Sleep regression

The ages people report

These ages are approximate and widely repeated rather than precisely established, and no source cited on this page supports them, because the NHS does not use the term at all. Plenty of children skip them entirely, and plenty have disrupted sleep at ages on no list. What the NHS does give is how much sleep to expect: around 12 to 15 hours in total after the first birthday, about 12 to 14 hours including daytime naps at two, and about 12 hours from three to five.

The four month one is worth understanding separately, because it is not really a regression: sleep cycles mature and the child begins surfacing between them as adults do. That change is permanent, so what follows is learning to resettle rather than waiting it out.

Rule out the simple things first

Before treating it as developmental, check the ordinary causes, which are commoner and fixable.

Too warm. The 16 to 20 degree range the NHS and the Lullaby Trust give for a baby's room is the one to work to, measured with a thermometer rather than guessed. A tog too high is one of the commonest causes of a child kicking off covers and waking.

Teething, illness, or a blocked nose.

Hunger, particularly around growth spurts or a feeding change.

Light. Summer mornings in the UK are a genuine problem, and blackout lining is cheap.

Too much or too little day sleep, or a nap that has shifted too late.

A change of routine: nursery starting, a house move, a new sibling, a holiday.

What actually helps

Keep the routine consistent. The same sequence at the same time is doing more work than any individual element of it, and consistency is the active ingredient.

Do not introduce habits you cannot sustain. The instinct at 3am is to do whatever ends it quickest, and a fortnight later that becomes the only way the child will settle. Choose what you can keep doing.

Give it time before changing everything. Most of these periods pass in days to a few weeks, and a major intervention started in week one is frequently credited with an improvement that would have happened anyway.

Keep the sleep space safe. Safer sleep guidance does not relax because sleep is difficult. The Lullaby Trust wording is a clear cot, on the back for every sleep, a firm flat mattress with a waterproof cover, and nothing else in there: no pillows, duvets, cot bumpers, pods, nests, sleep positioners or weighted bedding. Soft or bulky bedding is not recommended for babies under 12 months.

Share the nights if you can. Alternating is more sustainable than both parents being broken.

The part that gets left out

Most advice addresses the child. The parent is the person reading it at 4am.

Broken sleep affects mood, judgement and patience, and knowing that is not weakness helps. The NHS gives the everyday version of it: feeling tired and irritable during the day, and finding it difficult to concentrate because you are tired. The stronger claim this page used to make, that sleep loss measurably reduces the brain's capacity to regulate emotion, is not something the NHS states, so it is no longer stated here.

Do not drive if you are seriously sleep deprived. This is the practical safety point that matters most and it is rarely said plainly. Rule 91 of the Highway Code says driving when you are tired greatly increases your risk of collision, that you should not begin a journey if you are tired, and that if you feel sleepy you should stop in a safe place.

Never fall asleep on a sofa or armchair with your baby. That is the Lullaby Trust wording, and the reason is that it significantly increases the risk of sudden infant death: a baby can easily slip into a position where they are trapped and cannot breathe. It is also the scenario exhausted parents fall into. If there is any chance of dozing off while feeding, do it in a bed prepared according to safer sleep guidance, and check first whether any of the Lullaby Trust conditions that make bed sharing itself very dangerous apply to you.

Ask for help earlier than you think you should. A health visitor would far rather have the conversation than have you managing alone.

When it is not a regression

Speak to a health visitor or GP if disrupted sleep comes with poor feeding or weight gain, persistent snoring or pauses in breathing, unusual daytime sleepiness, or if it lasts far longer than a few weeks with no clear cause. For a baby's sleep the NHS points you at the health visitor first, so that is the route to use rather than waiting on a GP appointment.

Snoring is worth taking seriously. The NHS lists large tonsils or adenoids among the things sleep apnoea is linked to, notes that children and young adults can get it, and gives breathing that stops and starts, gasping, snorting or choking noises and loud snoring as signs. The further claim this page used to make, that in children it shows up as behaviour and concentration problems rather than sleepiness, is widely repeated but is not on nhs.uk, so take snoring as a reason to ask rather than something to rule in or out yourself.

And if you are struggling with your own mood, that is a conversation to have with a GP or health visitor rather than something to get through. The NHS threshold for your own sleep is plain enough: see a GP if trouble sleeping has gone on for months, or if it is affecting daily life in a way that makes it hard for you to cope.

Related reading

These groups are kept apart deliberately. The safer sleep guidance is free, comes from the Lullaby Trust and the NHS, and needs nothing bought. The shopping guides are this site's own and some of their links earn a commission. The monitor round-up in particular used to sit under a heading reading safer sleep, which it should not have: the Lullaby Trust states that there is no research showing baby monitors help prevent sudden infant death and that a monitor can never replace a parent or carer's supervision.

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