Do I need to sleep train again after a sleep regression?
Your baby slept well for months, and now she suddenly needs nursing to fall asleep again. Is that a sleep regression, and do you have to sleep train all over again?
Short answer: do you have to sleep train again after a regression?
- Usually not. A sleep regression resolves on its own in a week or two, or when the thing causing it (teething, a nap transition, a trip) passes.
- The real danger is not the regression itself but the new habits you build during it. A short-term problem solved with a long-term habit lasts months longer than the regression.
- So do not start doing anything you are not willing to keep doing for the next year — and feeding to sleep is the hardest habit to undo, because it is the strongest sleep association.
- Before you re-train, check the basics: schedule, the timing of the last feed, bedtime routine, and the room. Something in one of them often changed.
- If you do need to train again, it is far easier the second time. A baby who once learned to fall asleep on her own relearns it quickly.
Would you like to listen to a podcast episode about this? Should I restart sleep training?
My 8-month-old suddenly wants nursing to fall asleep again
So, we have an issue arising where she's demanding being nursed all of a sudden, right before bed. I have been cutting her off at 2 minutes, or at 1 minute, and then she immediately falls asleep. If I skip the short nursing altogether, she whines in her crib and won't sleep. This process repeats itself around 4 a.m., but I again don't nurse her, just rock a bit and put back. Last week I was gone a lot due to commitments, and then we took her on a short trip to the beach. Could this just be readjustment, or does she think I'm not there like last week? Baby is turning 8 months in a few days. Any insights? Wisdom? Should I go back to extinction at night? We were doing so well with sleep last few months.
Is this a sleep regression?
Okay, so, dear mom, there are a lot of information missing, but I'm going to make assumptions based on your comments. First of all, let me tell you that your baby is still doing great for her age. I mean, waking up just once at 8 months old is absolutely normal. But I understand if it's frustrating if she already slept through the night.
So I'm assuming that she used to fall asleep independently, and that she slept through the night before. Because you're saying that sleep was going really well for the last few months. And I'm also assuming that you sleep-trained your child with the extinction method. So if she used to sleep better and now her sleep got worse or went back to as it was before, then this is a sleep regression.
What is a sleep regression?
Here is what my book says about sleep regressions. So, sleep regressions are periods in the life of babies when their sleep gets worse or goes back to how it was several months before. Some of these changes are caused by the maturation of sleep itself; others are caused by other developmental changes that can affect sleep. These tend to happen around the same ages for most babies, give or take a month. Sleep goes through developmental changes just like movement, from rolling over through crawling to walking, or speech, from cooing through babbling to words.
There are phases of rapid change when there is especially a lot going on in terms of sleep development. Sometimes these phases are associated with the worsening of sleep, like in the case of the 4-month sleep regression.
Nap transitions and the 9-month sleep regression
Another reason why sleep can get worse is that your baby is going through a nap transition. It happens before babies drop a nap, like going from napping 3 times a day to napping 2 times a day. This is exactly what might contribute to the 9-month sleep regression. Your baby might not be sleepy enough to nap 3 times, but with 2 naps, there's just too much awake time between naps and they got overtired and cranky.
This, in turn, can ruin nighttime sleep too. In this case, you can help your baby by an earlier bedtime when there are less naps, so that the overall sleep during the whole day doesn't decrease that much. Developmental changes like learning to roll over, crawling, sitting up, standing up, teething, separation anxiety could also affect sleep. This can also contribute to the 9-month sleep regression.
Babies might not be able to sleep well because either they are too busy practicing their new skills, or they are too wired to settle down. The 11-month sleep regression can be a tricky one because two things can happen around the same time: babies transition to 1 nap a day and they learn to walk. Learning to walk can make them more tired, so sometimes if they transition to 1 nap just a few weeks before, they might want to go back to 2 naps again.
Growth spurts, illness, travel: the other causes
Growth spurts, when your baby grows a lot in a short period of time, can be a reason for frequent night feedings and night wakings too. Your baby needs more nutrition than usual during these periods, so they get hungry more often. Feed your baby as often as needed, but this period should not be longer than a week or two. Sleep is affected by outside factors too, like the arrival of a new sibling, moving houses, starting daycare, etc.
Sleep can also get worse with minor illnesses when babies cannot sleep well because they are in discomfort due to the illness.
How long does a sleep regression last?
Whatever causes sleep regressions, these issues should resolve, and sleep should go back to normal in a few weeks.
The real risk: new habits that outlive the regression
However, during these times, babies can develop new habits that parents can inadvertently reinforce, and these habits can persist for months, even after the original cause ceased to exist. Imagine a baby who is already night weaned and sleeps through the night, but now starts waking up several times per night due to teething pain. His parents want to help him and give him a bottle with some warm milk to ease the pain. This baby might cry for milk at night even after the teething is over, simply because he got used to it.
The general advice about sleep regressions is to try to avoid forming new, undesirable, long-term habits for a short-term phase.
What should I do right now?
So you mentioned that last week you were traveling a lot and also you took the baby for a short trip, and this can be an outside factor for a sleep regression. Although it's a very minor change in the baby's life, but still, it can cause a little bit of change in her sleep. Another reason for your daughter's sleep getting worse could be the 9-month sleep regression. But for handling sleep regressions, it is actually not that important to figure out the original cause of that sleep regression, because usually you cannot do anything about it. Either it is something that has already happened, like you had a holiday, or something that your baby is going through developmentally right now.
The most important thing in handling sleep regressions is that you shouldn't form new, undesirable habits for a short-term phase. So if you don't want to nurse your baby to sleep, then just don't do that. Just try to find another way to help her go to sleep. And I don't advise it should be feeding, because that's the strongest sleep association.
That would be the hardest one to break. Instead, try putting your baby down and maybe patting her or shushing her, because that will be easier to wean her off.
Check the schedule, feeding, routine and room first
But before you do anything like that, just think through all the necessary steps of sleep coaching. First step: set your goals. So I'm assuming your goal is for your baby to sleep through the night and I'm assuming that you have already night weaned her. And I also think that you would like her to fall asleep independently as she used to.
The second step of sleep coaching is to think about the baby's schedule. You didn't say anything about it, but your baby might not be sleepy enough when you put her to sleep, or she might be overtired and that's why she can't fall asleep. So try to look up age-appropriate baby schedules and see if yours needs some tweaks. But based on what you've wrote, I don't really think that's the most probable reason for your baby's sleep regression.
Since she falls asleep almost immediately, so you said you only nurse her for 1 or 2 minutes, probably there are no problems with naps, and your bedtime is within your baby's sleep window, which means that it's appropriate for her. She is genuinely tired and sleepy when you put her to bed, and that's great. The other thing that you can think of is the time of feedings. Do you think that the last proper feeding is too far from bedtime?
It can be the reason why your baby wants to nurse before going to bed. Although she only feeds for a minute or two, it can be the case that she is hungry, but since she is too tired, she falls asleep no matter what. So try to figure out whether that can be the case, and if it is, then try to put the last feeding closer to bedtime. For example, you can have a full feeding just before bedtime, but then don't let your baby fall asleep.
Or just wake her up a little bit before you put her to bed so that she doesn't associate breastfeeding with falling asleep. The next step is to figure out your bedtime routine. Did you change anything? Is there something that is not age-appropriate for your baby anymore?
Do you think that you can make bedtime more soothing or more calming for your baby? After that, think about the environment, your baby's room. Is it like it used to be, or did anything change in the baby's room that might be troubling her, which makes it more difficult to fall asleep? Think about: are there new kind of noises in the environment?
Is the room dark? Is the room cool? Because it's easier to fall asleep in colder temperatures.
Do you need to sleep train again?
So if you figured all this out and you are sure that there's nothing that you can fix anymore, then of course you can go back to sleep training. But in your case, since you already sleep-trained your baby before, I think it would be a quite easy process for you. You might not have to do full-blown sleep training. Just try to separate in time the breastfeeding from falling asleep, and try to use other methods to soothe your baby to sleep.
And maybe just do less and less every day. What is important in this situation is that you don't do something that you don't want to do in the next year or so. So if you don't want to feed your baby to sleep in the next months or years, then just don't do that, because then it will be a new habit that you have to break. And if the sleep regression has a cause that has already happened, then her sleep should go back to normal as it was in a week or two.
If the sleep regression is caused by something that is ongoing, like teething, then of course her sleep will go back to normal when teething is done, when there's no more teething pain.
A simpler fix: use what already works at 4 a.m.
So another tip is that you said that when your baby wakes up at 4 a.m., you don't feed her but just rock her to sleep, right? And she falls asleep quite easily with rocking. So why don't you just try rocking at bedtime too? And after a few days of doing that, just stop the rocking and just hold her for a few minutes. You don't even have to wait for the baby to fall asleep before you put her to bed.
It's better if you actually stop holding her when she's already quite drowsy but not asleep, and put her into her crib at that time.
The takeaway
So the takeaway: this is a sleep regression, for sure. It might be caused by your recent travels. If it is caused by these travels, by these changes, then it should go back to normal on its own in a week or two, unless you introduce new habits into the life of your baby. Sleep regressions can be caused by a lot of things, but it's actually less important to figure out the reason than to try and avoid forming new, undesirable habits that you don't want to keep up in the coming months.
So try to put her to sleep without feeding if that's not something that you want to do. And if it doesn't work, you can do sleep training as you did before.
Frequently asked questions
Can you sleep train during a sleep regression?
You can, but in most cases you do not have to. A regression passes on its own in a week or two, so the more useful move is to hold the line on habits: keep doing what you were doing, and do not introduce a new crutch just to get through the week. If the old skill really has disappeared and the basics are in order, re-training during the regression is possible — it is simply harder work than waiting it out.
How long does a sleep regression last?
A few weeks at most, if nothing else changes. If the cause is already behind you — a holiday, a trip, a house move — sleep usually settles within one or two weeks. If the cause is ongoing, such as teething or a nap transition, it lasts as long as that does. What keeps a regression going far beyond its natural length is a new habit that got established during it.
Will I have to sleep train again after every regression?
No. Most parents who taught a baby to fall asleep independently never do a full round of training again. What you may need is a short correction: separate the feed from falling asleep, put her down drowsy but awake, and give it a few days. A baby who once had the skill picks it up again much faster than the first time.
How do I know whether it is a regression or a schedule problem?
Look at how quickly she falls asleep. If she goes to sleep within a few minutes once she is settled, her bedtime is in the right place and the schedule is probably fine — which points to a regression. If bedtime drags on, or she is wild and cranky in the evening, the schedule is more likely the culprit than any regression.
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