Evenings and night time

[marshmallow2468]

Evening,

Having a bit of a stressful time with 4m DS. I've posted about his evening screaming before, but it's no better. He feeds (bf) about 6. His dad then takes him while I get our dinner. He just screams and screams. I don't think it's anything DH is doing as he screams when it's just me there too. We've tried altering feed times, nap times, our dinner time, but no improvement. There's nothing obvious wrong with him but he's inconsolable.

We used to cope with the evenings because at least he slept at night. Not any more! He's gone from one waking to about six a night. He doesn't feed every time, but it takes forever to get him off. I'm seriously considering giving him formula before bed in the hope he'll sleep better. No idea if it'll work.

I'm severely sleep deprived and getting more stressed each evening and DH finds it difficult that he only sees his boy grumpy and upset. Somebody please tell me it'll get better eventually!

Thanks for listening to my woes!

Its the four month sleep regression. Its a beast! Sadly the only option is to ride it out.

Would he settle with a bath or in a bouncy chair or with a dummy? Maybe push dinner back.a bit later until he has settled a bit?

Google Four month sleep regression, and Wonder Weeks too.

Have you tried putting him to bed at 6pm after the bf?
Dd was always in bed by six otherwise she got overtired and had a meltdown. Now she is nearly 1 she is rarely up past 6.45 and often goes up earlier.
The night wakings are probably a combination of growth spurts and developmental stuff going on. Try shush pat and retreat.
You might find tho that early to bed avoids a lot of that tho?

I can't help with the multiple wakings, but what time is his last nap? At that age DD used to have a catnap about 5.30ish and then I used to just admit defeat and take her out for a walk, which calmed her down again. I remember another mum on my street whose baby was a few months older joking with me about it as she saw me walk past her window every day at 6.10 exactly. Could you DH walk him for fifteen minutes while you do dinner?

He doesn't seem tired enough after the 6ish feed to sleep, even when he's missed an afternoon nap. My eventual plan is to put him to bed by 7 once he's on solids. I have a maybe wrong idea that things will be easier then. I agree that an earlier bedtime would help, but at the moment he's just not having it.

He just hates everything we do in the evenings. We've tried bouncy chair, bumbo, play gym, lap, blanket on the floor with toys, over the shoulder, pushchair, nothing works! But all those things are perfectly acceptable during the day. And he's not upset about anything major - as soon as we've attempted our dinner we take him to get changed for bed. On the changing table he's delightful again!

I'm just so tired!

DH taking him for a walk might help. That's something we've not tried......

Do you have a bedtime/bath time routine yet?

With the walk, I found the big thing was not to let her sleep during it - she could nap right before, but if she fell asleep in the pram and then woke up in the house it was back to hating everything again. But she grew out of it quite quickly.

Yeh we had a screamer at bedtime, and 4mths onwards was a terrible time during day too as he got more and more aware of his surroundings.. Winding him down for bed was really difficult cos he was so overstimulated from the day as he is a short napper and very alert bub.

So we walked in pram, lots of evening walk around the garden i would say night is coming during summer.. Also find walking him in baby carrier was the quickest way to wind him down for bed. It needed to be for 30or 40mins not shorter lol! Kept all lights in house dimmed, no noise or visuals. Then lots of shushing, singing, white noise etc..

At 13mths he is still wound up at bedtime, i still walk him for most naps and bedtime lol! But thankfully he is SO much better than he was!!! None of this have a nice relaxing bath before bedtime, that just revs him up even more he loves it too much.. Better go as he is STILL not asleep lol!

When you say he doesn't feed much but takes ages to off, has he been checked for tongue tie? My DS was very much like this Nd he had tt and upper lip tie.

Have you tried breast compressions and do you offer both sides at each feed? Have you tried putting him in a sling while you get dinner?