Has anyone heard of sleep regressions?

I’m fairly convinced the appropriate, and unofficial definition is, “a period of time when your growing baby decides to stop sleeping, and make your life a living hell”. If that isn’t the unofficial definition, it should be.

When Damen and I had Archer, we realized early on he was not a good sleeper. It took everything to get him to sleep. Nursing, walking, bouncing, swinging, shushing, swaddling, music, silence, lights, no lights. Everything. He would always sleep swaddled and in his Rock and Play, but it became painfully obvious we’d have to move him once he started sitting up in it. We tried to move him into his crib from there, but he’d never slept there before, so he never took to it. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and we started bringing him into bed with us every night, thus starting our journey of bed sharing for 14 long months. Eventually we moved him into his own bed, a real bed, in his own room, and he took to it fairly easily. But he still wakes up at least once per night on a fairly regular schedule.

Dahlia is probably our best sleeper. She also hated her crib, and I also bed shared with her, but it was apparent around 10 months that she needed her own space, so we threw a twin mattress on the ground in her own room about a week after she turned 1. She took to it right away, and ended up weaning herself at night, and has done well in there for the past year. She goes down for naps and bedtime without much effort on our part, and is the only kid to consistently sleep through the night.

Mercer is a toss up, because right now he is smack dab in the middle of his 4 month sleep regression. Its killing me. Slowly. I have been getting about 4 hours of sleep each night, because nothing makes this kid happy at 2, 3, 4 AM. He eventually goes back down, but it’s right when the day is starting, and I need to be up for the older kids, and so Damen can get ready for work. (Side note: I am incredibly lucky to have a husband who wakes up with the older kids every day, so I can get a few extra minutes of sleep. And he makes me a cup of coffee each morning, and brings it up to me while I’m still catching up on those last few minutes of lost sleep).

This regression is likely paired with a really important mental leap – the 4th leap. During this leap, babies begin to understand a series of events in one smooth transition (source: The Wonder Weeks). And he just got his 4 month vaccines, which coincided with a typical winter cold (read: lots of snot and a stuffy nose). So needless to say, it’s been rough around here at night.

Every day my eyes burn, and I’m super tired by about 3 pm. My patience is thin, and we’ve all been watching far too much TV. Motivation to do much of anything is out the window, and I’ve been basically been throwing snacks and frozen foods at my kids anytime they ask for sustenance. Did I mention it’s been rough?

The silver lining here is, like so many rocky roads in parenting, this too will pass. One day I *will* sleep again. It might not be for another 20 years, but whenever it happens, I hope I remember these days and truly relish in the ability to sleep in past 6:30 AM.

I’m losing conciousness as I continue to type, so I’m going to call it a night and try to get ahead of the deprivation tonight. Wish me luck, y’all.

xo,

Annie