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Evening Meltdown - Any ideas??

4 replies

Calypsocat · 23/01/2010 15:48

I have an 11 week old who is, during the day, a relatively easy baby - feeds well, is alert and smiley when awake and settles herself and sleeps well for naps. She is on a rough 3 hour cycle and sleeps for at least one hour but more often needs one and a half hours in each cycle. At night, between the hours of 12.30 a.m. and 7.30 a.m. again all is well. It is the evening that is proving really difficult.

Some time between 7 p.m. to midnight she goes into meltdown. She cries and flails about. She eats heartily during this period so it is not hunger. It is not wind - she had dreadful wind but seems to have come through that now. I thought it must be a case of over-tiredness (and she is clearly knackered) and have tried to settle her at 7 p.m. and at various other stages through the evening but she won't go down. What is particularly weird is that, after being calmed by either my husband or me, she is often really serene, seems really sleepy and when put down goes to sleep beautifully and then after 5 or 10 minutes wakes up yelling. We have tried leaving her to cry and settle herself but her crying just escalates and she gets frantic.

My husband gets home at about 8.30 p.m. to be confronted with a more-often-than-not frantic baby. We haven't had an evening meal in peace for weeks. My little boy (2 years old) always settled well so this is unchartered territory for us and we are exhausted!!! Sound familiar to anyone?? Any ideas??

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janek · 23/01/2010 15:59

sounds familiar, but no ideas really. i think you're right that she's tired - my dd2 was very like this, (except she had trouble staying awake longer than 2 hours at that age...), sometimes she was so tired she couldn't even feed - i would rock her to sleep and then she'd wake up a bit (ie 10 mins) later to have some milk and go back off.

we also used to let her sleep in a reclining chair in the living room, rather than in her cot. not sure why, except that chair was nicknamed the sleeping chair when DD1 used it. and then we'd take her up to bed when we went. at least that saved me going up and down to her all evening.

it will pass though, you'll work it out. my dd2 is nearly 15 months. how did that happen?!?

Calypsocat · 23/01/2010 16:08

Good to know others have been there! We have tried putting her down in her Moses basket, her pram, her cot, upstairs, downstairs - seems to make no difference where she is!

Some books say that you need to spend 20 - 30 minutes settling your baby down for the night at this age - but none of them acknowledge that you might have another child that needs your attention too!!

Any other thoughts out there??

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Snooch · 23/01/2010 16:09

DS2 was EXACTLY like this from birth around the same time each evening. Still at 9 and a half months he gets a bit melty at bed time but it's not for long now thank goodness.

Am afraid that the whole thing still has me very but I normally just put it down to over tiredness and his personality type (i.e. not being able to deal with it very well!)

Octaviapink · 24/01/2010 19:38

My dd used to have evening meltdowns too - she'd start at around 5.30 and by the time dh came home at 6.30 I'd be tearing my hair out. The only thing that worked to quiet her was going outside, so very often dh came home to find the two of us wrapped in a big rug sitting on the wall in front of the house waiting for him. It WILL pass! We used to let dd go to sleep on dh's chest while he sat on the sofa after supper - that way she'd go off into deep sleep and could be transferred to cot later. It's ok to let her 'need' you a bit more when she's stressed so I wouldn't worry that in the evenings you can't put her down in her cot or wherever - perhaps she just needs you a bit more to help her go to sleep at that time. Appreciate it's difficult with your little boy who needs putting to bed too!

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