4.5-month-old screaming at bedtime - please help

[bean612]

Firstly - apologies in advance for the long post! Our DD is a pretty happy, good-natured baby during the day and only really cries for the usual reasons (basically hunger, tiredness, or being held for too long by someone who isn't mummy). She generally goes to bed okay, but since she was very little (6 weeks or earlier) she's often (though not always) woken up crying between 10 mins and an hour after first being put to bed. We used to be able to calm her either by feeding, cuddling, or shushing (or a combination of the three) and although the crying was more than grizzling, it was never full-on distress crying.

Recently, though, she's been waking up absolutely screaming - as though she's really frightened or in terrible pain, and instead of once, she does it three times in the space of an hour or two, and then often again around 11pm (she goes to bed at 9pm). Whereas before my DH could soothe her with a cuddle or a bottle (she is mixed fed), now the ONLY thing that will soothe her is my breast, and even then sometimes even when the nipple is in her mouth she'll carry on crying (which she's never, ever done before - previously as soon as she had a boob, she'd instantly calm down).

I know this might just be random baby behaviour which she'll stop one day and we'll never know why she did it, but I just wondered if this had happened to anyone else and if so whether there's anything we can do to stop it/help her? It's so horribly distressing - I hate hearing her cry (what mother doesn't?), but this type of crying is so awful it makes me sob myself and leaves me traumatised. I just don't know where it's come from and why she's so upset...

does she go to sleep the first time at bed time on your breast?

cos the screaming might be when she comes in her natural sleep cycle to a time of light slepp and she realises that she's not doing what she was doing when she fell asleep and then freaks out!?

What I mean is if we went to sleep in our beds and began to stir later on in the night and found we were sitting at the kitchen table we'd be wide awake with pounding heart.

So really she should go into her cot awake when it's bed time and drift off on her own (with you around for comfort if needed)

You may be doing all that - but if not it might help.

and the opposite advice which you'll get plenty of is to co-sleep and keep her up until you go to bed...but that's so far from what you're doing it's be a massive change!

Well, she does go to sleep feeding (on the bottle) which I know is a bad habit which we're going to have to break eventually. But she's always done that, so what I don't understand is why the wake-ups, previously easily dealt with, have now become hysterical and multiple.

We did used to keep her up till we went to bed, but decided we really needed a couple of hours to ourselves in the evening and have worked hard to get her bedtime back from 11ish to 9pm - would have been a good idea though

It's because her understanding of the world is developing and she is more mature.

When she was tiny her "memory" for what she was doing 5 seconds ago never mind 2 hours ago would probably not really be significant. When she came to the light period of sleep and her eyes flickered open she prob wouldn't really check out her whereabout, just drif toff back to sleep.

But now she's older if she goes to sleep sucking on a bottle in your arms she must be pretty spooked to wake up in her cot - NOT sucking on a bottle and NOT in your arms.

She may of course be teething or something as well? But in that case you'd expect this sleep disturbance to be very brief.

Yes, I see what you mean. It's odd, though - when she wakes in the night for a feed she just grizzles a bit and falls asleep in my arms afterwards, but doesn't wake up again until the next feed (or morning - if we're really lucky!)

Thanks Starlight - in fact I found this thread independently the other day. DD HAS regressed, though not that much since she's never been a great sleeper (she once did 8.5 hours - once - never again!). At the moment she's waking every 2-3 hours but to be honest I don't mind that half as much as I mind the piteous screaming.

She's just had a horrible screaming bout and refused the boob for ages till finally she took it (I practically had to force it into her mouth and hold it there) and she calmed down. I can't bear the sound she makes, like's someone's physically hurting her. The weird thing is I don't think she's even actually awake - her eyes stay shut, so it's not as though she opens them and thinks 'where am I, and how did I get here?' because she's only semi-conscious.

Not so much advice for you as sympathy - my daughter (4 months) has recently started doing exactly the same thing - I know exatly what you mean with the not-quite-awake screaming. It's horrible!

She had managed a few weeks ago getting herself to sleep but now we're right back at feeding or rocking her to sleep for over an hour every evening. And she'll wake from that once or twice with the awful crying, and need more boob or rocking to get her back to sleep again, after which she'll sleep fine. It's only in the evening, which makes me think it might be overtiredness. She's not good at napping during the day (sorry, that should read we're rubbish at getting her to nap!) so I'm going to really work on that and see if it helps. I'll let you know!

Then on the other hand, someone else suggested to us that she might just not be ready to go to bed yet! I love the conflicting advice that comes with parenthood...

Have you tried white noise? We recently tried putting him down with the radio untuned and quite loud - it's miraculous! fast asleep within 30 seconds.

sorry, for naps, i mean

Naomilpeb - I'm so sorry you've got the same problem, but glad that someone out there knows what it feels like. I had wondered about overtiredness myself too - DD used to be great at napping but the last couple of weeks has suddenly gone to half an hour, maybe an hour if we're very lucky (she used to do a good 2 hours in the middle of the day, and shorter ones in the morning and late afternoon too).

By the way, out of curiosity, how did you get your DD to get herself to sleep before? Ours has NEVER managed it, unless she's in the sling or in the buggy/carseat (and in the latter two she always cries for a while first, in the carseat sometimes quite full-on, when we can't get her out and cuddle her )

Have a look at videos by Andrea Grace - link from her website. She's got some good tips. Her book's really useful too.
I 'trained' my DS (now 2years4months) to put himself to sleep at 9 weeks and he's always been a brilliant sleeper. For all sorts of reasons, DD (9mths) started falling asleep on the bottle at around 3 months and it started to cause problems at around 5 months. At 8 months she was still waking and screaming, sometimes for up to 3 hours, in the middle of the night. Her sleep was generally really fragile which meant she oten woke a few times before 10pm (in bed by 6.30pm) and after 4am when their sleep is lighter.
3 weeks ago I actually paid for a sleep consultant to fix her! She now sleeps 6.30pmish til between 6 and 7am. Day naps are still a bit iffy but a million times better.
The first thing that had to stop was feeding to sleep.
First night she cried for 2 hours and again for 2 in the night. Obviously my DD is 8 months so she shouldn't be feeding at night so we diluted the bottle slowly until she gave it up on night 5. At 4 months they may still need it. For the first 3 nights we sat next to her with our arms on her until she went to sleep and the same if she woke in the night (she gets wound up with patting and shhing so we just sat in a wierd sort of half cuddle over the side of the cot). Next 2 nights we went just sat there, not touching, the next 2 we walked in and out every minute for the first 5 minutes then went in every 5 if she was crying (in fact, didn't have to leave it that long as she'd go to sleep).
It was all down to feeding her to sleep which I knew but didn't fully appreciate.
She now wakes occasionally in the night but puts herself back to sleep and I rarely have to go in.
Definitely worth looking at the Andrea Grace resources and trying to do something sooner than later.
Good luck!

Bean612, I'm afraid to report that the better daytime naps don't seem to be helping the evening screaming fest...

But for the last three nights we've tried holding her still in her crib while she cries, and it seems to work. We've been holding her little arms down by her sides (gently but firmly) and saying nice things to her or singing to her softly and for the last few nights she's been asleep within fifteen minutes. The hysterical screaming stopped pretty quickly and turned into mumbling and grumbling before she fell asleep. She then slept until her normal night-time feed at three-ish, when she got ehrself back to sleep again till the morning.

I'm still feeding to sleep in the first instance but starting the holding when she wakes from that after a couple of minutes in her crib. We're not bothering leaving her but just wait in the bedroom for her to wake up and start. Tonight I might try to actually wake her up once she's fallen asleep feeding to make it all a bit quicker...

PS If you're going to try it, make sure you've got a stool or chair to sit on if your bed isn't near enough to her, as the first night I started it standing up and was in back agony by the time she fell asleep!

i was going to advise the same thing.we found when our son did this at four months(now six months)we just put our hands on his tummy and sung gently to him.he has always been a great sleeper so it upset me when he did this painful cry for almost a week.but i am happy to say he now sleeps peacefully from 6pm til 6am giving us a little time alone with our three year old before he goes to bed.just continue doing what you are doing it will pay off in the end.good luck