I've found that when I talk to other parents and ask them when their precious one started sleeping through the night, I will get a vast range of answers. Some lucky souls had babies who started sleeping in 5hr stretches at 5 weeks of age. Others lament that their darling had trouble sleeping right into toddlerhood.
My daughter was a strange one. Initially she would only sleep for a maximum of 3 hours at a time in her bassinet, but if she was co-sleeping with me in my bed she would sleep 6 hours overnight. As she got older we gently nudged her out of our bed and into her own full-time. And that was ok, she still wasn't the greatest napper, but she would sleep for 2-3 hours at a stretch, particularly if she had a good feed beforehand. And overnight she eventually stretched to 8-9 hours. Which was awesome.
Then we hit 4 months of age and EVERYTHING seemed to go to hell in a hand-basket. All of a sudden, my little angel who had been such a good sleeper started refusing to go down for naps, crying the moment I popped her into her bassinet. And she started wanting night feeds again, at precisely 4am. Which led to a very tired, very frustrated mummy because she was hell to get back down after that feed. And then still wanting to get up at 7am.
So after finding myself at the very end of my rope, with fatigue causing me to start resenting this beautiful baby girl of mine, I started trawling the internet for possible explanations and solutions for this latest development.
And from what I could garner from medical and pediatric sites was that my daughter had hit the dreaded 4 month sleep regression. This was where she no longer fell asleep as easily as she used to because her sleep now has more distinct stages reminiscent of adult sleep. And because she was used to being near me to fall asleep, it meant when she woke up, she was looking for me to help her get back to sleep again and when she couldn't, she'd wake up fully. Plus to compound this, she also started teething so she wasn't a very happy camper when she was awake.
The teething eventually settled down, but the sleeping got worse, to the point where she wouldn't stay down for more than 20mins. Which of course led to her being grizzly and overtired by the end of the night. And of course the cycle would just continue again the next day, with there being absolutely nothing I could do about it. Or so it seemed.
Reading blog articles by other mums, I eventually happened across the Sleep Sense Program by Dana Obleman. And what it is, is a series of techniques that you can use to 'sleep train' your child. And by sleep train, they mean teaching your child that sleep is a safe and wonderful thing, as well as giving them the tools they need to be able to settle themselves in the instance when they wake during the night.
The biggest thing for me was establishing a bedtime routine. Up until that point I had been waiting until my lovely daughter had been showing tired signs and then trying to get her to go to bed. But her biggest problem with that method was that she had no real way of differentiating this end of day sleep with any other nap. So she'd wake up 2 or 3 hours later. I put together a simple routine that involved a bath, getting into pajamas and then a bottle, followed by being put down in her big cot (instead of in the bassinet). The reason I started using the cot was because I wanted to create an association between it and sleep, the theory being that once that association was established, it would be easier to get her to nap in there as well. I also introduced a new sleep prop - a blankie - to replace me.
The first three nights were hard. I had to sit in the room and wait for her to fall asleep, softly reassuring her if she cried. It wasn't a cry-it-out method by any stretch of the imagination because I was sitting there listening to her cry. And for the most part, it was really just grizzling, on the couple of occasions where she got really upset, I would pick her up and cuddle her, reassuring her that she was safe and loved, before putting her back down to try again. And eventually she would sleep. For 6-7 hours, instead of 2-3.
On the 4th night, I popped her down in the cot, handed her her blankie and she immediately rolled onto her side, snuggled into it and closed her eyes. She didn't even so much as grizzle. And within minutes she was sound asleep. I've been following this routine ever since and now she starts rubbing her eyes the moment she gets in the bath. Bedtime varies depending on how well she naps during the day and when her last nap is. If she's napped well her bedtime is between 6-7pm. If she hasn't napped well I bring her bedtime forward to between 5-6pm. And it seems to have worked. She's even started dropping the 4am feeds (hallelujah!) and sleeps right through till about 7am. Yes, occasionally she'll wake up and grizzle a bit but I've learned to leave her for about 10 minutes and usually within 5 minutes or so she'll have put herself back to sleep. She'll only keep grizzling if she's REALLY awake and REALLY hungry. In which case I get up, give her a bottle and then pop her back to bed. And once again she'll go straight back to sleep until 7am.
So I guess I'm just really fortunate because I found something that works for my daughter. She obviously likes having the consistency and predictability of her bedtime routine because she knows that bath is followed by getting into her pj's and then a bottle. And then bed. Leaving me precious time in the evening to catch up on other things. Like writing. And video games.
Hey we all need a hobby.
