9 week old - evening sleep - Help please!!

[mama30]

My 9 week old baby boy has a fairly decent routine during the day. He is awake by 7.30am then has a 45 minute nap at 9am and around 2 hours at 12pm. He gets tired by 4pm and I let him have 15-25 minutes but always make sure he is awake by 5pm. He starts getting tired and grumpy before 6pm and is only happy being held (just really really tired but not wanting to go to sleep). I put him to sleep around 7.30 and after this it will be a matter of awake/sleep, crying histerically if not picked up until 9/10ish when he finally goes down for the night. He seems very tired but unable to stay asleep for more than 15 minutes. Any suggestions please??? I also have a 4 year old and it would really help to have calm evenings so she can also get the necessary attention for dinner, bath, bedtime, etc.

To me he sounds overtired. I never managed to put my DD to bed later than 6:30 at that age. I implemented a bedtime routine from very early on. Bath, bottle in darkened room with no eye contact, a short cuddle, "it's bedtime now" and down for the night. Sometimes she'd resist, and I'd just come in and stroke her a bit, with some shushing and leave again. Within a week she went down without protest.
If he's already tired by 6, start the bedtime routine then, don't try and string him out till 7:30, as it will only make it harder it put him down. Good Luck.

Thank you very much for your reply. Quick question - what time did your dd wake up in the morning having gone to sleep at 6.30pm? I will try your suggestion tonight - wish me luck.

Hi mama30. My dd is also 9 weeks old and it really sounds as if your little one is overtired. To go from 5pm to 7.30pm is quite a long stretch for a weeny baby - I know dd would be evil if I kept her awake for that long! It sounds as if you are in a brilliant routine during the day (I am nowhere near as organised as that!) but I expect if you put him down earlier, or let him sleep a little longer at his 4pm nap - say 45 minutes - then it would be much easier for him to go to sleep at bedtime.

Good luck!

Id try and get in more naps during the day. Does he wake up from his naps or do you wake him?

Even though I was nervous about putting her down at 6:30, she slept through from 6:30 to 6:30/7 from 12 weeks. Some nights, when she was really tired she was even in bed by 6, but never woke up any earlier because of it.
DD would have a little catnap from about 4:45 to 5:15 and still found she was ready to go down at 6:30.

I think with babys if they miss out on a nap or something, they have to make up for it. Say they need 16 hours sleep in 24 hours and they miss an hour one day, sleep 12 hours that night they still need to catch up on an extra hour nap the following day. I just find that with my ds. He always needs to have a certain amount a day. Im not sure whether thats right but it would explain the over tiredness.

Thank you for all your messages. The only nap I was waking him from was the last one to ensure he was awake by 5pm. I have taken your suggestions and started allowing a longer nap at this time and also am attempting to put him to sleep by 6.30pm. Results?? Well I am managing to get him to sleep by 8.30pm which is an improvement so thank you....I agree with all of you that he is overtired but the odd thing is he is perfectly happy until he wakes up from his last nap and then he just seems tired and crankie until bedtime. He still finds it very difficult to settle whereas during the day he easily goes down for his naps.. I will keep trying and report back.