How do i get dd2 (4months) to sleep in the evening?

[littlemonstersmum]

really struggling with dd2 in the evening- she has a bath at 5.30ish then i feed her and put her to bed at 6ish. she then sleeps for approx 30mins and is then awake again until about 9.30-10pm. have a demabding 3yr old too so really need an hour or so to myself in the evening or i think i'll go mad! anyone got any ideas?

Move her bath to 6pm and wait six months - sorry but it's an age thing I think. DD didn't sleep soundly at all till she was 10 months or so.

3-4 months is a tricky time as they often have a growth spurt and their sleep patterns go up the wall, just when you think you're starting to establish some patterns!

When ds's night time sleep goes askew it usually means he needs us to change the rest of his day around a bit. Can you jiggle things a little, maybe shift meal and snack times and move a nap a bit, shift bedtime a little later? Just a little shakeup used to do it for us.

when we've been on the drag and her bath has been later didn't really make any difference. never had this problem with dd1 but she was bottle fed and dd2 is breastfed- could this be why?

we don't really have much of a routine during the day coz i'm normally rushing backwards and forwards from pre-school, ballet lessons etc.

I think a lot has to do with personality tbh! Have you tried a sling? If you're needing to move around a lot in order to "do life" with her older sister, it might be something she gets comfortable with as a "constant"? Helped us, although ds was only child, but we have our own business so routines were not always the same each day.

Does she typically nap in day of so how often and for how long?

what time is her last feed?

what time does she typically wake in the morning?

she has 2 or 3 shortish naps- about 30mins to an hour. she has a feed at 6ish after her bath which i'd like to be her last feed- but when she wakes up at 7ish she's attached to me pretty much the whole rest of the evening. she then sleeps till some time between 4 and 6. don't know whether she's only using me as a dummy in the evening or not though!

poor you, sounds exhausting. It would be great if you could get that bit of 'you' time in the evening.

I have a 3 yr old DD1 and a4 mth old DD2 (fully beast fed) so empathise.

I don't know if this will work/ be useful for you but I find my 4mth old sleeps better and for longer at night time if I express milk and give to her in a bottle at about 6.30pm. For some reason she won't take a good enough feed to keep her settled otherwise.(most likely cos she's too tired to drink a fully belly full from the breast).

I know you're likely to be too busy to express at 6pm time, if you wanted to try you could do it once DD's in bed and give it to her the next day.

I hope you manage to get something to work.

Also, I know many people would prefer not to use a dummy and some babies won't take to them- but I do and my baby does and it does help my dd2 settle.

i did try that a while ago but it didn't work- might give it another go coz what you're saying about being too tired makes sense. i tried a formula bottle as well to see if that helped but it didn't so i didn't bother with that anymore.

tried a dummy this evening- but she pushed it out of her mouth and grinned at me- she knows she's winning!! lol.

sounds like you have tried everything. will have a think and get back to you if I have any more thoughts. Is she up now?

she's actually asleep on me now- i'm going to attempt to put her down and see if she's gone for the night now! the hv told me to rouse her slightly before i put her down after her last feed- but that made no difference either!

Past charge aged 4 months would have family tea" at 5pm, then bath at 6, 8oz bottle at 6.30 then bed at 7.30 - sounds like baby could do with having the routine pushed back a little.

do you mean to try and keep her awake after her last feed for an hour? i think that would be really tricky!

the other problem with that is my older dd goes to bed at 7 and i can't put her to bed while dd2 is still up!

OoH MEANT TO SAY BABY WENT TO BED AT 7 AT THE SAME TIME AS OTHER SIBLINGS - OOPS CAPS LOCK

sorry, nipped off to watch Apprentice. Back again.

Yes, bedtimes are tricky with aren't they. I find if baby is awake she is usually crying throughout 3yr olds story and I'm twitchy-not conducive for getting eldest to settle.

It really does sound as if you have been creative and have tried lots of different tricks.

I re-read your messages and see that she doesn't take a meaty nap in the day and wonder whether she finds it difficult to get into deep sleep until late at night. I am sure that this will change as she gets a little older but wish I could help you find a resolution in the short term.

Only a thought but is it dark in her room at bedtime?

I can't offer any advice (sorry) but just a bit of perspective. I think if your four month old is regularly sleeping 10-4 then that's brilliant. My ds is the same age and I never get more than 2-3 hours unbroken sleep.

He recently pushed his bedtime back from 9 to gone 10 and I think it must be because of the lighter evenings so I've ordered a blackout blind. Is your dd's room dark enough? If not maybe a blackout blind would help her get to sleep earlier?

Sounds to me like going to sleep at 6pm and then waking again til 10pm is that her own body clock is telling her that at 6pm it's still just a 'nap', and 10pm is 'bedtime'. Her rhythm requires one last nap in the day for some reason....

Perhaps as others have suggested trying to keep her awake, perhaps even for just 30mins longer, that gap in between the two sleeps will lessen and then eventually disappear?
Gradually eek it out a bit longer til you put her down for the night?

Another thought- Is there are a lot of disruption around your DD2 once she's down for the night? DS2 was getting into a similar sort of pattern.

What works for us though the last 3 months is that I have both mine in the same room, but put DS2 (6mths) down to sleep at 6.45pm after both their baths, and take DS1(3yrs) into our room to have stories in our bed.

We did it so that DS2 would stop getting disrupted. Falling asleep when put down, then there was so much going on nearby that he would wake, and then could not be settled again for hours. Now I do not need to worry about grumbles coming from their bedroom, if there are any, and vice versa.

With this, DS1 sees it as his special thing to get stories in our bed and he has now had the message drilled into him that the bedroom is the sleep room (all toys are elsewhere, so that helps). Both quiet in same room by about 7.15ish.

And I think that has made a MASSIVE difference, as the last three nights DS2 has slept 7 til 5/6/7 !! I know this will not stay for long, but I can start to see light at the end of the tunnel.... until teething, or a cold, or something else that ruins it all(!)

yes, we tried a blackout blind- made no difference! trying the controlled crying technique tonight- we're both crying!! its so horrible because she looks at me as if she's saying 'why aren't you picking me up and letting me have some comfort'. i can't see that there's any other way- and the hv said she was old enough now to let her cry for a while. do you reckon its the right thing to do?

Oh, littlemonstersmum sorry it's so hard.

trouble with controlled crying is that you have to be committed to it. See how you go tonight, don't feel that you have to do it if you find it too heartbreaking.

let us know how this evening goes and do come back for moral support if needed.

i'm so rubbish- just went up to see her but couldn't calm her down by stroking her face, so tried cuddling her which also didn't work so ended up feeding her and she went to sleep. she was knackered from crying since 7. don't know if she'll stay asleep.

think maybe i'll ease her in gently if i can- she's used to coming down stairs with me and being cuddled attached to me all evening, so i suppose we're a step closer because she didn't come downstairs and i haven't been feeding her all evening.

WELL DONE! Don't think you are rubbish, hardest thing is to hear your little one cry.

Bless her.

I think the softly, gently approach is a good idea for the both of you.

Fingers crossed x

I really feel for you, ds2 is 10 weeks and have probs around this time of night too. Wakes after 30-40 minutes. I think it's because they come into a light period of sleep after that amount of time and then he can't settle himself.
The only things that have worked for me is sitting in the dark rocking him back to sleep for up to an hour if necessary. Sometimes I put on a CD of waves breaking on a beach. It sounds like white noise after a while and seems to really soothe him.
Just a thought, which is probably wrong as you said you'd tried the bottle, is whether she gets enough milk from you late in the evening. Most mums, me included, produce little milk at that time of day and I've had to supplement with expressed milk from about 2 weeks.
Hope you find an answer, controlled crying is horrible to go through but does work.
Thinking of you!