Sleep regression
Also called the 4-month regression, 4-month sleep regression
A sleep regression is a few weeks when a baby who was sleeping well starts waking more often. It's a name parents and sleep consultants use, not a medical one.
How it's said
I thought we had missed the regression but at 4 months 3 weeks it hit with a vengeance and we are now 4 weeks in!
...the four-month regression is brutal for some babies and they need more help than others to get through it.
The good news for anyone experiencing the "four-month sleep regression" is that it's not, in fact, a regression at all.
Is there an 18-month sleep regression, or did I do something bad in a past life?
...how are we meant to be navigating sleep regressions?
Who says it
Not to be confused with
- A leap comes from The Wonder Weeks and names a fussy few days tied to a jump in development. Parents often blame the same bad nights on either, but a sleep regression is only about sleep.
- A growth spurt is a few days of fast growth in length and weight, often with extra hunger. A sleep regression is named for the sleep, not the growing.
Where it came from
Regression means going back to an earlier stage. Parents and some authors borrowed it for the weeks when a baby who slept well starts waking more.
In print the phrase is young. Google's scan of English books finds it only now and then before 2014, then far more often through 2021. By 2020 The New York Times was describing it as what many parenting books and websites call a sleep regression.
The best known comes at about 4 months, the age when, the AAP says, babies start to have regular sleep cycles. Parents often shorten it to "the four-month regression", and sleep sites say it lasts about two to six weeks. Parents name others too, such as one at 18 months.
Some sleep consultants would rather call the 4-month one a progression, since the change in a baby's sleep moves forward, not back.
Cutiko keeps every nap and night in your baby's story, so a rough stretch is easy to look back on. See the baby tracker