Overtired 4 month old

[Firsttimemum94]

Hi mummys, I am a first time mum and for the past month my little one is fighting sleep at every chance. To the point where he is screaming for sometimes more than 1 hour. White noise doesn’t help and now it is taking longer for myself and partner to get him to sleep. He usually likes us to stand up and rock him on our shoulder but that’s not working now. We already watch for signs of tiredness and when we try to get him so sleep it’s asif he knows and then starts to fight it! Please any suggestions will be very much appreciates. #mummyneedsabackmassage

I think it has to be about an hour before the signs of tiredness. Make a note of sleep times this week, for something to go by.

My guess is that you're missing the sleep window and putting him down too late. How long are you keeping him awake between naps? Sometimes signs of tiredness are too late and you need to get them down before that. My DS can get utterly hysterical when overtired and there is no bringing him back from that. Things that helped us are

1. Keeping track of his naps. We use an app
2. Getting him asleep (not in bed, actually asleep) after an absolute max of 2 hours awake time. Sometimes 1.5hrs is enough if he hasn't napped well earlier in the day
3. Using a sling to ensure he gets a decent nap and isn't overtired before bedtime if he's not napped well during the day.

I've also found that as he's got older (he's almost 4 months himself), he's wanted less of the drastic rocking malarkey which worked for a newborn. He prefers cuddles, pats or hand on chest etc, or sometimes he actually does better when I stop interfering and just give him a little space (obviously don't leave him crying hard or anything).

Since being much stricter with awake windows, my DS has gone down much easier. I missed the window the other day and he'd been awake for 2.5 hours....tried to put him to bed and he screamed at my for a solid 2 hours!! Lesson learned.

I thought I was seeing the sleep windows but I must be missing something, he doesn’t let us rock him like in our arms (like a cradle like a baby) he prefers to be on our shoulder with us going side to side or walking round. But I’m going to try and relax him after a couple of hours awake. Thank you