Now it’s far behind the whole three months of constant and continuous struggle with gazikov and colic, who did not want to leave the baby. Finally, the time has come when the baby can sleep without jerking its legs and crying. But ... He requires a constant, every minute mother's presence, he does not sleep without her. It only calms down when it receives mom's milk. It remains only to congratulate the parents, because their pet is growing up, and all this is nothing but sleep regression at four months of age.
Faced with the inevitable
In the life of each baby and his parents, there come periods when the behavior of the little one is very sharp and, it would seem, randomly changes. His dream is rather messy, and the baby itself is restless. And in this case, adults can not understand: the baby’s behavior is the reason for his poor sleep or its consequence.
Parents are in despair due to the fact that all the previously established rules: stability, schedule, orderly actions - do not work. They can’t understand what happened to their child, why from a smiling and cheerful little one became moody and completely intractable.
If the child has already been examined by a doctor who excluded the common cold, teething in the active stage, an ear infection and the like, most likely this sleep regression. Some time ago, Danish scientists conducted numerous studies. Their result was the following information: sleep regression in the child, that is, his bursts, occur in certain weeks: 5, 8, 12, 19, 26, 37, 46 and 55th. The most striking regressions occur at six weeks, 4 and 6 months.
What can be observed in this difficult period?
Regression of sleep in infants is expressed in the following:
- The baby needs much more care, additional feeding, and now it takes a longer time to put him to bed.
- The baby may be disturbed by sleep: he constantly wakes up and most often - in a bad mood.
- During this time period, children are usually more capricious and tame: the only possible option to put them to bed is the presence of her mother, her smell, hugs and warmth. If mom and baby sleep together, you should not wean the baby from this just when it comes sleep regression at 4 months.
Following these simple rules, you can at least slightly alleviate the situation.
Characteristic signs
A four-month-old baby is an ideal candidate to test his mentioned crisis. Often parents say that putting him to bed at this age is much more difficult than when he was younger. Now the whole procedure can take at least thirty minutes.
Now the peanut itself can refuse to sleep, he needs his mother's breast every minute. During this period, the number of attachments to the chest at night increases significantly (the figure can reach 10-15 times).
All this is a characteristic manifestation of a four-month-old baby's regression of sleep. But what will be the duration of such a crisis will depend on the physiology of the baby and the endurance of the parents. Because it is Mom and Dad who are obliged to help the baby to normalize his sleep - night and day.
Oh these development leaps
The developmental stages of the baby can be emotional, physical and neurological. For example, when the 26th week is on, the kids, according to the descriptions of psychologists, begin to perceive distances. Now, when mom comes to the peanut or, on the contrary, moves away from him, he understands this and begins to react. When mom approaches, the child rejoices. When he moves away, he is indignant at the fact that he begins to be afraid, he becomes scared.
If the baby is more sensitive, the jump in development will be more pronounced. This is expressed in a huge attachment to mom and the child’s absolute unwillingness to be without her.
What causes this regression?
Sleep regression at 4 months in babies begins due to the fact that the little ones now recognize people they know, are interested in the world around them, and slowly begin to turn over. Tiny and happy to fall asleep, but such a huge flow of incoming information does not give him the opportunity to relax and "turn off" his brain for a good rest. That is why it is difficult to fall asleep.
So that mom could understand that this temporary crisis, called sleep regression, has already left the baby, you need to monitor the baby, doubling and tripling its attention. True, exhausted parents are not always capable of this. Then a diary will come to the rescue, in which they will write down the daily routine in detail. One fine day, you can find that finally the baby does not need a lot of time to fall asleep, and he himself is not as capricious as before.
We are growing!
By six months, the kids again become more mobile. They learn to crawl, sit down ... And all this requires hard work of the brain of the child. And during this period, sleep regression begins at 6 months. What to do with it?
Some time after the first comes the time of the second. And again, the baby does not want to sleep, and if he falls asleep, his sleep is restless and short-lived.
We can say that this period is complete if its duration is more than two weeks. Regression can occur very sharply when painful sensations from cutting teeth or fear of parting with mom are added to the general condition of the baby.
One of the main characteristic features of the onset of regression is the transition from three times a day to two nights sleep. In general, the signs in this case are the same as in the previous one.
You can survive this difficult period using the following measures:
parents should remember that all this is only temporary, so do not be angry with the baby, you should just observe quiet rituals in the evenings;
during the day, give the baby the opportunity to move and train more: firstly, so the baby will practice with new skills, and secondly, he will get tired and sleep at night;
to put a toddler to bed not by the clock, but by his tiredness;
do not create new "bad habits" - motion sickness, nipple, and the like;
if before the regression the baby already fell asleep on his own, but now he doesn’t succeed, let mom support him, sit by the bed until he falls asleep.
These simple rules will help the baby survive the difficult period for him.
Sleep regression per year should not be as sharp as the previous ones. The kid is already almost independent, he knows how to crawl, walk and even run a lot. In any case, the duration of all regressions is from two to six weeks. And then the dream becomes better again.
Special ritual of falling asleep
At home, you need to work out the same schedule of certain actions before bedtime. For example, the procedure might be:
- to redeem the baby;
- change into the clothes in which the little one will sleep;
- feed him;
- the baby falls asleep.
Mom can sing to the peanut lullabies, stroke it while falling asleep. If the family does not practice a separate falling asleep from the mother, most likely, he will fall asleep with the chest. In this situation, the latter will be an undeniable plus.
Sleep with mom
It should be noted that those mothers who practice joint sleep with the baby may not notice the regression of the child’s sleep. The baby always feels that his mother is nearby, so he feels more comfortable and not afraid. As soon as the baby wakes up, the mother can immediately gently stroke it, soothe it or offer a breast.
But during the day some problems may arise. This is due to the fact that the child gets used to the fact that mommy is nearby. Therefore, laying him in the daylight, it is better to stay with him for about twenty minutes, because this is exactly the duration of the phase of superficial sleep. When the baby falls asleep stronger, mom can go about her business.
Try to overcome the sleep crisis
The main rule to overcome the crisis is a very simple rule: you just need to forget about everything that was and how it was before. The baby is changing, therefore, the usual rituals are changing.
We make the adjustment of the daily regime. Crumbs under three months of age usually sleep most of the day. But after four months, everything changes a little. From this moment, each wakefulness lasts about two hours, and during the day the baby is sleeping four times.
During the regression, it is far from always possible to put the baby to sleep without tears and without tantrums. Mom needs to act very carefully and try not to miss the moment when the baby is completely ready for bed: he calms down, rubs his eyes, fits on his mother’s shoulder.
A night's sleep, while the baby has a difficult period (sleep regression), should begin no later than seven to eight hours in the evening. After all, falling asleep precisely in this time period is very useful for the baby.
We are having a hard time together
The duration of a growth spurt (correspondingly, the regression of sleep in a child also lasts) is strictly individual. There is no one term for all, as well as one recipe for cure. Tentatively - one week. Some experts suggest that this condition may last about half a month or a little longer.
Be that as it may, parents should not be scared and panicked. After all, this is not a disease. It’s just another burst of growth for their baby, and for any child this is absolutely normal. In this difficult period for the peanut, one must try not to create stressful situations, new acquaintances, sudden trips. We need to surround him with even more concern. The pendulum in the crib or the slow walking of the mother in the apartment with the baby in her arms will render quite real help - to calm him. Such simple actions can at least slightly resolve the current situation.
As soon as the four-month-old baby begins to exit the regression, the mother should gradually negate all the supporting procedures that she began to apply during this period. Thus, the baby will not have habits that will further interfere with self-falling asleep.
And one more thing: despite the fact that sleep disorder in children under one year of age is a very common occurrence, one should not be given the opportunity to jump in growth to cross out the established schedule after the jump ends.