Developmental milestones frequently become a full blown regression due to inconsistency of the parent's responses.
Developmental Milestones And Baby's Sleep
Developmental milestones is a baby's biological drive or impulse to master a skillset before their body relaxes. When your baby wants to roll over, couch surf, etc, they have an uncontrollable urge to practice and conquer.
If parents are consistent and handles these regressions the same way they always did, it gives the child the tools and skills to deal with regressions which then blow over much quicker. Otherwise, when parent intervene too much or make change too radically, things become harder to deal with.
Developmental milestones frequently become a full blown regression due to inconsistency of the parent's responses. It's ok to help a little and lay your baby back down in the crib to sleep, but keep it minimal and boring. Be cautious not to make the process too rewarding and have a tickle fight/or lengthy discussions with your child during bedtime.
Overlooked Milestones
Language acquisition and its varying stages of babbling, chatting, words and sentences.
Social milestones happen when baby interacts more with others using eye contact and smiling or when baby learns to negotiate during play time with other children.
These milestones are often not as visually stunning, but they can be equally disruptive to a child's sleep. In the second year of toddler's life there is a developmental language surge. Some toddlers are caught in the crib for over an hour babbling to themselves instead of napping!
During these leaps, sometimes children just need some 1-1 time with themselves to practice. Yes, naps will be thrown off sync, so you may find the need to get a mid-afternoon cat nap in the stroller or move bedtime earlier. After a couple weeks, it'll be back to normal but keep your eye out for little spells of language and social milestones scattered around every couple of months.
The TEMPORARY sleep disturbances caused by substantial mental growth during the first few years of your child's life can be upsetting for both parent and child. So go ahead, give your little one some much extra cuddles during the day, this isn't going to be status quo.
Delayed Milestones
As always early intervention is absolutely the best. There's no need reason to panic, but it's always worth checking in with your healthcare provider if there are any developmental milestone concerns and just see if there's anything that needs to be done.