Bedtime crying - is there light at the end of the tunnel?

[coolpink101]

My 17wo DD is awful when it comes to settling down for bedtime. Most nights, after we do her bedtime routine (bath, feed, chill time and then bed), as soon as we put her into her cot she starts crying. The crying lasts anywhere between 30 mins to an hour and a half before she eventually drops off. Both DH and I dread the evenings and we've run out of ways to try and calm her down and help her go off to sleep.

I've heard lots of people talk about night time crying, so I know it's fairly usual, but is this amount of crying normal? If so, when will it stop (or at least be cut down to a fairly reasonable length - one and a half hours of crying is so draining both for us and DD)? We've tried shushing, stroking her tummy, singing a lullaby, cwtching, but nothing seems to help. She has started teething - and on days where she's visibly teething we'll give her powder and/or Calpol - which seems to help. But on the days where she doesn't seem to be teething at all she still cries loads before falling asleep.

She's fine at sleeping during the day when she goes down for her naps (if she cries at all it's only for a few mins - mainly because her dummy has fallen out), and once she's asleep at night she will sleep for about 10 hours. I know that in many ways we can't complain, but the evenings are just so hard. Is this just a stage that we need to get through?

You poor thing! It does sound draining and even though she is still tiny, an hour and a half of crying sounds like a lot for you to deal with. Do you think she could be overtired? DD was a bit like this for a while and I found she was better if I put her down at 6pm or gave her a fourth nap!

Btw it gets SO much easier

My ds is 12 weeks and is teething but like u even when he isn't teething he cried a lot as soon as we took him upstairs to bed to do his routine.

Now I know I am going to get a lot of backlash for this but I can hear your desperation just like me and dh were a few nights ago...I truly believe that children as young as 3 months are extremely intelligent and my ds knew that as soon as we took him upstairs it was time for bed,he would be happy as larry downstairs but the moment we took him upstairs he would kick off...so we agreed on a plan of action and we stuck with it and were/are 100% consistent.

We shushed him,rocked him,dummy,picked him up everything you can think of but soon realised that he would go quiet as soon as we entered the room.so we decided to put him to bed the same way every night,lie him down,mobile on,dummy in,stroke and kiss on the head and out the door and returned after 5 minutes if he hasn't settled,again stroke on the head,dummy in and out the door and kept returning every 5 minutes until he went to sleep.now yes I know this is cc but frankly it has worked and he now doesn't even cry when we take him to bed,he is happy and smiling.i believe the greatest gift you can give your child is enabling them to learn to fall asleep by themselves.

Do you settle her in her cot? What happens if you rock her? Dont worry about bad habits - I rocked my dd and she's 20 months and self settled from 6 months (with blips in between for teething etc).

Also what time is bedtime? She might be overtired hence the crying and your bedtime routine just distracts her from it. I'd try earlier bedtime.

Look at her naps. Is she overtired? At 17 weeks I would still expect 3 naps with a last one at around 4-5pm.
You've tried lots of things but how consistent have you been? I would pick one method and stick at it for at least several days. It takes them days if not weeks to understand what you are trying to teach them.
I agree with catnap. We did sleep training from about 4 months (not popular on here) and after a week or two we had a happy, selfsettling sleeping baby.
She is a great sleeper and very content.

17 weeks is tiny and an hour and a half is a very long time for a baby of this age to cry. Honestly, this time is very, very short. I would just go keep her close and reassure her.

Fisher Price lullaby seahorse and a dummy solved dd2's going to bed issues. 'Seahorsey' plays 5 minutes of lullabies which get gradually slower and fade out to help them drift off to sleep, and its tummy glows softly while it is playing music. I now just pop her down, turn Seahorsey on and leave the room, and unless she is teething or her daytime naps have been out of routine, she usually goes to sleep. She is 10mo now but I started doing that when she was 6mo and it really helped. I agree that 17 weeks is still very small. Will she have a late feed and then feed to sleep?

Many thanks for all the replies and tops. I think overtiredness is definitely a big thing as she's always cranky from 4pm onwards each day. I'm not sure how to help with this though? She has 4 naps a day, each usually lasting 30-40 mins long. She always sleep about 1 hour after her feed has finished, generally sleeping at 8am, 11am, 2pm and normally a last nap between 4-5pm. I pick up DH from work (no public transport) and then as soon as we're home at 6pm it's bath, feed, cuddle and then bed. We usually put her down in her cot by 6:45-7pm and she's usually tired by then, but then the crying starts! We have tried putting her down sooner (at 6:30pm) but she still cries for ages. Generally she won't drop off until at least 7:30-8:15pm whatever happens - even though she's tired. If we pick her up to soothe her she just cries more - she seems to want to lie in the cot instead.

She's also just started knocking/taking her dummy out as well, which is frustrating as she relies on it to actually fall asleep - so we're constantly putting it back in as she cries when it falls out.

Sorry - tips not tops!