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Original poster

Crying at bedtime

5 replies

BellEden · 03/06/2019 20:40

Hi,

My 4 week old starts crying inconsolably from about 7pm and nothing will sooth her. It’s like she forgets how to feed and just gets more hysterical as I try to feed her to calm her down, this lasts for about an hour every night, can anyone help?

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gimmeachillpill · 03/06/2019 20:49

Lots of babies do something similar and it's often called 'the witching hour' any lack of naps catches up by the evening and so they become overtired and irritable! I can't say I've any good advice as I'm sure you're trying to get your baby to have as much quality sleep during the day as possible! I recall lots of holding and rocking (just as DH came in from work so he had the impression our baby was very very hard work despite baby being quite content during the day!)

grumpycatgrumpycat · 03/06/2019 20:53

The only thing that worked for ours was to do anything we could to get her to sleep before the witching hour kicked off, and this naturally led to 6.30pm bedtime as she got used to it.

Different for all babies though; a friend of mine found that bouncing on a birthing ball with baby on her shoulder helped.

Original poster
BellEden · 03/06/2019 20:55

Thank you, I had read about ‘the witching hour’ and figured it might just be something that we have to go through and reassuring to hear lots of others experience the same. She doesn’t have much of a routine in the day so I’ve started writing down ‘nap times’ to hopefully help with the evenings

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Pinklittle · 03/06/2019 20:57

We had this at around 4-6 weeks with our daughter and it was hard work, the best advice I received was that sleep breeds sleep and more daytime naps helped break it for us but understand it's not a remedy for all :) xx

BearRabbitPants · 03/06/2019 21:15

Had exactly the same with DD, she's 14 weeks old now. It used to start from 7:30 and last till 9:30. Was so frustrating. It stopped at 10 weeks old when I began a "bedtime routine" with her, down in the cot in our bedroom in complete darkness after her 7 o'clock bottle. The improvement was seen immediately, only had to pacify her a couple of times. She's been pretty much fine ever since. It is just a phase, just try to hold on to the fact that it won't last forever Thanks

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