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Delphine Nicholls Golan knew some damage control was in order. So by the door of the apartment unit next to hers, she placed a bottle of wine, a box of earplugs and a note: ?Dear Neighbours: Apologies in advance for any late-night screams. I?m learning to sleep through the night,? signed ?Aleph, 4 months.? The Toronto mom of two was in the throes of the dreaded four-month sleep-regression?that phase when infants who have been sleeping longer stretches at night suddenly stop. ?Aleph went from sleeping three and a half hour stretches to waking every 45 minutes,? she says. ?You start to go crazy.?
All babies experience numerous sleep setbacks in their first two years, but the four-month mark regression feels especially cruel. You?re massively sleep-deprived from caring for your newborn around the clock, and just when you think you might be inching toward a full night of sleep, the regression hits. While it?s easy to feel like you?re doing something wrong, what?s happening at this stage is actually very right. ?Your baby?s brain is waking up,? says Pam Edwards, a certified pediatric sleep consultant based in Grand Prairie, Alta. His sleep cycles are becoming more ?adult,? and, thanks to major cognitive and developmental leaps that occur around four months, he?s also becoming acutely more aware of his world. That might not be comforting at 3 a.m., but take heart. Sleep regressions are perfectly natural?even predictable, and they don?t last forever (typically, ...