New Mummy Blog: Am I Ever Going To Sleep Again?

Apparently 'four month sleep regression' is a thing.

I was oblivious to this with baby number one, who was such a terrible sleeper for the first eight months of her life, the four month mark passed much as the third and the fifth did - in a blur. As she didn't seem to believe in naps, or nighttime, there was nothing to regress to.

But baby number two had, until now, been a dream. He got the hang of nighttime versus daytime easily, and quickly settled into a perfectly civilised pattern of six-hour stretches of sleep most nights and waking just once in the early hours. Not bad going for someone who has only been here since Christmas.

Those early days of sleep deprivation and extreme exhaustion that only a newborn can bring had settled into nothing more than a dull tiredness. I could do this.

I'd learnt my lesson the first time, I thought. This time I was doing everything by the book. I introduced a bedtime routine. I tried never to feed him to sleep and instead put him down awake but sleepy. I made sure he napped well in the day, following the golden rules that good nappers make good sleepers and overtiredness is the enemy.

I really thought we'd cracked it.

Not so. Here's what Henry's night was like yesterday: asleep for two hours, awake for one, asleep for 40 minutes, awake for two hours, asleep for 30 minutes, awake for 50, asleep for 25 minutes, awake for 25, asleep for 20 minutes, awake for 30, asleep for an hour and a half - but, as I had to get up with the toddler, this 90 minutes he so generously saved until last was wasted on me.

Maybe it's a growth spurt. Maybe it was the transition to the cot when he outgrew his Moses basket.

Maybe it was because I thought it must be time to stop swaddling him and start putting him in a baby sleeping bag. Maybe it was the introduction of an earlier bedtime instead of keeping him up with us into the evening.

Maybe it's related to his growing awareness of the world or of his mastering of new skills like rolling. Heck, maybe it was the clocks changing. Who knows? All I do know is that sleep is eluding us both.

It's okay for him - he can nap in the day. With a toddler to entertain, that's not going to happen for me.

Unless you count the 20 seconds I can close my eyes and rest my head on the carpet while we're playing Sleep Little Bunnies. The problem is that in the song those pesky bunnies always then get up and jump around. Me failing to do the same simply is not acceptable to my toddler.

And even when Henry does sleep at night, I lie awake waiting, scared to move in case the rustle of the duvet wakes him, trying to telepathically beg the toddler to stay quiet in the room next door, cursing my husband's snoring and wondering why the wind and rain have to pound the window quite so loudly.

And all this for a baby who, up until last week would sleep through hoovering, toddler tantrums, car alarms and the Walking Dead.

You'd think I was raising a tyrant, not a baby. Either way, sleep deprivation is an excellent tactic.

I need a plan, I thought. I can't do much more of this and still be able to function properly. And so I tried to approach it logically, as I would any other problem. But of course babies are more about instinct and less about logic, so this is fruitless for us both. I can't identify the cause, so I don't even know where to start.

And so I turned to my dear friend the Internet to help me out. And that's when the concept of a four month sleep regression raised its ugly head.

Multiple night wakings? Check. Sudden disregard for seemingly established routine? Check. Increased fussiness? Check. Changes in appetite? If this means suddenly ravenous and insatiably so, check.

I don't like this. This sudden change in Henry's sleeping habits has a name. And it sounds much more serious than, say, 'growth spurt' or 'daylight saving'.

What IS The Four Month Sleep Regression?
My understanding of the theory - and this is abbreviated - is that this sleep regression occurs when a baby's sleep cycle matures and they start experiencing the same light to deep stages of sleep as adults do but they don't know how to cope with it.

Up until this point they've only known deep sleep but now when the baby enters into the light, or active, stage of the cycle they can easily wake themselves up. And in a cruel twist of fate this tends to coincide with increased mobility, heightened awareness and a growth spurt, all guaranteed to impact on sleep too.

Gone are the days of the baby being able to sleep anywhere, through anything. Gone are the days of sleeping like a baby.

This commonly happens at the four month mark, so I feel cheated that Henry is only three.

Oh, and best of all? This sleep regression is permanent and will probably require teaching them how to sleep all over again. So much for all the groundwork I did in the first three months, oblivious to this nasty surprise to come.

I don't want to admit it but this sleep regression makes sense when applied to Henry. I can see the likelihood of a good night's sleep tonight disappear in a puff of grumpy, sleep-deprived smoke.

But what can I do? He's too young for me to consider any kind of sleep training. But old enough to know what he's doing. Without fail, each time he wakes he stops crying and starts beaming the second he sees me coming. Yes, he sees me coming alright.

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