After happily sleeping away the nights with 2 wakings or so for the last few months, we have hit a major regression. The lovely Moxie, fountain of all parenting wisdom, provides me with the ideal excuse to explain away this all night waking that is currently happening. It is officially the 8 month sleep regression.
I’ve tried to get hold of this miracle book the Wonder Weeks, but it seems to be out of print and oh so hard to come across. We all know about the growth spurt and how that can lead to all night feed-a-thons. We have another night-waking friend called the developmental spurt. From what I’ve read on Moxie’s site, the Wonder Weeks explains that babies typically have developmental spurts around weeks 5, 8, 12, 19, 26, 37, 46, and 55.
Well guess what, we are smack on the 37 week spurt. No wonder life is hell at the moment. Moxie says this 8 month spurt is one of the worst:
“The “8-month sleep regression” (which for some babies is closer to a 9-month sleep regression) is related to the 37-week spurt. For some reason that one just seems to cause more waking, too, than some of the other spurts do. It might also be particularly hard because many babies are smack in the middle of working on crawling or walking, and also teething.”
So cross my fingers and bring out the extra strong coffee, we’re hauling on through the 8 month sleep regression.
September 11, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Wow, that is fascinating and explains a LOT about the past few months chez Swizz. Even those brief times when Loudboy sleeps more or less through (I wish they lasted longer!)
September 12, 2007 at 7:44 am
Thank you for posting this , i mean really, my youngest started sleeping through at 4 months and done so till 8 months when suddenly everything changed, she is now 10 months and wakes at least once and normally takes a while to settle . Its nice to know there could be a reason behind it
September 12, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Our excuse here is Baby Boo learning how to crawl. I think she must have been wanting to party with your baby last night because she was up for a couple of hours too, 15 minutes after I’d fallen asleep and was ready to be up a mere 6 hours later!!! By some miracle of God I got her back to sleep for about another 1 1/2 hours… thankfully because I can’t chase my two crazies on that little sleep…
(Heading for the coffee myself… Lebanese coffee is excellent for coping with sleep deprivation BTW…)