Bedtime Screaming

[octoberfarm]

Hey all,

Wondered if some of you might be able to give some suggestions on a sleep issue that's stumping us at the moment. LO is 4.5 months old, and since about 12 weeks has been a good sleeper (we got super lucky) and used to go down like a champ. He's still sleeping long stretches at night (for which we are eternally grateful) but every bedtime has gone from a few minutes of pre-sleep fussing to a two-hour complete meltdown filled with lots of tears, even more screaming and two very frazzled parents.

Tonight I finally cracked and gave him infant paracetamol/tylenol in case he was teething, but he's happy as anything during the day and this only seems to be a nighttime issue, so although he's now crashed out after 1.5 hours I'm suspecting it's because of the tylenol and I don't want to do that every night just to be able to get the poor thing to sleep.

He has a solid bedtime routine that we've followed like clockwork since he was 6 weeks old: evening walk, home, bath, bottle, brief cuddles and then bed.

Has anyone who's been through this before (FTM here) got any tips? It's been weeks and the hours of crying are heartbreaking..

Thanks so much!

[Cathaka15]

Could be growth spurt/ sleep regression. Teething.
If it's been weeks I think a trip to doc is a good idea. Just for a quick check over.

[Gillian1980]

Have you tried adjusting bed time?

It's great that you have a routine but I found that as my dd grew she needed to go to bed at different times. We kept the routine the same but just adjusted the time slightly.

I've found that if dd is overtired she gets almost hysterical trying to settle. If she's napped well and not overtired she's much easier to put to bed.

[octoberfarm]

We actually just started trying that - his bedtime routine used to start at 7:45 and now starts at 6, so here's hoping! Last night was fractionally more successful but he has a cold, so then kept waking up again. Thanks for your suggestion, I'll try and work on naps too!