Advice from people who have gotten through sleep regression?

kaitlynn_k

so far all I have found is commiserating on here. My daughter just started this. She has been sleeping 10-11 hours straight since 2.5 months with no training except a general eat play sleep routine. EBF. Now no naps longer than 30 min and up about every two hours to play at night. No food, just can't stay asleep. Do we start with a sleep training regimen now or wait until it passes and continue to go in and hold her over and over? How long did it last? Really nervous over here because my husband is facing med school finals and really needs to pass so I feel like I need to do everything. I'm so worried about it I can't get back to sleep at night.

courtneylevesque

I never tried to sleep train my DS Because he was always such a good sleeper, sleep regression reared its ugly head and I was dying. I was so used to sleeping 6-8 hour stretches that waking up every 1-2 hours was driving me batty. I didn't do much though as from everything I was told by other moms was that it'll pass eventually. I think my boy lasted two weeks before he went back to normal

justkeeptrying

After 2 weeks of DS taking 20 minute naps and waking every 40 minutes at night, we did sleep training. I know it's a controversial topic but it has worked great for us. You have to do what's right for your family. But if you do sleep train, please do some reading/research before you begin. Don't go in blind.

nolababybaby

My daughter did the exact same thing you described. After a month of waking every 1-2 hours at night, I gave in and did sleep training. She's been sleeping from 7-5:30 since the first night and usually only wakes up once around 8:15 and cries for a few minutes. I was totally against CIO, but I felt like I was dying from sleep deprivation. The training wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

shelley423russ

I'm curious what sleep training methods everyone are using

alliebsmith

The only sleep training I've done so far with my LO was to establish a routine and develop good sleep habits. Since she was born she's slept in her crib in her own room. She had her days and nights confused when she was born so I had to teach her to reverse those and my "sleep training" came from that as a natural progression. Since she was probably 10 weeks I began putting her down in her crib wide awake, tired but awake, around 6/6:15pm. She is not a great napper during the day so this early bedtime works best for us. I give her her last bottle between 5-5:30pm and then we play til around 6pm. We go upstairs and change into her overnight diaper and pajamas. Then she is swaddled and goes in her crib with her pacifier and white noise machine. I sing her a song and rub her forehead and she goes down. After about 10 mins of her being asleep I take the pacifier out and she's good for the night. She does not wake for nighttime feeds, I was able to eliminate those by boosting her "dinner" bottle at 5pm. She will occasionally wake up in the middle of the night but she is able to put herself back to sleep on her own and she wakes for the day around 5/5:30am which is when she eats again.

This routine helps her so much because as soon as we get her pajamas on and she goes in the swaddle her eyes get heavy, her body relaxes, and when I start singing our song she turns her head to the side and closes her eyes. Recently she has attempted to "hum" along with me which adds a hilarious component to the routine.

Good luck!! Whatever you decide, be consistent! With any method, there's gonna be "off" nights. The key is consistency so your LO knows what's coming next and can anticipate it.

OlgaN15

With naps, we just had to wait it out a bit. He was a terrible napper! Making his room darker helped quite a bit though.
Overnight, if he wasn't hungry, but just awake in bed, we'd leave him alone. He fell asleep in a bit again on his own. We didn't even go into his room. He started to fall asleep on his own more quickly after that (at night) as well.
I hope all goes well! You can do it!

Oh, and we're still working on sleep training, but something that we've added to the routine is a music box. We play it whenever we put him down so he knows it's time to sleep.

kaitlynn_k

Thank you everyone. I really appreciate it!

Curlygirl84

We had a solid 6 weeks of regression. I hope it isn't nearly as long for you! We just did what we had to to get through (cosleep, revert to swaddling etc) while still focusing on a good bedtime routine. Now we're focusing again on crib sleeping and other sleep habits.

dibbleadabble

I'm probably going to jinx myself, but I think we're finally through the regression! Baby was waking up every few hours, not out if hunger (although sometimes it was definitely a hungry cry) but it was more if just waking up and babbling. What we did was walk over to him, and just give him his pacifier again. I'd make shushing sounds, and he'd calm himself to sleep again. Granted, I had to do this multiple times a night! But it worked. No picking him up, just letting him get himself back to sleep. We're a few days into him sleeping through the night again.

JazzJustJazz

A bath and a 6oz bottle does it for my little guy. We'll play for a little while but once he gets cranky I'll rock him to sleep and he's out all night (8p-6a)