This is the worst its been yet so far tonight, any ideas please?

[mower]

DS2 11 weeks exclusevley bf. This period between 7pm and 11pm is a nightmare.

He had his bath same as normal a 7.15 then went down for a sleep at 7.30 till 8.00. Then woke for a feed and doing his usual of not going back to sleep.

The only thing now that stops him from crying is for him to be picked up over our shoulder, dh in there at mo with him. But i can't do this for three hours every night.

He won't feed, won't take his dummy, won't lie down in his cot or even sit on our laps.

Don't feel he is old enough to just let him cry but me and dh backs are starting to give way.

Mine did this for a couple of moonths. It turned out that she was not sufficiently knackered when she went to bed (and as she fights sleep, she needs to be really exhausted). In the end, I decided to keep her awake after 3pm and not to put her down until she seemed very tired. She got pretty stroppy for a bit before bedtime, but then went down ok (and an hour of crying in the day is easier to cope with than 3 at night IMO).

Also, have you tried feeding him after the bath and before bed - maybe bring his bath forward a bit too? Mine was always too stimulated after her bath to settle properly without a feed.

is he having milk after his bath?

we do dd's baths in the morning because she loves them so much and gets so excited there's no way she could sleep after one.

first instinct - colic or reflux as he stops crying when upright. Other than that he is too over tired when he goes to bed so wakes very shortly after being settled for the night. Try to shorten bed time routine and see what effect it has ...

mower 11 wks is still a wee bit early to be feeling they should be doing X, so dont fret.
when he went down at 7.30 did he have milk prior to that?
also what time is he up from until his bath?
i thnik bath in evening is a good idea, i did it with mine, to drag actual in the bedtime until 7.30 to get a good 12 hrs out of them at ngiht. otehrwise they'd have been asleep at 6.30!

Hi Mower

My daughter is 13 weeks 1 day. From week 8 till week 12 we had a similar situation. From week 7 onwards she slept slightly better, up from waking every two hours, to three. Then to twice a night.

From week 8 she slept five hours a night but basically yelled from 8pm till midnight unless I constantly nursed her.

There's several possibilities and excuse me if I'm teaching my granny to suck eggs (I'm assuming you've checked for wind, nappies, hunger etc):

(1) He's overtired and needs to sleep
(2) He's got reflux and whenever you lie him down he's in pain
(3) He doesn't know it's time to go to sleep.

You don't say how much nighttime sleep you are getting from him. If it's that he sleeps from 12 - 5 and that's your lot, that may well unfortunately the longest he can go at the minute without food. Sorry . But that doesn't mean he can't nap before his longest sleep.

If he isn't having several long naps in the day, that may mean he's overtired.

If he is fine if he is over your shoulder but as soon as you lay him down - even if you are lying down next to him - he may have reflux. See your GP. Elevate the head end of the cot.

If he is fine to lay down and feed and then can lay on the floor quite happily, it's probably not reflux.

If you don't have a sleep time routine. Get one, quick. It helps your little one wind down and get ready for sleep and trains him when to rest.

Ours is as follows: 5pm milk time, 5:45pm bath, 6:15 quiet storytime, 6:40 swaddled and made comfy - dummy given if she wants it. 6:45 cuddles upstairs in a darkened room, only shushing, not talking. 7:00 into cot, pat to sleep. If she wakes, we pick her up and pat her and shush her but NEVER take her out of the room. If she's still hungry and won't settle, I feed her again and then go back to cuddles and shushing and into the bed. At 10pm I do a dreamfeed (ie feed her in her sleep).

Naptime we do pats and shushes and swaddling and she does go down. We're only starting off and we've only just had three nights of properly sleeping through (ie till past 5am -she now sleeps 10-7am then feeds and sleeps till 9am (and then feeds - we reckon she's sponsored by the milk marketing board).

But it does work if you stick to it.

Can I suggest a couple of books? Tracey Hoggs, the Baby Whisperer and also the no cry sleep guide. Really gentle and effective together they've saved me from the living hell that is a sleepless infant.

Oh and btw, I found that weight was also a tipping point, once she hit 10lbs she slept much better because her little tummy was so much bigger.

On the problem of him wanting to be carried, again this is an issue of working out other strategies for getting him sleepy. I had my daughter like this for a while and what I tried (and it worked for me) was to instead of putting her over my shoulder, putting her down in a bouncing cradle so she was reclined and sitting on the floor next to her and alternately (ie mixing the two strategies), turning her so she was being rocked in a nursing position (NB don't do this if your son has reflux, he'll be sick on you and be in pain). Having two different ways of doing things meant she didn't get used to (and cured her reliance on) the over the shoulder method.

Good luck

Rachel

mower - i breatfed too and did have to use infacol on ds (my 2nd) for a wee while. but if this is only started with oyur ds you may need a few more nights to establish a wind problem - which my hungry hungry ds had as he gulped it in very quickly)

Thank you so much for your replies. Ds now asleep (don't know how long for though) mananged it by feeding him. He would only take the empty side though the other one is dripping with milk but he would not touch it. Normally his last feed is a good one at 11 then he will sleep for around 8 hours, so not all bad.

Me and dh think he may be over stimulated. Apart from his 20 mins earlier he has been awake since 4.30 watching my dh and toddler play.

Just hope this phase ends soon.