What do you do with 8 week old 6-11pm?!

[DoveGreylove]

My 8 week just doesn't sleep in the evenings. I have tried everything. I am so exhausted. I just don't know what to do with her. Why won't she go down to sleep?? She won't even sleep for an hour or so. The only time she will begin to settle is 11pm and that in itself has to involve feeding to sleep / rocking to sleep.

I just don't understand what people do with their babies in the evening. How do you get them down???

Some people say theirs doesn't sleep til they take them up to sleep between 10-11 but what do you then do with the baby for the rest of the early evening?

Please someone help me :(

That’s a normal time for cluster feeding. Settle in with snacks and Netflix and remember this too shall pass!

Just watched telly, cluster fed, ate, read, let baby sleep on my lap or in the Moses basket until I went to bed at 10/11.
Don’t sweat “bedtime” for at least another few months - and I didn’t until DS was almost 1.
He now goes down between 7-8 no problem, sleeps through and actually asks to go to bed when he’s tired (he’s now almost 3)- so it doesn’t ruin their sleep habits by any stretch

I feed her on the sofa while I watch tv 🤷‍♀️

I think the time they go to bed gets gradually earlier as they get older. I've just put my 12 week old down for the night and noted how early it was. What do I do with myself now? I actually have an evening!

I've been in this situation and it's awful.
It will pass, although it doesn't feel like it.
My baby eventually ended up putting herself in a routine

Awake at 7am (sorry, this bit's important)
Nap 9-10 am & no more. Pram or similar is fine.
Nap 12-2 / 2.30 Nap in dark in bed after really good feed. Persevere here.
Nap 4-4.45 and no later, however cruel it seems
Bathtime 6pm, both breasts or huge bottle at 6.45. If he won't go to sleep then stay quietly in the dark with him until he does.

Give it 2 weeks everyday without fail. It might well only take 3 days.

Incredibly tough, yes. But I would have had a breakdown if I hadn't had time to myself not being touched for a couple of hours in the evening after the first 2-3 months.

Good luck

If I remember when ds2 was tiny he would tend to nap around teatime, then have his happy awake time in the evening, then feed to sleep around 11. To be honest at 8 weeks they really won’t have “day” and “night” times properly yet (some more than others) and will just be in a cycle of eat / sleep / poop (often interspersed with crying for no apparent reason!)
If you can then relax and enjoy the cuddles! Curl up on the couch with drinks, snacks, books or tv remote. If you need to get things done they’ll often happily lie on a blanket or in a bouncer or with one of those baby gym things.

Sat and cluster feed with box set and snacks then went to bed together 9:30ish

Another one that just watched tv while baby dozed and fed, then I'd put her down when we went up to bed.

TV and cuddles.

Just watch TV, feed and have cuddles. I miss my twins being tiny and wanting cuddles rather than using me and all the furniture as climbing frames. And I didn’t have to watch CBeebies.

Sniff.

Erm... bf endlessly, try to sneak out from under them when they doze just to run to the loo and then dash back swearing but it slowly gets better.

That’s their fractious time. If you’re in a couple you just take it in turns rocking them whilst they’re not cluster-feeding.
I used to do bath time at 11pm

Tv and cluster feeding and play pass the baby with whoever is about family
Wise! It does pass promise!

Sat on the sofa, fed my baby and mumsnetted!

If I wanted to get up and do something I popped him in the sling and got on with it.

Do you have a decent sling?

Ds1 would be in the sling. I'd do dinner, with him in the sling, then extract him, he's wake up as soon as I laid him down. Bf back to sleep. Eat dinner over his head as he snoozed on a feeding pillow on my lap. He's stay there til I went to bed, feeding as he wished. Then co slept and fed some more.

Ds2 would have a bottle at around 7.30pm (ds1 refused a bottle, ds2 had one a day at "bedtime" from about a week old). And went to sleep in his sleepyhead.

My DD didn't start going to bed/sleep at an earlier time until four months really. At eight weeks she was just downstairs with us, variously feeding or napping, until we went up to bed and took her with us.

Mine needed to go down around 6, or she then wouldn’t until after midnight and then wouldn’t sleep well because she was overtired.

This started at around 5 weeks when she started struggling to sleep in the daylight, and I discovered the 6pm thing completely by accident when she was sooooooooo tired after hours of being awake and I sat in her darkened room with white noise on and she nodded off in minutes.

She’s nearly 10 months now and still gets really screamy if she’s not in bed by 6.30pm 😂

@WineIsMyCarb that's a Gina Ford special and would be amazing if it worked but it just doesn't for all babies. At all.

OP this will pass. And you will miss it one day

We watched TV, played board games, I read loads of books, etc. Just do what you would normally do of an evening, really!

WineIsMyCarb that won’t work with a 3 year old in tow.

Sit on the sofa and feed them. Watch all of the TV. I might start reading my kindle again as I’m getting bored of TV and spending too much time on MN. At some point bath them. Do some random online shopping. Waiting until they fall asleep and quickly brush teeth and go to bed so you can get as much sleep at possible before they are awake again.

A newborn is intense and more of a shock and life changing when it’s your first child but it’s for a short time even if it feels like it will never end.

snuggled!!! thats about it really!!

It is indeed @Anothertempusername !

It worked great for my first and a slightly more relaxed version worked for my second (who I had while DD1 was just shy of 2 years old).

Nothing will work for all babies, and nothing will work for all mothers (or parents).

But this worked for me at a time where we as a family were going through some extremely tough times, meaning I needed the recuperation time in the evening.

OP is of course very welcome indeed to ignore my post entirely!

I know it feels like this phase is lasting for ages but it really isn’t and it will quickly pass.

Thanks for all of your replies.

Unfortunately I don't have a baby who dozes. She just cries in the evening or if I'm lucky will lie there for a bit quietly and stare into space which I think means she's seriously overtired. So I don't get to watch TV or eat any dinner. As I'm constantly rocking her trying to calm her or put her down to sleep (which doesn't work hence my post).

@WineIsMyCarb, I do like the idea of routine but it's so hard when you're exhausted. How do you keep the baby asleep for those nap times though?! I'd end up having a very overtired baby as shed probably only nap for an hour then I'd have to keep her up until the next time she can nap? I'm just so confused.

Does everyone get up at 7am with the baby? And give awake time til 9? That's a long time for the baby to feed and then be awake?

DoveGreylove have you tried a sling? Does having her in the sling give her any comfort at all?

Are you breast or bottle feeding?