Over the past week there have been some changes in Ryans sleep. First, he started to have a hard time falling asleep at naptime. Not a big deal, but unusual. The little guy is usually asleep before you leave his room and now he tosses, turns and cries for half-an-hour or longer before he finally falls asleep. Then, this issue moved to bedtime. He started having an issue falling asleep at night. The issue kept growing, he started waking once or twice at night. Then, last night he was up ... screaming, crying, tossing, turning, and having a fit ... from 9:30 until 11:30 PM. He also woke several times after that. He was finally quiet, and slept in until 8AM (about 2 hours later than usual).
As he was having his three-hour-fit last night, I was Googling up a storm. Should I rush him to the ER? Is something wrong with him? Is he sick? Hurt? Having an allergic reaction?
My online searches suggest that babies go through a 37-week growth spurt and there is often an 8 (or 9) month "sleep regression". These sleep regressions generally involve sleeping difficulties, frequent waking, and fitfull seep. Essentially, a baby's sleep patterns crumble to pieces when they are working on some sort of new physical or mental development. Well, that sure does sound like what we are looking at here. Ryan has been crawling up a storm, on top of clapping, waving, and trying to learn new words. Looks like all the action during the day is causing some trouble (for everyone) at night!
Good to have a diagnosis, but ...
Looks like there isn't much in they way of help/advice/assistance out there. And to top that off, a "sleep regression" can last a couple of weeks ... or a couple of months.
Looks like we have some rough nights ahead :(
There is a great guest post by a sleep specialist on Surviving Motherhood in which she talks about sleep regressions (specifically the 9 month and on, though many sites do discuss one that takes place around 4 months). She offers a great explanation of the sleep regression in addition to a pretty good pep talk!)
