Please be brutally honest with me because I’m out of ideas now! What am I doing wrong?
My DD is almost 6 months old. She’s been a fantastic sleeper since we made it through the 4 month sleep regression at 3.5 months. She has a good routine both day and night, but it’s not too rigid, I am led by her and when she looks tired. She goes to bed at 6pm-7pm, and wakes between 6am-7am. Sometimes 8am. Wakes once in the night for a bottle usually around 4am. She naps 3 times a day. Two longer naps of 1.5-2hrs, and a shorter nap of about 30 mins. Fantastic. I appreciate this is amazing, and I am very lucky.
My issue now is she screams and screams at bedtime. She still sleeps all night except for the one bottle about 4am. She goes straight back to sleep after this bottle. She naps well, though has now dropped the third shorter nap and her two naps have gotten a bit longer (2 hours each usually, occasionally one of up to 3 hours). But bedtime has become a nightmare. She almost always fusses when we put her in the cot, even for naps, and will cry/fuss for a minute but then find her hand to suck (won’t have dummy) and go to sleep. But now at bedtime she screams and screams. It’s taking well over an hour to get her to settle enough to sleep.
I leave her a few minutes to see if she settles, but I can tell by what her ‘cry’ is like whether she’s just fussing or genuinely upset. I go back in and try to soothe her without picking her up, but this rarely works. So I’ll pick her up and cuddle her and she stops crying but starts again as soon as she goes in the cot. This can go on for over an hour. Sometimes I bring her back down again or go into another room upstairs to break the cycle but she’s obviously tired, rubbing her face and showing her other usual signs of being tired. I’m really good at spotting when she’s tired so I don’t think I’m missing it and letting her get over tired.
What can I do to help her? I’m heartbroken with my beautiful baby being so upset. She doesn’t have a bedtime routine as such, just change into pjs, bottle then bed. I’m going to change this up tomorrow and have more quiet peaceful time in her room after her bottle so she knows bedtime is coming. What else can I try?