Baby cries self to sleep every night

[darlingbabs]

Is this normal? our 5 month year old is happy to be put down awake but sleepy at his other 3 sleeps of the day. but at 7pm he goes completely ballistic every night, from the moment you start to zip up his grobag he just screams and screams. When i go and check on him he is grabbing his teddies and shoving them in his mouth/putting them over his face and seems almost to be asleep but still crying. we have a bedtime routine with a bath and quiet time before sleep but he just seems so upset. I know its not because of hunger/nappy or anything like that. I feed him again at 10pm and after i put him down then he is completely happy (same with his 9-10am nap and his 12-2pm nap). i just cant work out what is wrong with him, its been like this for as long as i can remember and there isnt any point shhhhsing him and all that as we have tried it all. do we just assume that he needs to do this before falling asleep? the only thing that does work is if you stick the bottle in his mouth for him to give it a final few sucks or a dummy but i really dont want to keep using those (and we havent been for about a month).

Darlingbabs, I could have written your post! I am 99% sure it must be over-tiredness. My second son is nearly four months old and is giving us the same problems. He follows the same bedtime routine as our eldest has and loves his bath, but anything after that he screams through. Total shock after first son, who fed himself to sleep / nicely dozy state on me for months and months. Son number two is having three (sometimes more) long-ish naps a day, but takes them reluctantly as he loves watching his big brother. He is also chronically nosy and chatty and snacks instead of having proper long feeds during the day. I have noticed on the one day a week big brother goes to nursery he's much more chilled out. I'm hoping he just grows out of the bedtimes traumas as I don't think eardrums were designed for it! :-)

This is exactly our daughter! She is 13 weeks and follows day naps so well will even put herself to sleep with dummy during day naps but then screams for at least an hour when put down at 7. Have tried everything. She only has a 10/15 min nap in the afternoon so maybe this has to be longer. What did you find worked in the end?