4 Month Sleep Regression

There are many things that I'm learning about this child that no one has ever told me, or found it worth while to explain! Other mom's may know what I'm talking about when it comes to this (engorgement anyone?!), especially the 4 month sleep regression. Perhaps it is just me that did not know these things?! Shaley was a good sleeper for 2 months of her still short life. The first 3 weeks were horrible in the sleep 'department'. Then we had a wonderful stretch of sleeping from 8 pm to 1 or 2 am, and then down till 5 am!!! That was an incredible time. Since then we've hit the 3 month growth spurt which caused us to wake up every 1-2 hours and sometimes multiple times in the same hour. Ugh. Just after getting through that stage things returned to normal...for a week. Her 3 month growth spurt lasted 3 weeks (her sleeping patterns didn't return to normal for that long). Now we've reached what I was surprised to learn, the 4 month sleep regression stage.

Why didn't I hear of this earlier?! Everyone I've talked to has said it gets easier after the 3 month growth spurt. Things aren't the same with every child. I know I should know this and expect that ever child is different, but sometimes you just follow with hopes that it rings true. Some days I would like to believe that there is a conspiracy out there to block such unpleasant events in the early stages of a child's life, just so women continue to have children. Granted, these thoughts only occur on nights where I've had little sleep!

One thing that hasn't changed is that I'm very thankful for that little girl, and I'm still thankful for her sleep patterns because I know it could be worse. We don't wake up every 2 hours most nights, and I know there are mom's out there that do those short bursts of sleep every night. One common bit of advice that does, however, stick with me is that even the worst days and nights will go away with time. Children grow up, and even though us mom's don't always think so, it's a good thing that they do. We want them to grow up and have the best life possible, even though we want them to stay babies forever! What the contradiction.