Evenings with a 5 week old

[marilla]

My baby is 5 weeks old and I adore him but the evenings are terrible from about 7pm. I think he gets tired and overstimulated but we've been mistaking this crying for hunger, so overfeeding him, resulting in him being sick. A bath does calm him but immediately afterwards he starts crying again, particularly if we take him back downstairs. Settling him to sleep in the evenings is impossible, whether in our room or downstairs. He just lies there madly kicking his legs with his eyes wide open. I have taken to spending most of the evening in our bedroom with him, trying to calm him and waiting until he is genuinely hungry so I can give him a feed to get him to sleep, as it's the only thing that works. Anyone experienced similar? What did you do?

walk round the streets. or better still, get someone else to walk him round the streets.

get a swing. (we just put ropes on the car seat and swung the baby from the ceiling)

it is horrible but this phase does only last a few weeks.

All four of mine have been like this, and I think you are right that it is tiredness. They do get through it, and all you can do is try to relax them. Rockign or cuddling is often the only thing that helps.

Anyone experienced similar?
YES.

What did you do?
Waited a couple of months and the problem went away. Sorry I can't be more help but the first 2 or 3 months can be terrible. Though carrying him around in a sling seemed to help. I also used to stand outside our house with him as he found watching traffic quite calming. We also had an electronic mobile above his cot that played music and that calmed him.

like fennel said, it will pass once he starts to adgust to life on the outside and puts himself into a bit of a routine. my dd tended to get very overstimulated as well and fed constantly in the evenings (and days for that matter!)

is he having enough sleep during the day? my dd used to have at least 5 or 6 naps a day, from 20mins to two hours long and the latest one was often around six. you'd think it would make them harder to get down but it has the opposite effect, sleep begets sleep. don't keep him awake in the evening in the misguided belief he won't go down, he'll just get overtired

hope it gets easier soon pet, good luck!

Thanks all, feel better knowing that at least I know it's not just him! I think he does get enough sleep in day but I must admit on the days when he has been asleep early evening I have been waking him up thinking that if I don't, he won't go to sleep later. Thanks for that tip Eve2005.

Sounds just like my ds at that age. Are you bf? I used to just bf for hours on end in my darkened bedroom until he was so sound asleep that he would eventually not object to be being put in his cot! I was desperate for my evenings back so at 6-7 wks I gave him a dummy at bedtime after a good feed and it was magic at getting him to sleep in his cot (for a month or two.)

If I had my time again however, I wouldn't worry about staying in the bedroom all night or be thinking he can't be genuinely hungry, I would just sit downstairs with the lights and telly on low, letting him feed and sleep on my lap until we all went to bed. Make it bearable for yourself. You say feeding is the only thing that settles him, so just do that. It's for comfort as well as nourishment. Plenty of time for routines later on when he is old enough to understand, but he will grow out of this stage soon, I promise

My ds was exactly the same. We did the routine around bathtime with his sister - to keep us sane as much as anything - then I'd sit on the sofa with him feeding for what felt like hours, eating tea with one hand etc until it stopped. It's rubbish but it does end I found chocolate helped

No i wasn't able to bf so he's on formula. Think I will take him downstairs tonight like you suggest tatties, not least because am starting to get resentful at dh that i am stuck in bedroom all night.

Agree with Tatties, they all go through unsettled patches in the evening. Mine was usually 5-7 but it varies.
Just feed him, cuddle him, carry him around. It will pass...

Marilla, that's exactly how I felt, but I stayed in the bedroom all evening because that's what I thought I 'should' be doing! I now know that at that age I don't think it made one bit of difference to ds where he was. Later on, yes, do the last feed in the bedroom, but during this stage just make things easier on yourself. Don't have much experience of ff so I don't know about overfeeding, but if he had had as much milk as he can take would you consider a dummy?

Yes I am using a dummy with him and having some limited success, he has dropped off to sleep once on his own thanks to dummy. Problem is he can't seem to keep the dummy in his mouth unless he's lying on his back, and sometimes he just refuses to be put down!

How did it go last night Marilla?

my dd would have screaming fits in the evenings, DH would wrap her in a blanket and walk her up and down the street. It would calm her down and most of the time she'd go to sleep and stay asleep for ages.

when she got a little older (about 10 weeks I think) we started to hold off on the 7.00 feed, bath her instead, bath for about 15 mins and then dress and play, then feed her afterwards, she'd then feed and sleep til about 5.00 in the morning. she's now 23 weeks and we do the same routine but she'll sleep til 7.00 on a weekday (when DH's alarm goes off) and 8.30 on the weekends.

It will get better :)

(Oh, and when it gets better, it's amazing how quickly you forget the really bad weeks)

All mine did this too, I found the first 12 weeks really hard because of this, but I agree with the others, don't worry about trying to do the 'right thing' at this age, do what you need to enable you to cope. We discovered how great subtitles were with DS1. We found we could watch the TV as a distraction and follow what was going on even over the noise of a crying baby. Spending hours hours alone in a dark bedroom with a screaming baby is enough to send anyone loopy

It does get better, and this is such a short period really although it does feel like eternity when you're in the middle of it. Set your mind on 12 weeks, by 12 weeks he will have stopped doing this (hey! in a year he's going to be toddling around and chatting to you!)

Most newborns need between 16 and 18 hours of sleep in every 24 hours.

Their brains are working harder when they sleep to process everything and this is also the time they physically grow, so they need to sleep lots and this is the opposite of adults, i wake babies i care for at the time for feeds and only feeds, i have found that it works well, recently had a baby who was 2 weeks late and over 8lb and he went into a 4 hourly feed routine easily, he was formula frm the start.

Sometimes if you have a baby that sleeps well in the day but not in the evening or night it is often because of the enviroment, day times are bright and busy with phone, tv, radio with the opposite later, try to calm things down a bit in the day sleeps and i have found the radio or cd playing in the evening / night works a treat.

And yes this phase passes eventually.

Things still not brilliant, although Friday night I took him for a drive at 5pm, then he slept til 7pm, woke up for a feed then we had hour and half of on-off crying til 8.30pm when we bathed him then fed him to sleep. I found that evening quite bearable. Last night a disaster. Me and dh getting very short with one another now....!

I meant Thursday, not Friday!

I meant Thursday, not Friday!