Help! 14 week old DD hates Bedtime! Advice Please!

[MayMummy11]

My 14 week old dd hates bedtime and the crying is really upsetting me. I need some sound advice please! She is very good at napping in the morning/afternoon once or twice in the am and pm, either in her cot/buggy or somewhere quiet, but this is never more than an hour at a time during the day, as she just never sleeps longer than that a naps. We have a nice bathtime from about 6pm - she loves it, and baby massage - she loves it, and then into sleep clothes and gro bag, and milk, burping cuddles until she is sleepy and then she screams and cries until she is red and gets herself into a tizz. As soon as her back hits the mattress she cries. This crying can be anything from 30mins to 4 hours. I make sure there are the sleepy signs and she is well burped before getting her into nice a sleepy state. I have tried pick up put down. I play soothing music from when we start milk time to when she is well and truly asleep. The crying is just so upsetting. I know there is nothing wrong with her as in she has hurt herself etc, it just seems like she really hates bedtime. Once she is alseep she is very good and sleeps through which I know is a blessing at this point - it's just the getting her to sleep that is the problem. She had improved a little but it seems to have got worse again following a few days away. Any advice please?

can you let her fall asleep on you? and then put her to bed?

She's 14 weeks old!

FWIW mine would have their evening feed then sleep next to me on the sofa - we would go up together at about midnight after the last feed.

She's far too little to go to bed by herself! Keep her downstairs with you in the evening and put her to bed when you go. She's still tiny - don't expect so much from her!

DD2 was the same and has always hated bedtime, she goes down now at 13 months! She always had good and bad phases but it was always the time of day she kicked off, and she is very straight forward the rest of the time. I'm a fan of the 7pm bedtime so I carried on putting her down and spending hours on end going in and out and rubbing her tummy. Some good days, some bad. Lots of tears. from her and me!

If I knew then what i do now I think I would have expected less of her (her sister was excellent at bedtime from about 4 weeks) which might have made me less frustrated. And I would maybe keep her up a bit later and gradually make bedtime earlier. She just seems to be very lively in the evening,still is.

Good luck, I know how testing it is at the end of a long day.