What is a sleep regression?

During their first 2 years of life children develop at a very fast rate. There are some ages where they go through a leap in their development. These can cause a shift in sleep patterns and this can result in new issues with sleep, such as protesting, shorter naps and more night wakes.

That’s right, I said it. Your baby will never sleep straight through the night. And neither will you, for that matter. We’re all familiar with the various stages of sleep from our own experience. You might not be able to put a name to them, but you’ve certainly felt the difference between waking from a light sleep and a deep one. Simply put, when we fall asleep, we spend a little while in a light stage of sleep and gradually progress into a deeper one.

That right there might be the single most common question new parents ask. Is it a developmental milestone? A regression? Are they getting too much sleep during the day, or not enough? Maybe they’re just hungry. Maybe they’re too hot, or too cold. Let’s try to figure it out.