Zombies and Baby Farts –

Our Battle with the 4 Month Sleep Regression

4 months and 10 days!

We had 4 months and 10 days of (relatively) restful sleep before our little angel baby decided to go demonic on us on a nightly basis!  Sure, Kinley had always been dealing with night waking (waking up periodically in the night for seemingly no good reason) but prior to this time she did little more than fuss and whimper to herself for a few minutes until one of us (Ellen) popped her pacifier back in her mouth.  This time it was completely different.  WAILING!  And I mean wailing in the most forceful sense of the word.  Imminent doom, Freddy Krueger meets Pennywise, “if this is going to be my last breath Im going to be sure its heard by the whole world!” type wailing. 

Night after night she would wake, seemingly on the hour, shrieking and nearly inconsolable.  Each bout would leave my wife and I quaking under the sheets terrified to move or breath or, heaven forbid, snore, as it might wake the 14 lbs monster in the crib next to us.  Our eyes began to sink deeper into our skulls and the color melt from our faces.  We were slowly devolving into high functioning zombies.

We had entered into the 4 month sleep regression.  Lord Help Us. 

In our desperation we began searching for answers.  There is no way we were the only ones to deal with this problem.  Our baby went from sleeping superstar to princess and the pea. 

I had convinced myself that there was one of two things gone terribly awry. Either something horrible was happening to my baby and nothing short of surgery or an exorcist would cure this child.  Or, Ellen and I were somehow causing irreparable damage to our innocent babe and she would be scarred for life.

Fortunately it wasn’t either of those cases.

The 4 Month Sleep Regression

After struggling through work days and venting to my fellow therapists, finally a coworker simply mentioned “Oh, probably she is entering into the 4 month sleep regression.”  Casual as that.  I was flabbergasted. 

The 4 month sleep regression is (thankfully) a very common period in a child’s life.  As a newborn a child enters deep sleep almost instantaneously.  This is why it is so easy to move babies out of a car seat and into a crib without them ever waking.  Over time however their brain matures and so do their sleep patterns. 

A normal healthy adult sleeps in roughly 90 minute cycles, alternating between REM (rapid eye movement) and NREM (non-REM) cycles.   (A great resource on sleep cycles for adults is found HERE) NREM makes up the majority of the sleep cycle, with REM only accounting for about 20-25% of total sleep.  Unfortunately, until the individual descends into the later stages of sleep they are more easily awakened by outside stimuli. 

As a child begins to mature in their sleep patterns they too cycle into and out of deeper stages of sleep.  However, being novices at this whole sleep thing they often are unable to stay asleep between phases.  Waking suddenly, startle reflex still intact, their little brains are catapulted into panic mode and chaos ensues. 

So what did we do about it?

To begin answering this question I will briefly give you a quick lesson in baby sleep.

Babies apparently need a lot of sleep…. like, a lot.  16hrs a day cumulative sleep.  Counterintuitively, if a baby becomes over-tired they are less likely to sleep as soundly or for as much time as needed.

Next, babies are just like grownups, they build mental associations around the objects in their world.  Just as my obese patient once told me, when she sees pizza she thinks “job well done,” a baby makes associations with the activities and items that surround sleep.  Often they rely on pacifiers or a specific blanket to sleep.  In more difficult cases they require rocking or bouncing to fall asleep, placing a heavy burden on exhausted parents.

Finally, babies are dumb.  They do not understand hunger, how the light can be turned on or off, or what a normal digestive system should do or sound like.

Our first course of action was to address Kinley’s internal biome.  A fancy way of saying she was eating, pooping, and peeing appropriately.  Constipation is surprisingly a common struggle for infants as well and it turns out that good ol’ fashioned prune juice works as well with babies as it does granny.  Gassiness or Colic are tremendously challenging to overcome as new parents.  For our baby we were noticing a direct correlation between bottle feeding and gassiness.  Reduce bottle feeds and begin supplementing some Gripe Water or Gas Drops.  We also began playing with Kinley’s feet and holding her in positions that would induce, um… toots. (When they come from a baby so small they are too cute to be called anything else.)

This provided us with some benefit.  She was slightly happier during the day, but little change was made in her night time tantrums.

The most effective intervention made was that we began putting her down for naps more frequently and/or longer.  One mistake we had been making was that when she would wake from a nap after 30min or so we would make the assumption that she was fully rested.  Wrong.  In our new method we would take a few minutes soothing her in hopes that she would drift back off to La La Land.  Surprisingly, it worked!  Nap times grew from 30-40min to 60-90 or even longer! (Most of the time)

Between these two interventions we have seen a marked improvement in her sleep quality.  She still has some rough nights, but the frequency has greatly reduced and even some of her usual night wakings have dwindled.  Last night she woke only one time for a feeding (instead of 5 times and 2 feedings) and snoozed for nearly an entire 12hrs she was in her crib.

For those of you keeping score, no we have not made adjustments to her sleep associations at this point.  We are considering it but from what we have read, doing so in the middle of a rough sleeping patch is ill advised. 

Hopefully things continue to improve.  Fortunately my work at the nursing home can be performed at any time in the day so there is no such thing as “coming in late.”  We will continue adjusting and continue improving.  Growing as parents and as people as Kinley grows.  After all that is what this whole parenting adventure is about right?

 

Written by: Stephen Stockhausen