Worried About The 4 Month Sleep "Regression"? Read Here and Literally Rest Assured You Will Sleep Again!

As a pediatric sleep consultant, I hear the term “regression” used often to just about every circumstance that comes up with small children. Essentially, if baby doesn’t sleep well for a couple of nights, parents start thinking they are in the middle of a regression.

Some parents subscribe to the idea there’s an 8 month regression, a 9 month regression, and a 1 year regression. As well as teething regressions, growth spurt regressions, and so on. Others see these as simple hiccups caused by a child's natural development. But the four-month regression there is really no denying, and for good reason. It’s the real deal, and it’s really the only "regression" I count. So in order to understand what’s happening to your baby's sleep around 3 to 5 months of age, first you need to know a few things about sleep in general. So here’s the science behind the 4 month regression.

Many parents think of sleep as an on-or-off situation. You’re either asleep or you’re not. But sleep has multiple stages, and they make up the “sleep cycle,” which we go through several times a night.

Stages Of Sleep

• Stage 1 is that initial stage where you can just feel yourself drifting off, but don’t really feel like you’ve fallen asleep. Anyone who has ever seen their partner nodding off in front of the TV, told them to go to bed, and heard “I wasn’t sleeping!” knows exactly what this looks like.
• Stage 2, which is considered the first “true sleep” stage. This is where people tend to realize, once woken up, that they actually were sleeping. For anyone taking a “power nap,” this is as deep as you want to go. Any deeper and you’re going to wake up groggy and feeling way worse than before you took the nap.

• Stage 3 is deep and regenerative. Also known as “slow wave” sleep, this is where the body starts repairing and rejuvenating the immune system, muscles tissue, energy stores, and sparks growth and development.
• Stage 4 is REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. This is where the brain starts to kick in and consolidates information and memories from the day before. It’s also the stage where we do most of our dreaming.

Once we’ve gone through all of the stages, we either wake up or come close to waking up, and then start over again until we are woken up. So what does this have to do with the dreaded 4 month regression?

Navigating the 4 Month Sleep Regression

Well, newborn babies only have 2 stages of sleep; stage 3 and REM, and they spend about half their sleep in each stage. But at around the third or fourth month, there is a reorganization of sleep, as they switch to the 4-stage method of sleep that they’ll continue to follow for the rest of their lives. When this change takes place, baby moves from 50% REM sleep to 25% in order to make room for those first two stages. So although REM sleep is light, it’s not as light as these 2 new stages that they’re getting used to. With more time spent in lighter sleep, there’s more of a chance that your baby is going to wake up.

That’s not to say that we want to prevent or avoid a baby waking up. Waking up is absolutely natural, and we continue to wake up three, four, five times a night into adulthood and even more in old age. Think about your own sleep, how often do you wake up to fluff the pillow or pull the blanket off your spouse? As adults, however, we’re able to know exactly how to get ourselves back to sleep. When we wake in the night, we’re able to recognize that, “Hey, I’m here in my bed, it’s still nighttime, my alarm isn’t going to go off. I can go back to sleep” And we do.

Usually so quickly that, the next morning many don’t even remember those brief wakings. A four month old baby, of course, lacks these thinking skills. To a four month old baby who fell asleep at her mother’s breast, the reasoning looks more like, “OK, last thing I remember, there was a familiar, loving face, I was having dinner, and someone was singing me a soothing song. Now I’m alone in this dark room, there’s no food, and I'm not sure how I got into this crib.”

That’s probably an exaggeration, but who knows what goes on in the mind of a four month-old baby? Anyways, now that your baby has suddenly realized that Momma’s not around, and they’re not entirely sure where you have gone, the natural response is to freak out. That stimulates the fight-or-flight response and, next thing you know, baby’s not going back to sleep without a lot of reassurance that everything is OK.

Sleep Association Downfalls

The other major contributor to this 4 month regression, I find, is that up until this point, parents have either been putting their baby to sleep with a pacifier, or by rocking them, or by breastfeeding them, or some similar technique where baby is helped along on the road to falling asleep. Now that baby’s spending more time in light sleep, and therefore has a higher probability of waking up, this suddenly becomes a much bigger issue.

These sleep props or sleep associations can become a bit of a downfall. Although they may be helpful in getting your little one to that initial nodding off stage, the lack of them when they wake up means that baby’s not able to get back to sleep again without some outside help. Cue the fight-or-flight, the crying, and the adrenaline. When this starts happening every half an hour, parents can find themselves in a nightmare where no one is sleeping.

So, the good news for anyone experiencing the dreaded Four Month Sleep Regression is that it’s not, in fact, a regression at all. A regression is defined as “reversion to an earlier mental or behavioral level,” and that’s actually the opposite of what your baby is experiencing. Typically I like to call it the “Four Month Sleep Progression”, as it really is a positive developmental step in your child's development.

So, onto the big question.

What can I do to help my little one adjust?

Darkness

First off, made the room where your baby sleeps as dark as possible. You might think that baby’s room is dark enough, or that baby might not like the dark. Or it’s comforting to have a little bit of light coming through the windows or seeping in from the hallway. But it's actually the opposite! Baby’s room should be dark. Like really really dark! Tape garbage bags over the windows if you have to, or cover them with tinfoil. No one on HGTV is going to recommend that because it doesn't look the prettiest, but it works wonders! Newborns and infants are not afraid of the dark. They are, however, responsive to light. Light tells their brains that it’s time for activity and alertness. The brain secretes hormones accordingly, so we want to keep that nursery absolutely pitch black during naps and bedtime.

White Noise

The other thing that prohibits daytime sleep, (and nighttime in some occasions) is noise. Whether its a ringing doorbell, the dog barking, or something falling on the floor three rooms away. With your baby spending more time in lighter sleep, noises will startle them more easily and wake them up, so a white noise machine is a great addition to your nursery. And yes, it's a sleep prop, but not a bad one! It doesn’t require any winding, resetting, reinserting, or parental presence. It’s just there and it can be on as long as baby’s sleeping, so it’s not a prop we need to avoid.

Routines

Bedtime routines are also an essential component to getting your baby sleeping well. Try to keep the routine to about 4 or 5 steps, and don’t end it with a feed. Otherwise, you risk having your baby nodding off at the breast or the bottle. This will in turn make it harder for them to remain asleep once they cycle to a light stage. So try to keep the feed near the beginning of the routine and plan the songs, stories, and getting into PJs towards the end.

The whole process should be 20-30 minutes long, and your baby should go into their crib while they’re still awake. If you’re noticing your baby getting fussy before bedtime, you’ve probably waited too long. Four month old babies should really only be going about two hours between sleep situations. Bedtime should be between 7 and 8 at night depending on their morning wake time.

Expect Regressions and Changes

There are going to be regressions as your little one grows. Traveling, illness, cutting teeth; all of these things can cause your little one to have a few bad nights in a row. But when it comes to the four month “progression,” I can say that this is a one-time thing. Once you’re through this, your baby will be in the sleep cycle they’ll be following the rest of their life.  And by taking this opportunity to teach them the skills they need to string those sleep cycles together, independently, prop-free, without any need for nursing, rocking, or pacifiers, you’ll have given them a gift that they’ll enjoy for the rest of their lives.

Of course, some kids are going to easily be able to transition from 2 to 4 stages of sleep. But keep in mind, some are going to be a little more resistant. If your journey through this transition is easy, then certainly consider yourself lucky. Or pat yourself on the back for already instilling independent sleep skills into your little one.

Want to Chat with Baby O and I?

For those of you having a rougher time, I’m happy to help in any way I can. Just visit my website to schedule a call and we can work on a more personalized program for your little one. The most common thing I hear after working with clients is, “I can’t believe I waited so long to get some help!” So if you’re considering hiring a consultant, now is absolutely the time. I offer a free 15 minute evaluation so I can get to know the specifics about your little one’s situation. Book a call now and we can get your little one sleeping through the night!