Around 10-12 weeks she started doing much longer stretches, until we had a good week or so of 7pm feed, a bit of grizzling between then and a dream feed at 10/11pm and she slept through until 6am ish. Great.
The last 2 weeks or so have been hell and now she just SCREAMS ALL EVENING, usually until about 11pm.
We've tried the same routine for weeks now, which is bathtime about 6/6.30, feed, singing / rocking and down to bed. By process of elimination she either doesn't like being flat in her bed OR on her own OR she's not tired OR she's grizzly and gets more and more worked up. Or all of them. She's not hungry and her nappy is clean every time.
We had a tentative go at letting her cry it out for a couple of nights but by 10 mins each night she was screaming herself hoarse and it was just too much to keep letting her do that.
We've tried settling her in her crib without picking her up for several minutes - she's having none of it regardless of how early you catch the start of the upset. Most of the time she will quiet pretty much instantly on being picked up and soothed for a minute, but the second she goes back down she will scream instantly. I have done this at least 10 times this evening and I'm getting desperate. This happens every night.
Should I just give up and let her cuddle on me for a couple of hours until the 'dream' feed? She always seems to go down after this one without a fuss.
She is awake around 7am most mornings to start her day and will have a nap 9-10am ish, and usually another few naps in the day, mostly when we are out and about and she's in her buggy moving. I try to make sure she is never over tired and that she wakes from her afternoon nap by 4.30pm ish.
Seems like she hates going to sleep without movement or on her own but I don't know how to break the cycle without simply stopping going out in the buggy and getting her to nap without movement each day or letting her scream for nights on end until she 'figures it out' and that doesn't feel right (not just yet anyway)
It feels like if I can't crack this now we'll have another 3 months of the same and we'll never get to the bottom of it.
Help - any ideas welcome