What am I doing wrong?!?

[1amclub96]

DS2 is coming up to 8 weeks. He is a very calm baby during the day (especially compared to DS1). However, between 8pm and 11pm he is so fussy. He won’t settle no matter what we try. Last night I had him in the carrier for two hours. He usually loves sleeping in it during the day but would not sleep despite me walking around. Tonight we tried the pram, but again he keeps fighting it.

He goes well past his wake window and becomes so overtired that is is really difficult to settle him. He is also hit or miss at night. Sometimes he can sleep for 5 hours at a time, but other times, he will wake up close to 8-9 times in the night - not to feed, just to be held.

It is so exhausting, I don’t have an evening to relax because it’s spent consoling him constantly. Last night was the worst night so far and I have been a zombie all day. My head is absolutely killing from the lack of sleep!

I know this will get better with time but is there anything I can do in the meantime to help soothe him in the evenings?

We tried many things-

Tilted cot Matress (reflux)
Black out blind
Sleeping bag
Dummy
No dummy
Bottle feed at night

We also tag teamed, I went to bed at 7pm and slept until 12/1 am. Dh went to bed 12-7am. I got up in the night and snatched sleep in between feeds/settling.

Your baby is very young and you are right in the thick of it. The trick in the long run is teaching your baby to put themselves to sleep , so laying him down slightly awake so he gets use to dropping off. That way if he wakes in the night he can put himself back to sleep. This works better once they stop feeding in the night.

Witching hours. Babies are programmed to cluster feed at this time to increased milk supply. Even if he is ff he wil still behave this way. If bf just watch TV and feed, he will be fussy with feeding, if ff done whatever works.

Are you feeding him during that time? If he truly won’t eat. I’d hand him off to your partner if you have one to take him for a walk or a drive. You’d be amazed the difference some fresh air and a change of scenery makes. This means you go to sleep so you can be rested for rest of the night.

Well first of all you aren't doing anything wrong! Some babies are just fussy in the evening. My first was the same. He would scream from 6-11 every day. He was a very 'alert' baby and I think he just got so overwhelmed taking everything in. He outgrew it somewhere between 3-4 months (it was 2 years ago so I cant remember exactly when)

Do you have a bouncer/swing chair? It's the only way we could put DS down at that stage. He'd still fuss a bit but it would give us 5-10 minutes breaks of we bounced the chair with our foot.

It's really tough though, I hope you're doing ok. It's a statement I hated when I was in the thick of the screaming evening stage but... This too shall pass.

Yep, baby witching hour! You aren’t doing anything wrong, they naturally cluster feed in the evening to increase milk supply/fill themselves up for the night!

I have a 7 week old who is like this from 5-8pm, she’s breastfed so is on and off feeding the entire time and it’s exhausting so I really feel for you. Don’t remember DD1 being like this, but don’t forget it’s just a phase and it will be over soon. Hang in there!