Babies go through the 4-month sleep regression. Your fuzzy brain is not fake.

During the first three and a half months of my youngest child's life, he was a magical unicorn among babies: a good sleeper.

Three years ago, her older brother shouted to my husband and me to wake up every 45 minutes during these same months. When that did not happen, we could not believe our good fortune.

At the very beginning, our new baby would get up every two hours, but he would settle in easily – and as the weeks went by, he would start giving us uninterrupted sleep periods of five, six, even seven hours.

Then, about two weeks ago, the wheels came out of the bus.

At first, he added an extra alarm clock by night, then it was two … then chaos. My husband and I, relatively well-rested and functional humans, have become loons. We wished ourselves good luck when we went to bed at night, murmuring how many awakenings we were waiting for. A? Six? And what happened to our old good sleeper?

The Internet told us that we were struggling with what is known as the "Four Month Regression on Sleep."

The horror stories of the four month regression abound online. "This sleep regression is really hell," said one parent, describing an experience quite similar to mine. "Tell me, there is a light at the end of the tunnel!" Said another. (I've counted at least 30 Reddit threads dedicated to the subject.)

There is not much research on why some babies who could sleep for long periods of time suddenly can not. As with many aspects of parenting, the lack of attention on the part of the medical community leaves mothers and fathers with no other recourse than to compare notes on the Internet.

"When you search on Google, it appears absolutely. Parents make it clear that their baby is sleeping better, and all of a sudden, sleep has gone downhill, "said Dr. Shalini Paruthi, co-medical director of the St. Luke Sleep Research and Medicine Center in Chesterfield, Missouri. . "But you know, you're browsing PubMed, newspaper articles and book chapters and trying to find something that specifically says" a four-month regression, "there's not much."

Although this is an obvious resource, pediatricians are not necessarily the best at solving sleep problems. They have so much to do during a four-month check-up: a physical exam, questions about food and how to reach milestones, vaccination. When it comes to sleeping babies, they tend to focus on safety issues.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the medical community has not even agreed on clear parameters to define what constitutes a sleep problem for babies. What a parent or pediatrician considers as an exorbitant number of awakenings could, to another, simply seem to be part of the contract with the infants.

Indeed, a possible explanation for the lack of scientific investigation might be that for anyone who is not aware of it, a deplorable period of sleep here and there does not seem particularly serious. Baby sleep is notoriously disordered because they regulate their circadian rhythms and exceed the surprise reflex that tends to stun them for at least the first two months. The repeated advice to new parents ad nauseam is to take a nap when the baby is napping and to stay alive.

But when you have four hours of sleep interrupted at night and you are so wiped that you have the impression that your eyes are on fire, things like the four-month regression play an inordinate role in your life, especially just beginning. to meet a little. Not all sleep deprived parents struggle, but studies clearly show a link between poor sleep and postpartum depression. And since one-quarter of new moms are back to work a few weeks after delivery, these early delays in baby's sleep can have a significant impact on parents' ability to function on a daily basis.

So what is really happening? Experts readily admit that the lack of specific research does not mean that sleep regressions are not real.

Between three and five months, babies make incredible jumps, said Paruthi. They grow a lot, so some people just start waking up hungry more often. Others may start waking up at night because they learn new skills – like rolling over and communicating for the first time through smiles, coos and laughter – and are motivated to try them out. . Some start to do their teeth. Some have gone beyond the knots they are used to since birth. Some begin to eat food for the first time, which can lead to interesting gastrointestinal situations in the early hours of the morning.

A fundamental change also occurs in the very nature and structure of their sleep.

"Non-REM sleep is our deep and restful sleep. "REM sleep is when we tend to make most of our dreams active, or dreams come true," said Dr. Ann Halbower, Pediatric Respirologist and Director of Sleep Medicine Research at the Hospital. for children from Colorado. About four months or so, babies begin to cycle non-REM and REM more like adults, which can lead to more awakenings as their little brains and little bodies try to understand what's going on.

"They develop a different cycle from non-REM to REM. They also develop a different cycle from day to night, develop their motor skills and cognitive skills – all of which must happen at the same time, "said Halbower.

"It's actually a development of sleep," she added. "It's really a proGression, not a reProgression. "

But few parents have the taste to celebrate when their child suddenly becomes a terrible sleeper; they want relief. And here is where the obsession with "sleep associations" of the Internet comes into play: the idea that 4 month old babies are suddenly much more aware of the accessories on which they rely for fall asleep at the beginning of the night and are unable to fall asleep without them. A baby who falls asleep while eating and cradled will have to eat and be rocked again when she wakes up at 1, 3 and 5 am, depending on the thought.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine certainly agrees that sleep associations can be real, although they do not really recommend encouraging them.

"After three to four months, we know that most babies are physically able to soothe and fall asleep early in the night," said Natalie Barnett. , a sleep consultant based in New York, who said: About 80% of the parents she works with have babies aged 4 to 6 months.

At that time, she recommends that parents take care of putting their baby in the cradle when they are asleep, but not sleepyand give them some space to learn to calm down – even if it requires crying.

Of course, the "Cree-It" type of methods – the vast tote for any type of sleep training that involves letting babies embarrass themselves to find a way to self-soothe to sleep – cause a lot of discord among parents. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine generally says they are effective. Some parents prefer to offer more relaxation and hope that everything will be put in place eventually.

In the end, Paruthi said, most babies tend to sleep well after about six months, that is to say up to a certain point.

"If you check out the sleep manuals, you'll find that they all say that this magic quote says," Babies should start sleeping all night six months from now, "Paruthi said. If you go into details, "sleep all night" in the definitions in this manual is actually only five or six hours away. "

After which, the Internet tells me that there is apparently another common sleep regression around eight months. And then maybe another year. And then 18 months.

In the meantime, I'm going to drink a lot of coffee.