Adjusting from being pregnant, to the newborn stage is hard. For me, towards the end of the pregnancy I barely slept anyway due to not being able to get comfortable and from being in pain in my pelvis. So when Carter was born and he was waking every 3 hours, it was hard but not that hard. At around 3 months he started to sleep through, from 10 until 6/7 which was heaven.

I obviously took this for granted, as apparently there is this thing called sleep regression that nobody tells you about!!

From around 7 months, my little angel has been waking through the night for no particular reason. At first it was literally every hour, he would moan or cry then laugh as soon as I came in. Now he wakes up maybe twice in the night, sometimes for a bottle sometimes for a cuddle.

For me, this is harder than the newborn sleep stage as at least with that you kind of knew what time you’d be awake, now it’s hit and miss. Sometimes I can be awake every hour, sometimes only 2/3 times.

The midwife don’t tell you this when you’re pregnant so prepare yourself! If you’ve got a baby who’s currently sleeping through, enjoy it while you can…it won’t last!

For those of you who don’t know; like I didn’t. Sleep regression occurs in babies at any point and normally lasts up to 6 weeks at a time, it means your baby is more fussy; doesn’t want to sleep, keeps waking up. This is normally in their first year as it’s when their brains develop and they start to learn new things, for example carters started when he started to roll over and sit up, so now he’s constantly standing up and wanting to walk, his brain is on overdrive!

I’ve googled constantly “how to stop sleep regression” “how to get my 9 month old to sleep through” and what I’ve found is what I already do!

1. Establish a bedtime (carters is around 7pm, but I wake him at 10 for a bottle)
2. Teach your baby to self soothe (you can still check on them just don’t make it play time, let them know it’s still bedtime)
3. Start weaning the night feeds. (Carter only has 3 bottles a day, 2 in the morning and 1 and 10pm, but lately he’s started to want a bottle in the night, so I’m wondering if he’s becoming used to this and that’s another reason he’s waking up, so I may try giving him warm water so it’s not worth him waking up…)
4. Day time naps (carter has 2 naps, a long with falling asleep whenever I’m in the car, his naps vary from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, I’m considering shortening his naps or waking him up at 45 minutes so it may help when he’s in bed)
5. Be patient…it’s hard, when it’s 3am they’ve been crying for what feels like forever, you feel like you’re going to cry or have a melt down, they can sense it! I’ve noticed when I get stressed it makes carter worse, so being patient really does help.

Good luck on your sleep regression guys, you’ll need it!