It’s 4:00am, and your little monster is up for the fourth time since bedtime. She’s been up multiple times a night for over a week now. You can’t even remember the last time you had a full night’s sleep.
Sounds familiar?
I wrote a few posts last year about sleep regression and babies, overcoming sleep regression… They have since become the most popular posts on CleverFather so it’s safe to assume two things. Sleeping problems are very common, and parents need help!
How tell if your child’s sleeping issue is a habit or sleep regression?
When parents talk about sleep regression they are usually referring to 5 phase that most children go through. During these phases, your child’s sleep routine can be turned upside down. My personal experience and research that most children will go through some sort of sleep regression near the following ages:
- 4 months
- 8 months
- 1 year
- 18 months
- 2 year
Sleep regression’s usually last two to three weeks and has many causes. Some of the more popular causes are teething, developmental milestones, growth spurt, anxiety, and boundary testing.
What’s the difference between sleep regression and poor sleeping habits?
I’d say about two to three weeks. If you have a sudden sleep change, try giving it a couple weeks to see if something reveals itself. There could be a tooth ready to breakthrough, or maybe an illness. If you can’t find a culprit, or there is no end in sight it might be time to intervene. If the change doesn’t go away on its own, it can become a habit that needs to be broken.
You’re tired, and grumpy, and your mind is a fog. Don’t let it cloud your instincts and good judgment. You know your kid better than anyone. Its way too easy to give in and do whatever it takes to just get them to sleep.
Think outside the box and fix the cause, not the symptom!
Good luck!
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I enjoyed this post. I only wish I had discovered in 3 years ago, ok 4 years ago. I have a 6 and 4 year old and only a year ago did we finally get a full nights sleep when my son finally started sleeping through the night.
If you have a magic pill to share on kids fighting, i’m all for it now. Thanks for the post though, it was great reading it and having ah ha moments.
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Haha, thanks for the post idea. Baby 2 isn’t due until January so we don’t have much experience in that department yet!
Interesting – we obviously just went through this at 1 year, but didn’t know what the hell was happening! Actually, I guess it was a few things. One – at a year old, I decided there would simply be no more nursing in the middle of the night. You can guess how well that went over. Two – teething like crazy. Three – too early of a bedtime. For a week, DD was waking up in the middle of the night and crying for 1-2 hours while DH and I took turns trying to console her. Finally, I said enough. We are going to let her cry it out. Now, she is still waking up, but a quick diaper change and sip of water and she is fine. Also, we pushed her bedtime back by one hour to 8pm, which also helped. She didn’t need her infant schedule anymore.