My LO is 3.5 mo and has always been a good sleeper. For the past 4-5 weeks or so we've put her down for naps and bed time in her pack n play (where she sleeps in our room) and she's fallen asleep on her own always with very rarely any issue. In the past I wasn't even capable of rocking her to sleep because she'd just squirm until I set her down and then she'd fall asleep immediately. (I know. She's awesome). She'd occasionally wake up during a nap or at night but would always kick around for a minute and go back to sleep (except for when she needed to eat during early morning wake ups).

Lately though she's needed to be rocked to sleep for every nap and bed time, and she wakes up a lot during naps and also at night. Usually she's spit her binky out and we put it back in and stroke her forehead and she goes back to sleep. But three times last night and twice the night before we had to get up and rock her back to sleep before putting her down (and she did not want food).

I have three possible theories:

1) 4 month sleep regression strikes a little early (she was a week late so she's almost 4 mo from due date)

2) she's become super dependent on her binky, moreso than before and so when she loses it she gets more upset than she used to (although this doesn't explain needing to be rocked to sleep)

3) we started rocking her to sleep occasionally because she got diagnosed with reflux 2 weeks ago and we have to hold her upright after feeding, and she eats a lot better before naps than after so she would just happen to fall asleep while I was holding her post sleeping quite often and maybe now she's just decided that way of going to sleep is better than going down awake?

bonus option #4: babies are weird and there is no use trying to figure it out.

I don't REALLY care because she still sleeps pretty well and it's not that big of a deal to me to rock her to sleep and help her get back to sleep. But I'm curious only because I'm wondering if this means I should change some of my habits. Like if it is the 4mo regression I think I should just keep rocking her to sleep because it helps her and she'll get over it on her own. But if it is a habit I formed by rocking her maybe I should try to move her back towards going down awake and not let her fall asleep on me so much.

Any thoughts appreciated