How We Survived the Twelve Month Sleep Regression

Photo by the incredibly talented Jessie Roffer Photography

Baby sleep… one of the hottest topics to discuss when you become a mom! You’ll constantly be asked how you’re sleeping, how is the baby sleeping, are you sleep training, do you rock to sleep… basically anything and everything related to shut eyes becomes your world once mom life begins! Our sleep journey took a turn right around Eliza’s first birthday as she entered the “twelve month sleep regression” and now that I can say we officially survived it, I thought it would be helpful to share what we learned and how we made it through! This was a DOOZY of a regression and honestly, I was unprepared! So I hope todays (lengthy) post will help other mamas feel more prepared and ready to tackle this time!

Background on Eliza’s Sleep:

Up until this point we had a pretty tame sleep journey with Eliza. We gently sleep trained her around 6 and then 8 months (I got a little lax in between!) but I loved rocking her to sleep, so our typical nighttime routine involved turning off the lights, turning on her sound machine, rocking, giving a bottle, and letting her get really drowsy before putting her in her crib.

When we hit 11 months Eliza was on 2 naps a day with about a 3.5 hour wake window in between the two and sleeping 7:30pm/8pm until 6:30am/7am. Things were SMOOTH sailing and everything I had read said she’d be on two naps a day until at least 13 months and maybe even longer. So I truly didn’t anticipate any changes to our normal routine.

Then around 11.5 months Eliza started giving us HECK when we tried to put her down for her second nap. I’m talking pulling our hair, screaming, kicking, throwing her pacifier… it was brutal! And what was extra challenging is that we could not get her to take the nap no matter what we tried. So we moved to early bedtimes, tried to stretch her wake window… anything we could think of or read about! And then she started waking up at 3am, and not just waking up, partying/crying in her crib from 3-5 am! Rob and I basically stopped sleeping, drinking all the coffee, and slowly losing our ever loving minds (LOL!) Friends, we had officially hit the twelve month sleep regression!

Why Does the Twelve Month Sleep Regression Happen?

Before we chat about survival of the twelve month sleep regression, let’s talk about the WHY behind it! It helped me (a little) to understand what was contributing to the regression and what was so challenging for Eliza. Here are the contributing factors to the twelve month sleep regression:

• Typically around a year your baby is experiencing a ton of new physical skills! Eliza was pulling to stand, taking wobbly steps on her walker, and generally becoming a bit of a troublemaker and explorer 🙂
• Similarly their brain is exploding with so many new cognitive skills! We saw all sorts of things that we’d been working with Eliza on for months all starting to come out! She learned hugs and “kiss kiss”, makes hand motions to listen for birds and look for things hiding under the sofa- so many adorable new things!
• It’s also a time of addition change in their diet. At 12 months your baby will quit formula (or really wean from breastfeeding) and move to a solid food based diet and whole milk. This is a huge change for our little people since the only food source they’ve known since birth is now being changed seemingly overnight!
• Your little loves also realize how much more fun being awake is then sleeping- and they’d rather be with you then alone in their room snoozing!

Tips to Survive the Twelve Month Sleep Regression:

So know that we’ve discussed the why behind the twelve month sleep regression- let’s talk about how to survive!

• COFFEE (kidding, but not really :)) You will need all the coffee friends!
• While it was far ahead of the time that most sleep experts recommended, I knew in my mama gut that Eliza was ready to transition to one nap. We started by stretching her morning wake window to 11am, then 11:30 and finally got her to a 12:30pm nap time. It was a painful 2-3 weeks but we got there!
• We also “hard core” sleep trained Eliza, because after consulting with two sleep experts we realized that she had to learn how to go from wide awake to asleep all by herself. To do this we updated her nighttime routine. Now we keep the light on while we do diaper, PJs, sleep sack and then we read together, say our prayers and hug. After this we turn off the lights, turn on the sound machine, and put Eliza down fully awake! Again, it was a painful 2-3 weeks while we transitioned but E caught on pretty quickly and now when we plop her in the crib she rolls around for a few minutes before falling asleep with no fuss.
• I got her attached to a “lovey” that would bring her comfort at night and would associate her with bedtime. Any time I fed her or cuddled her I had the lovey in our arms and pretty quickly she got attached!
• Eliza also uses a pacifier. She got pretty attached on her own around 11 months and now we just make sure there are several in her crib to get her through the night. (It’s always fun to hunt them all down in the morning!)
• Do the same routine at naptime and bedtime. While we were doing sleep training at night we rocked her to sleep at nap time, so we had so make sure at both sleep times we were putting her in her crib fully awake so her brain associated putting herself to sleep with her routines.
• STAY CONSISTENT! No matter what you do, be consistent in how you respond to your baby, your routines, etc. Babies love consistency and routines and will thrive when you provide them!

Remember, you are the perfect mama or dada for you baby and will know the unique way you need to respond to their needs! Regressions typically last 2-6 weeks so just know there IS an end in sight and you will get through this! If I can help at all please let me know- I’m no expert, just a mama who’s done a lot of research! ha!

Happy Sleeping!

Thanks for stopping by y’all! || Gentry