stage.
- If your baby isn’t in a routine, now’s a good time to start one.
- Don’t introduce anything you don’t want to continue with. It’s not a good time to start rocking your baby to sleep or giving a dummy if this isn’t something that they’ve had before. It will just introduce something else to have to change at a later stage.
- Make sure you give your baby lots of cuddles and reassurance, it’s a tough time for them too as they are going though such a big adjustment.
- Make sure you look after yourself and partner too. Try napping when baby naps, or one gets up during the night and one in the morning, night on night off, whatever you have to do to ensure you are both getting some sleep.
- During the night keep things calm and quiet. Don’t play with or talk to baby, so this reinforces that it’s time for sleep not time to play.
How did you find the sleep regression? Let me know below!
