23 August 2026 · Veronica Chi
Business & Product Director · Mum of two
Our Top Solutions for Helping Your Baby Sleep Soundly
This post assumes the basics are already in place — a dark room, a safe cot, a short routine. What it is for is the situation almost every family hits at some point: a baby who was doing perfectly well, and now is not. The useful move is not to change everything at once. It is to work through the causes in rough order of how likely and how cheap they are to fix.
Start with temperature
It is first on the list because it is the most common and the least suspected. A baby who wakes an hour or two after going down, hot at the back of the neck, is usually overdressed rather than hungry. In a warm climate this is the default failure mode, and it is made worse by the instinct to add a layer when a baby wakes crying.
Check the chest or the back of the neck, never the hands or feet. Damp hair, a flushed face or a sweaty back all mean take a layer off. If the air-conditioning cycles off partway through the night, the room a baby was dressed for at 8pm is not the room they are in at 2am — that swing is the one that catches people out.
Then look at the day, not the night
- Overtiredness. The most common cause of frequent waking is a bedtime that arrived too late. Try moving it fifteen to thirty minutes earlier for four nights before concluding anything.
- Undertiredness. Less common but real, usually in older babies: a late nap that has crept longer, or a final awake window that is now too short.
- Too little daylight. Morning light anchors the body clock. A baby who spends the day indoors under even lighting has a weaker signal to work with.
- Not enough movement. From around six months, a day with real floor time settles better than a day spent mostly in seats and carriers.
Hunger, and when it is not hunger
Young babies wake to feed because they need to, and no amount of routine changes that. What is worth separating out is the difference between a baby who wakes hungry and takes a full feed, and a baby who wakes and takes two minutes before dozing off — the second is using the feed to get back to sleep rather than to eat.
Both are fine. But if you are hoping to reduce wakings, the second is the one with room to move, and the usual first step is to make sure the last feed of the day is a full one and that daytime feeds are not being cut short by distraction, which is a real phenomenon from about four months onward.
Sleep associations, without the guilt
Everyone falls asleep with conditions attached — a particular pillow, a particular side. Babies are no different; the difference is that they cannot recreate their conditions alone. If a baby always falls asleep being rocked, then a normal wake between sleep cycles becomes a call for rocking, because that is what sleep is supposed to feel like.
There is nothing wrong with that if it is working for your family. If it is not, the change is gradual rather than sudden: rock until nearly asleep instead of fully, then to drowsy, then put down awake with a hand on the chest. Expect it to take a fortnight and to go backwards during teeth or illness.
Regressions are usually progressions
| Age | What is happening | How long |
|---|---|---|
| 3–4 months | Sleep architecture matures — lighter cycles, more surfacing | 2–6 weeks, then a new normal |
| 6 months | Rolling, sitting, first solids | 1–3 weeks |
| 8–10 months | Crawling, pulling up, separation awareness | 2–6 weeks |
| 12 months | Walking, one-nap transition beginning | 2–4 weeks |
| 18 months | Language surge, boundary testing | 2–4 weeks |
The four-month one is not a regression at all — it is a permanent change in how a baby sleeps, which is why it does not simply pass. The others generally do. In all of them, the useful posture is to hold the routine steady and offer more support temporarily, rather than to rebuild the whole approach during the worst fortnight of it.
Teething, illness and the honest exceptions
Teething is blamed for far more than it causes, but it does disturb sleep for a day or two around a tooth surfacing. Illness genuinely does — a blocked nose in particular, because babies are obligate nose-breathers early on. During either, the answer is comfort rather than method. Sleep habits are not undone by a bad week; they are undone by three weeks of a bad week's improvisations becoming the new normal.
The order to work through it
- One change at a time, held for at least four nights before you judge it.
- Temperature and layers first — cheapest to test, most often the answer.
- Then bedtime, earlier rather than later.
- Then the last feed of the day.
- Then how the baby is going into the cot at bedtime.
- Then, and only then, anything more structured.
And keep the standard for success realistic. A baby who wakes once and resettles quickly is a baby sleeping normally, not a problem awaiting a solution.
Questions parents ask
Why does my baby wake up an hour after going to sleep?
Most often temperature or overtiredness. An hour is roughly one sleep cycle, so a baby who surfaces there and cannot resettle is usually either too warm or went down past the point where settling was easy. Check the back of the neck first, then try bedtime twenty minutes earlier for a few nights.
Is the 4-month sleep regression permanent?
The underlying change is. At around four months, sleep matures into adult-like cycles with lighter phases between them, so babies surface more often. The unsettled stretch usually passes in two to six weeks, but the new sleep pattern stays — which is why the strategies that worked at eight weeks stop working.
Should I feed my baby every time they wake at night?
In the early months, yes — feed on demand. Later, it depends on whether the baby is feeding or comfort-sucking. A full feed means they were hungry. Two minutes and back to sleep means the feed is doing a settling job, which you can gradually replace if you want to.
Does teething cause weeks of bad sleep?
Rarely. Discomfort around a tooth breaking through typically disturbs sleep for a day or two either side. Weeks of disruption blamed on teething usually turn out to be a developmental leap, a schedule that needs adjusting, or an illness.
Sources
This guide is general information, written to help you understand a topic and ask better questions — it is not medical advice and does not replace your own doctor, midwife or paediatrician. Anything that worries you about your baby belongs with them.