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Around month two, my daughter started sleeping in 4 to 5 hour stretches.
My husband and I looked at each other like we’d won something. Like maybe, just maybe, we had a unicorn baby. We started telling people. We started feeling smug, quietly, in the way new parents do when they think they’ve figured it out.
And then month four arrived.
She started waking at completely random intervals, crying in a way that was different from her newborn cry — more confused than hungry, more unsettled than in pain. We’d feed her, settle her, put her back down. An hour later, same thing. Then again. We ran through every possibility. Is she sick? Is something hurting her? Did we do something wrong?
We hadn’t done anything wrong. She was doing something exactly right.
What was happening inside her tiny body during those weeks was nothing short of extraordinary. And once I understood it — really understood it — everything shifted.
What the 4-month regression actually is
The 4-month sleep regression is not a setback. That’s the first thing I want you to hear.
It’s a permanent, irreversible change in the way your baby’s brain processes sleep. Until around month four, newborns cycle through sleep differently to adults — they move from drowsiness to deep sleep quite quickly and stay there for long stretches. From four months onward, their sleep architecture shifts to more closely resemble adult sleep, with lighter sleep cycles, more frequent partial arousals between cycles, and a greater awareness of their surroundings during those arousals.
At the same time — and this is the part that filled me with awe when I finally understood it — their brains are developing at a pace they will never experience again. Object permanence is beginning. They’re becoming more visually aware. They’re making connections between sounds and faces. They’re starting to understand that they are a separate being from you, which is both a developmental leap and, for a baby, a genuinely unsettling realisation.
They wake between sleep cycles, they’re suddenly more aware and curious and stimulated, and they need help returning to sleep because they haven’t yet learned to do it independently. That’s it. That’s the whole regression.
We stopped trying to do it right and started doing what felt natural
I want to be honest with you about something.
We never sleep trained. Not at four months, not at six months, not ever. I know that’s not what a lot of the sleep advice out there says. I know there are methods and schedules and approaches that promise results in three days. I’m not here to tell you those are wrong for every family — I genuinely believe parents know their babies and their own limits.
But for us, at some point during those exhausting four-month weeks, we made a decision that quietly changed everything: we stopped trying to do everything right and started doing what felt natural — to us and to her.
What felt natural was feeding her to sleep. I know. I know what all the sleep books say about that. I read them. But the truth is, breastfeeding to sleep is one of the most biologically normal things in the world. Breast milk contains compounds that naturally promote sleep. The act of nursing releases oxytocin in both mother and baby. Millions of years of human evolution did not wire babies to fall asleep alone in a dark room from day one.
We co-slept. Safely, with intention, following the safe co-sleeping guidelines our pediatrician walked us through. She was next to me. I could hear her breathe. When she stirred I was already there.
It wasn’t the approach the internet recommended. It was the approach that worked for our family, that felt right in our bodies, that let all three of us get the most sleep we could.
The one thing we never skipped: our bedtime routine
Here is where I will be very direct with you: if there is one thing I credit most with getting through the regression — and the months that followed — it’s this.
Every single night, in the same order, without exception:
A short oil massage. Warm coconut oil, gentle strokes, legs and arms and back. Five minutes. She still reaches for this now at two years old.
A warm bath. Not long. Just enough to signal: day is over, we are winding down.
Into pyjamas. The changing of clothes became its own ritual — a signal her nervous system learned to recognise.
Feed while singing. In the dark or near-dark, with the white noise on, feeding her while I sang the same songs every night and said her affirmations out loud. Slowly, quietly, like a lullaby.
Affirmations. This one I want to talk about. Every night I would say things to her — you are loved, you are safe, you are enough, mama is always here. At four months she stared at my face while I said them. At one year she started making sounds along with mine. At two years old she says them with me, word for word, before she falls asleep. I cannot put into words what that means to me.
The routine didn’t make the regression disappear. But it gave her nervous system a consistent signal that sleep was safe and coming. Babies who are going through enormous developmental change need that predictability more than anything. Her daytime world was exploding with new information. Her night world stayed the same.
What actually helped us through the regression
Alongside the routine, a few practical things made a real difference:
Blackout curtains — completely non-negotiable. From month two onward, blackout curtains in our room. A baby who is newly aware of her environment and light-sensitive will wake every time daylight shifts. We used Deconovo Blackout Curtains — affordable, genuinely dark, easy to hang.
White noise — on all night, every night. The Hatch Rest+ Sound Machine was already on our nightstand from the newborn days and it stayed. Consistent low white noise masks the small sounds — a door, a car outside, a cough — that a newly noise-aware baby will now register and wake to. Phone-controlled so I never had to get up to adjust it.
The nursing pillow. My best friend through every single feed. At four months she was heavier and the Boppy Original Nursing Pillow meant I could feed her side-lying in bed without my arm going numb. For the number of times we fed at night during this phase, having proper support was not a luxury.
No lights. Ever. This was a rule we held firmly even on the worst nights. Switching on a light signals the brain to suppress melatonin and wake up properly. We used the dim glow of the Hatch at its lowest setting if we needed to see anything. A baby who wakes in the dark and returns to dark has a much easier time going back to sleep than one flooded with light.
What we actually did when she woke
She’d stir. I was already there — co-sleeping meant I often heard her before she fully woke. I’d offer a comfort feed. She’d take a little, sometimes a lot. Then she’d go back to sleep.
We didn’t try to extend the feeds or cut them short. We didn’t try to settle her without feeding because the books said to. We just responded to what she needed in that moment. Some nights that was three wake-ups. Some nights it was one.
Eventually — gradually, without us doing anything dramatic — the wake-ups became fewer. She’d stir, settle herself slightly, and drift back without needing me. That came in time, not because we trained it, but because she grew into it.
She still woke every three hours or so for a comfort feed until well past six months. How we eventually removed that comfort feed as she got older is a whole other story — I’ll write that one soon. But during the regression itself, we never made removing the comfort feed our goal. Our goal was simply: everyone gets as much sleep as possible, the baby feels safe, and we don’t lose our minds.
To the parent reading this at 3am
You are not failing.
Your baby is not broken.
The regression feels endless when you’re in it. It is not endless. It passes — not because you fix it, but because your baby’s brain finishes what it started and moves on to the next extraordinary thing.
If you take nothing else from this post: keep the room dark, keep the white noise on, keep the routine the same every night, and trust your instincts about how to respond to your baby. You know her. The internet does not.
And if breastfeeding to sleep is what feels right for both of you — you are not doing it wrong. You are doing it exactly right for your family. That is the only standard that counts.
– Lots of love, Mama Rooted.
📌 Save this for the parent in your life who just hit month four. They need to read it.
Coming soon on Mama Rooted: How we gently removed the comfort feed as she got older — without sleep training, without tears, and without it feeling like a battle.
Mama Rooted 