When do fussy evenings stop?

[BabyLT]

My baby is 18 days old and for the past week has been so fussy from 7pm when she has a feed to around midnight or early hours of the morning.
not sure if it’s cluster feeding but she constantly wants to feed. Although sometimes she only has a short feed then falls asleep on me. If I put her down she’s crying again after five minutes.
I’m feeding her every 2-3.5 hours in the day time so she’s getting plenty of feeds.
Also, I’ve heard babies cluster feed in the evening then have a long sleep overnight. But she doesn’t, she sleeps 2/3 hours after she finally settles, then wakes up again hungry and crying. When will it get better? Im in tears every night because im so tired.

Hi, 18 days is still very very new--babies that little can't sleep long periods; they need to feed. When they first arrive they sleep lots and we think "oh, this is doable." And then the pace picks up. I hope you're able to rest when your baby does and have a bit of help. Its so so exhausting. But doesn't last. And all the moms who tell you you're doing something wrong, or that their babies don't / didn't do that? Don't believe them. Hang in there xo

My 5 year old is still fussy at bedtime

The all evening cluster feeding thing for my babies lasted til about 8 weeks with my first and about 12 weeks with my second. My first did used to sleep good blocks of 4+hrs for the first block of sleep since birth. My second usually only slept 2-3hrs at a time all night long until he started of
often doing a longer first stretch of 4-5hrs at about 4 or 5 months old I think, can't remember exactly. It is exhausting. You will find a way through it somehow.

So sorry you are exhausted, I remember this period well. It does feel relentless at the moment but I will pass.
Babies tummy is tiny so can only hold a small amount which gets digested quickly so they will be hungry again only a few hours later.
Lots of the feeding is comforting, it’s also helping to establish your supply at this early stage.
Do you have any help so you can solely concentrate on feeding and resting when baby sleeps?
This stage can go on a few months but you will find as she grows the times between feeds start to get a bit longer.
Just accept that this is how it is at the moment, sleep and rest all you can and take it a day at a time. There’s lots of pressure to ‘bounce back’ within weeks of having a baby and be out and about and back to normal life. Cocoon yourself away for a bit, concentrate on just feeding baby and enjoying this time and accept as much help as you can so you can navigate this tiring time as easily as possible. Good luck

I think this is really normal in my experience. It'll go up and down for the next few weeks and then settle down in a few weeks. Honestly you just have to hang in there, sleep when you can, take any help, look after your nipples, remind yourself that in a few weeks it'll get easier. I would get on the sofa or in bed with phone, tv, snacks and just not move all evening. If DC fell asleep feeding o generally wouldn't try and put them down unless I was going to bed or needed to shower etc. Would just let them sleep on me and let my nipples have a rest! When does it get better...
I would say definitely better by 12 weeks ish, probably sooner but can be quite up and down for weeks.

When my baby was this little, and cluster feeding, I just let her fall asleep on me and held her all evening! Then she didn't get overtired and cranky!

Completely different and not helpful to what op is asking

Op don't think for one minute it takes 5 yrs it doenst

My baby started to settle down abit more around 8 weeks, she is now nearly 6 months and still very much fights her daytime naps but does sleep well at night. Hold in there, then first few weeks are relentless ❤️

I don’t remember the exact timescales but I just remember how much better it got between 6-10 weeks. I remember that bit before bed was usually pretty hellish and eating dinner was always hard. He’d be asleep before it was ready and the second it was made he’d cry! I read bits of Gina Ford, didn’t do any of the harsh bits but found the bit on wake windows really helpful. After the first 2 weeks when the visitors had died down I tried to stick to some sort of wake windows and keep him awake for longer periods if I could. It definitely worked but did take a few weeks to show. I’ve had a ridiculous sleeper from 10 weeks on, sleeps all night every night! Now about to do it all again and wondering how I did it. Hope you manage to find a bit of a breather at some point and catch up on some sleep, it’s so tough

Evenings for me were not relaxing until they were 2 years old when they went to bed at 7 with no mucking about and slept till 6 in the morning. That's not the case for some. Some never sleep well.

Congratulations! Think you're expectations might be a bit high. Both of mine were banshees in the evening for about 4/5 months, we used to watch TV with the subtitles on!

In my sample of 2, being full has no bearing on whether they sleep or not. Some of them hate sleep glares at DS

Do you have a partner? I'm in the same period right now and DP is taking the baby and holding him at 10pm so I can go to bed. Managed to sleep almost 4 hours the first night, almost 3 last night. It's not great, but it's something! Then when it's my shift we have the next to me crib and sometimes after a big feed I can convince the baby that my hand on them is sufficient and we both get some sleep.

This is totally normal behaviour! Baby has been tucked safe and warm inside Mummy's tummy, and all of a sudden they're in the big, scary world. It's horrible to endure, but just try and give what comfort you can. There's nothing to "fix".

For us, it tailed off sometime between 5-6 weeks.

To be honest the first 6 weeks can be like this and only really start to adjust around 12 weeks. You or your partner are going to be getting up in the night for months yet.
Sleep or rest when you can, accept all and any help for cooking/cleaning/ minding baby for you for a little while. You're still healing too so don't try and do too much - just the bare essentials.
It's amazing how much time looking after a tiny baby sucks up.

I remember that up to 5 weeks was just so difficult. Then it improved. I think baby is still trying to get the hang of the difference between day and night so make sure this is very clear - darkness as much as possible after a certain point in the evening etc

It got better for us at 11 weeks then was gone by 14 with my first.

Awww this time is so tough. But honestly it's completely normal. Even though it is relentless. And sleeping for 2/3 hours when they finally go down is really good. 18 days is still so so new. So just keep doing what your doing. Also worth having a read on the 4th trimester.

It settled down for us about 10/11 weeks

What you describe is completely normal. Things got better for us around 8 weeks when we managed to get DS “down for the night” when we went to bed around 10-10:30pm, but the fussy evenings with on/off crying from 7-10pm continued until about 16 weeks although there were a couple of weeks here and there where he seemed more settled.

From 4 months onwards I managed to get him to bed around 7-8pm each night but unfortunately with multiple night waking from the dreaded 4 month regression.

2-3 hour stretches at 18 days old is really good! In the nicest possible way you may need to adjust your expectations a little. Baby is still in the 4th trimester and will be for some time yet.