9 month screaming after bath time

[Lolacat1234]

I can't believe I'm STILL dealing with this 9 months later! Everyone told me she would grow out of it!!

My daughter is a happy soul during the day now after a shaky start in her early months. But getting her changed after bath time into her pyjamas is another story. It starts as soon as I get her out of the water (actual bath time is a dream and she loves it). I changed it up in response a couple of months ago so i now get her out and wrap her in a towel and straight into her bedroom where she has her bottle in her towel, then she was happier to get dressed once she'd been fed. Recently this has not been working anymore and once she's finished her bottle and I'm changing her she loses it once again!

I'm so tired of it, I want bedtime to be a peaceful loving calm time, does anyone have any tips or can share solidarity with me that she will eventually grow out of it?

I'm concerned she's going down at night with wind and remaining unsettled because she will not let me wind her properly after her bottle she just arches her back and whinges if I try!

At the end of my rope with it all!!

No advice by my DS is the same and has been since birth. He’s 10 months. As soon as he gets out of the (happy) bath he starts crying. We feed him before he goes in the bath though so that once he’s out it’s a quick dry and change and in bed where he stops crying instantly and rolls over and goes to sleep.
We’ve tried everything and intermittently things work, at the moment he has a light up twinkle twinkle book and he likes to look at that while we dress him. But generally we just try to do it as quickly as possible.
I used to think it was because he didn’t want to go to bed but the health visitor said it’s more likely he’s ready for bed and it’s his way of releasing energy or something!
Who knows, anyway I’m used to it now.

Two wild ideas: first one - have you tried her in the shower?

Second one: could you try different pjs? Just in case the usual ones are uncomfortable in some way.

@Abouttimemum thank you for the solidarity! I thought maybe I should try putting her to bed slightly early as it could be over tiredness (we start bath at 6:30 bed for 7) but she is a horrible sleeper as well so I was not up for extra night wakings as well if we put her to bed too early. Guess it's worth a try.

@pjani not tried the shower yet! I think she likes bathtime a lot so I don't think it's necessarily the problem it's the afterwards, but willing to try anything! I even tried not getting her hair wet last night to see if it's anything to do with that but made no difference. We also have a few PJs as opposed to babygros, they are definitely easier to wrestle on her when she's kicking off but don't make an actual difference to her general mood lol.

Sounds like she could be a bit overtired - my DS was the same but stopped screaming and slept longer once we moved it forward half an hour - start at 6, bed at 6:30/7 depending on how it goes

We also give him a booster feed before bath then main feed before bed

Also, I've found he needs a little shout to wind down so we usually end up with some protest somewhere! It's just not as bad

HTH

Have you tried. Giving her infacol. X

@Lolacat1234 @Biscuitsandteaplease yes an earlier bed time is a good shout, our boy was hysterical going to bed at 7pm, we changed it to 6.30 at about 4.5/5 months and it changed to protest crying rather than hysteria so it was much better. She might sleep better too.

Bath her in the morning?

I dry my baby with a hairdryer (diffuser, coolest setting) and he loves it. Keeps him warm and he enjoys the sensation

Thanks all - some great suggestions I will try. I do think perhaps she's overtired. It's tricky managing her routine around the school run, I think ideally she would do best having a morning sleep around 9:30 (sadly always falls asleep in the car on the school run) and an afternoon nap around 2pm which would see her through to a 7pm bedtime with no problems. In reality she falls asleep on the morning school run in the car too early which then brings her afternoon nap forward so she's awake around 2pm which is a long stretch until bedtime. Today it was 1:30pm and it was a loooooong afternoon to say the least! I will definitely try a 6:30pm bedtime so bath at 6 tomorrow and see how we go.x

How is she once she's dressed? I ask, because when we went through a similar phase, it was because our DD was cold. We fixed it by drying and dressing her in the bathroom immediately after getting her out, and keeping the room very warm.

Given how long this has been an issue, it's probably not going to be that simple, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Good luck!

Our son works on a 7-7 day when he was 9 months his schedule was a 7am wake, bottle, breakfast 7:30, nap 9:30-10, lunch 11:30, nap 12:30-2:30 then bottle when he woke, dinner at 5, bath at 6 bottle 6:30 bed 7pm. This worked really well for him and meant he wasn't overtired or undertired. He's 1 next weekend and it's basically the same but without the morning nap

We had this for so long. I am sure he wasn't overtired because he would do it regardless of how late his nap was or how long he had been up. I'm afraid to say it lasted a while. The game changer was when I stopped putting him on the changing mat and bought pull up nappies so he didn't have to lay down. That's the bit he hated. He is 17 months now and laughs and giggles as he "helps" me put his nappy and pjs on. So I'm sure it will get better!

@Rosebud1302 - thank you so much!! Hopefully there will be an end in site! I do think she absolutely hates the change table and I'll be glad to be rid of it but she's not quite mobile enough to get changed anywhere else!x

Try warming towel on radiator before hand so she is nice and toastie. Might be that shes cold?

Warm towel, heater on blowing warm air, dressed in bathroom and earlier bed. It's a horrible feeling getting out a lovely warm bath before bed!

Have you tried dying her straight away in a warm towel,bit of tickling the into warmed PJ's and then bottle.
Personally so always did bathing in the morning when mine was little.

Bath time is just another play time round here - my DS doesn't understand calm! He's always liked a good roll/crawl/run round after his bath, preferably with nothing on. Maybe she'd like a bit of explore time after bath? Agree with PP it's worth trying tweaking your timings and seeing if warming up her night things helps.

Thank you all for your kind advice! Just updating the thread in case anyone else finds themselves in this situation and to let you all who helped know how I've got on with tweaking a few things! So instead of battling on the change table in her room, I'm now taking her back downstairs and chasing her round the living room trying to put her clothes on. She still screams and struggles with putting the nappy on (we use cloth nappies so it takes a bit longer) but it's much less stressful getting her sleep suit on now, she just wants to be mobile and we manage it somehow lol with her crawling all over the place. Then nice and calm up to her room where she has the bottle and put down nice and calm. I won't be buying her any more sleepsuits as I can see how much easier this will be if I just have lots of pyjamas instead! Thanks all for your help!xxx