Sleep Regression

Well, I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that I'm writing this post. Abby was such a great sleeper for so long! We've hit what is commonly known as the four month sleep regression. At around ten weeks old, Miss A was consistently sleeping about ten hours straight at night, with good naps during the day. Then around twelve weeks she was sleeping 11-12 hours straight. Sometimes she would even eat and go back down again, so most nights she was sleeping from 7pm-8am with one early morning wakeup. Then all of a sudden she started waking in the middle of the night again. She acts like she's starving at that time, so even though I know that she can go all night without eating, I feed her anyway. Then she'll wake again sometime in the early morning. So we're back to 7pm-8am with two wake ups. She's also having trouble napping...which may be why she's waking at night more. Her naps now are usually just one 45 minute sleep cycle. On a rare day she'll consolidate and take a longer nap. Those days she's so much happier! I wish I could figure out how to get her back to her old sleep habits. It's supposedly really common for this to happen right around four months, and Dave and I don't believe in doing any CIO or sleep training until she's a bit older, so for now all we can do is stick it out! We are also in the process of trying to stop swaddling her. We've tried one arm out, both arms out, no swaddle at all and just a sleep sack, and this star shaped little sleeping bag called a Zipadee-Zip that's made specifically for transitioning from the swaddle. So far none of that worked though! So right now she is sleeping in a halo sleep sack with the arm holes sewn shut! She can still move her arms around but she can't get them to her face to startle herself awake. In about a week we plan to unsew one of the arm holes and see how she does with one arm out. I think that this swaddle transition is causing some of her sleep problems too, but she needs to be able to sleep without it now that she's rolling, so it's time (whether I'm ready or not!!). Anyway, I am really, really hoping that things get sorted out and she starts sleeping all the way through the night again soon!! 

Here she is in her Zipadee-Zip taking a nap one day:

And this is how I found her one day when I unswaddled her - she had managed to get her arms completely out of her jammies!

Here's hoping that her sleep troubles resolve themselves soon!