8-10 Month Old Sleep Regression Phase

Shortly after Julian turned nine months old (which was a little over a month ago), his sleep pattern changed dramatically. In fact, his sleep pattern became a sleep NON-pattern, because the wonderful routine we had found was no longer routine. Where we had been able to rock, sing or feed Julian to sleep by about 7:30 every night, he was now resisting sleep until about 9:00 pm despite our Herculean efforts to get him to sleep every which way we could. And where he had been sleeping soundly through the night until about 6 am, he was now restless and wakeful throughout the night. Sure, it made for some entertaining nights with us singing through our Cole Porter, Gershwin, and Best of the ‘70s song books (sorry you had to miss it!), but other than that, it was exhausting, upsetting, frustrating, and, for us, unexpected. What we soon learned is that it shouldn’t have been unexpected, because we found out that it’s common for 8-10 month olds to experience a sleep regression phase, which is exactly what was happening with Julian.

We learned that the sleep regression phase affecting many babies between the ages of 8 and 10 months is due to brain development and the over-stimulation and sheer excitement that comes with it. After all, this is the time when most babies start to crawl, pull up, stand, cruise, and even walk. They may be feeding themselves, they’re becoming much more aware of their environments, and they’re most certainly teething by now. They’re discovering shapes, sounds, colors, patterns, facial expressions, and rudimentary language skills. Their gross and fine motor skills are developing as they learn to twist, pull, push, flip, and spin! They’re playing ball, showing an interest in books, and able to understand basic words like “no” and respond to simple hand gestures!

As parents, it’s an amazing and exciting time as we watch our children burgeoning, so why would it be any less exciting for THEM? Of course, it isn’t! If anything, babies may be so excited about and proud of their new skills that they just can’t shut down their brains – or don’t WANT to! They want more! They want more time to discover, more time to process what they’re learning, and more time to show it off to mom and dad! All of this can add up to restlessness.

In some babies, restlessness manifests as difficulty falling asleep. For others, it might be shorter or fewer daytime naps. For others, it may be wakefulness at night. And for others still, it may be all of the above, which is what we encountered with Julian! But, in the face of this restlessness, 8-10 month olds still need to get 13-14 hours of sleep each day – ideally, 11 hours at night and two naps during the day – and it’s our job as parents to be sure this happens as regularly as possible. Having said that, figuring out HOW to make this happen isn’t so easy. Also, your solution may depend on whether or not you co-sleep, but here are some things you can try:

• Temporarily remove stimulating items from the room where your baby sleeps by turning out night lights, removing mobiles, and turning off sound machines. Ironically, our inclination is to try to soothe our babies to sleep with these items, but they have the opposite effect. Instead of soothing, they may only serve to stimulate your baby further.
• Remove all stimulus from the room where your baby sleeps by creating a pitch-black room using black-out curtains or shades. If you don’t want to invest in these for what should only be a several-month-long phase, try putting blankets or sheets over the window at night. It’s not pretty, but it should work – or at least help.
• If your baby sleep in his own crib and is standing, playing, rolling, pulling up, and reaching for things in, on or around his crib instead of falling asleep, a sleep sack may be your answer. Sleep sacks will impair his ability to move around more than is necessary just to get comfortable enough to sleep. It will also keep your baby from tossing and turning excessively during the night.
• Eliminating your baby’s third daytime, if you haven’t already, so that your baby is more likely to welcome bedtime.
• Letting your baby soothe himself to sleep rather than rocking, singing or cradling him to sleep. According to some sleep consultants, a baby that has been rocked, sung, cradled or breastfed to sleep up until this time may be telling you that your well-meaning efforts are actually impairing his ability to fall asleep. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, you may want to try giving your baby his “space” to self soothe and fall asleep on his own.

For more tips on dealing with your 8-10 month old’s sleep regression, you may want to visit a website we like called Wee Bee Dreaming, which can be found at http://www.weebeedreaming.com/my-blog/8/10-month-sleep-regression . This site is written by a lady named Pamela Edwards, a Certified Infant and Child Sleep Consultant.

Of course, you may need to (or prefer to) find another solution that fits your lifestyle better, just as we did. For us, having family music hour from about 7 pm to 8 pm has been working very well. I play the piano and my husband sings, holding Julian. The vibration from my husband’s singing puts Julian to sleep effectively and once Julian falls asleep, he seems to stay asleep until about 6 am with little nighttime wakefulness. Julian enjoys it and we’re honing our cabaret act. It’s too bad Feinstein’s is closed!

As exhausting as this phase can be, it’s an exciting time for you and your baby. I hope these tips will help you and your baby get back to sleep. Friends, if you find another solution – or make one up – please share it with me! I love to hear your stories and your parenting victories!

Best, Marlene