How to Mentally Deal with Baby Sleep Regression

Olivia’s four month sleep regression was a lot for me, but it has also been a great teacher. 

I have struggled for years with sleep anxiety. It’s gotten so much better over the past 5 years, but before then it was so hard for me to sleep. In fact, my anxiety started off as sleep anxiety. I used to get super anxious each night before bed and couldn’t fall asleep for hours and hours for years. My heart would race, I would constantly stare at the clock and I couldn’t get my mind to shut off. 

That’s what happened to me this week. My baby girl kept waking up after anywhere from 5 minutes to 1 hour - I never knew when she would be up again. My mind would start overthinking about work, lack of sleep, how tired I would be in the morning, etc. 

I think I made myself even more tired and irritable thinking this way. Especially because I was hyper-aware of this thinking, which made it worse. I felt like I had no control. 

What helped me get through it was to just let time pass and find mindfulness around it. 

I couldn’t get angry and blame her when it’s a part of her development and it’s also hard on her. But I still needed to allow myself to feel frustrated because denying it would make it worse. 

So, I redirected my frustration away from her and instead recognized that the emotion coming up was a normal reaction and it’s only temporary. 

So, I tried to acknowledge my frustration with little to no attachment to it. My mind stepped outside of the emotion and witnessed it rather than let it consume me. 

When I did that, my frustration levels dropped immensely. 

Now that frustration definitely came back over again each time she would wake, but I was able to repeat the same mindset I had to calm it down, which made it faster to calm down each time.

Sleep regression aside, I know I can use this emotional coping technique to help me when intense emotions come up. When I practice this and feel calmer, I notice people or things around me are calmer because I am calmer.