I need numbers. Not "it passes!" Not "every baby is different!" I know every baby is different, that's why I want a distribution instead of one anecdote.
So I'm going to give you mine in full and then I want yours, and I want it in days or weeks, plus how old your LO was in WEEKS when it started, because everybody says "4 months" and I'm now fairly sure "4 months" is doing a lot of lying.
Mine: born February 24, so she's 17 weeks today. Started May 28, which was 13 weeks and 3 days. That's the other reason I want your numbers, mine started at 13 weeks and I spent the first week convinced it was something else because she wasn't 4 months yet!
Before: she was doing 7 to 8 hours. I want that in writing because I have started to wonder whether I made it up. Down at 7:30, dream feed at 10:30, up once around 5. Naps were 45 minutes to an hour and a half, four of them. I was one of those insufferable people who thought she had an easy baby, and I would like to formally apologize to everyone I said that to!
Now, day 26: waking every 45 to 90 minutes MOTN. Every single one. Naps have collapsed into 28 minute cat naps. 28, not 30, it's uncanny, I've got a whole spreadsheet! Four to five naps. Wake windows 90-105 minutes and if I go over by ten minutes she's inconsolable. I dropped the dream feed on day 12 because someone said it might be the problem. It was not the problem.
Variables, so nobody has to ask: room 68F, blackout, white noise all night. Combo fed, mostly EBF with one bottle at night. No solids, not till 6 months per our pediatrician. Sleep sack over a swaddle, arms in, 1.0 TOG. Takes a pacifier and then loses it and screams about it. That's roughly 60% of the wakes. Not visibly teething, no drool, no fever. Leap 4 per Wonder Weeks lines up almost exactly, for whatever that's worth. I've decided that app is astrology for tired people but I still open it lol.
She rolled crib-to-back once, about two weeks ago, and hasn't done it since.
What I want from you:
1. How many days or weeks did it last, start to actually-over?
2. How old in WEEKS when it started?
3. Did it end, or did it just become the new baseline and you adjusted? Please be honest about this one! I think this is the real question and everyone dodges it.
4. Did anything you did shorten it, or do you just think it did because it ended eventually?
My husband asked me last night how much longer and I said I don't know and he said surely someone knows, and reader, I have been searching for eleven days and nobody knows. So I'm going to make a dataset. Give me yours!
Twins, so I'm going to break your dataset and I'm a little sorry about it.
Same house. Same room. Same womb, technically! Same white noise, same 70F, same everything, down to the minute.
Ama: 3 weeks. Started 14 weeks and 6 days. Over by 18 weeks and it really did end.
Kofi: I'm going to say ten weeks but the truth is I don't know if it ever ended or if it just handed off to the next thing. Started 15 weeks and 4 days. He was still waking every two hours at 7 months. He's 9 months now.
So the answer to your...
It's 3am. He's 12 weeks. He is awake and staring at me with the specific expression of a small man who has plans, and I am reading a thread about a thing that hasn't even happened to me yet, which I recognize is not a healthy use of my one free hand.
No datapoint to give you. I'm the control group. I'm the before photo.
But I did want to say something about the spreadsheet, because I have one too and I started it at week 5. Mine has a column for room temp that I fill in from a thermometer I...
Two data points from one house. Probably the useful kind.
First baby (he's 2.5 now): 5 weeks, started at 17 weeks. And I have to be honest on your question 3, because you're right that everyone dodges it. It didn't end so much as it changed shape. He went from waking every hour to waking twice, and twice became normal, and "normal" is a word I redefined so that I could survive it. Two wakes a night until he was well past a year. If you'd asked me at week 6 whether the regression was over I'd have said yes. It...
19 days. Started at 16 weeks exactly.
It ended. Clean. Went from waking every hour to two wakes to one wake over about four days and never came back.
Nothing I did shortened it, and I did nothing, so I can say that with a straight face. I had covid for eleven of those days and my husband handled nights. So my dataset is: I was unconscious in the guest room and it resolved anyway. Make of that what you will.
One thing on your spreadsheet though. 28 minutes isn't uncanny, that's a sleep cycle. That's the whole regression in one number. She...
Going to answer your four questions and then say a thing you didn't ask about, because it's the more urgent one.
1. 6 weeks, start to over. 2. 15 weeks and 2 days. 3. It ended. Actually ended, not a rebrand. She went back to long stretches and by 26 weeks she was doing 6 to 5:30 and has more or less since. She's 11 months now. 4. No. I tried four things and I'm certain none of them did anything. I moved bedtime earlier, I capped the last nap, I did a wake-to-sleep for nine days that I now think...
Okay! You're right and I knew you were right before I finished reading it. Which is its own thing. Arms are coming out tonight!
Honest answer for why I hadn't: she rolled once, at 15 weeks, and never again, and I let myself decide it was a fluke because the swaddle is the only thing holding this together and I did not want to lose it in the middle of THIS. Which is a terrible reason and I'm typing it out anyway because someone else is going to read this thread at 3am with the same terrible reason.
The sleep sack getting...