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16 week old screams for an hour every time before sleeping.

4 replies

timoshi · 16/05/2020 17:45

We aim for a bedtime of roughly 7pm depending on when he wakes up from his last nap and how long he can last. We bath him, which he generally really enjoys (unless we push it too long and he's too tired), then take him into our bedroom with white noise, shh sounds where we give him a baby massage gently blow the hairdryer on him, which we discovered seems to help keep him calm. Then we put him his sleeping bag with his arms out (we used to have his arms in but he always managed to wriggle his arms up and this made nighttime feeding very difficult). At this point he normally begins screaming. He goes from completely happy to angry screaming within a few minutes once he knows we are trying to get him to sleep. We then take it in turns to hold him in our arms shhing him and rocking him and this often takes up to an hour, normally with relentless screaming as well as him writhing around curling up, then straightening out his body as though he's trying to escape. Eventually he tends to conk out, presumably from exhaustion, and after about 20 minutes of knowing he's asleep, we transfer him to his sleepy head in a next-to-me crib. He then has his longest stretch of sleep (it used to often be 5/6 hours but now is more often 3/4 hours) before waking. At this point he feeds (poorly) and then the process of screaming and rocking him back to sleep starts again. Then he generally won't sleep more than 2 hours at a time and each time he wakes we have the angry screaming and writhing around. We've read lots about putting them down drowsy, but he just doesn't have this phase - he's goes from happy and awake, to angry screaming and then eventually conks out. But we're worried about these prolonged periods of intense crying and the fact that holding him doesn't calm him down. We've tried putting him down later but he gets overtired and starts screaming because of that. Any tips? We're going mad, as nothing calms him down.

OP posts:
Peelspeelspeels · 16/05/2020 21:35

This could easily not be the answer, but worth ruling out: what happens if you try putting him in his sleepyhead/crib and patting/ssshhing/singing him to sleep there? It could be that he’s desperate to go to sleep and wants to be put down. My DS started really fighting being rocked to sleep when feeding to sleep stopped working at about 7 months, but on a few occasions when we then just tried putting him down after 20-30 min “fighting” in our arms, he fell asleep really quickly.

Peelspeelspeels · 16/05/2020 21:38

Also, look up The Happy Song by Imogen Heap. Specifically written to calm down babies. When DS was first learning to go to sleep by himself in his cot we had it on repeat, patting his bum in time to the beat. My husband now absolutely detests it, but it did its job!

setsoma · 16/05/2020 21:52

Sounds like the dreaded 4month sleep regression. It is about then that babies switch from being able to fall directly into a deep sleep, in that way that newborns do, to having to learn to actually GO to sleep, in the way that adults do. It is a skill he doesn't have yet, so maybe the screaming is that he wants to be asleep and doesn't know how to make that happen. If you think about it, falling asleep can be quite tricky for adults a lot of the time too.

Just persevere, it will pass, but his sleep habits will be different, it won't go back to his previous newborn-style sleep. So be prepared to improvise and see what works for him now. Don't be shocked if he wakes more often for a while, again, every time he wakes, he has to figure out how to get back to sleep again. So do what you need to get through, but be mindful that you could be setting some powerful new sleep associations.

Doyouavocado · 22/05/2020 22:37

How long has this been happening for? My baby is 9 weeks old and has been doing every night this since she was 3 weeks old :( Sometimes it can go to 2 hours. It’s horrific! Google ‘the witching hour’ does this sound like it?

Like you I have tried everything, the drs has prescribed her medicine as she said it sounds like reflux, this also doesn’t seem to be working. The HV just basically said it’s one of those things; some babies are shit sleepers and you just have to ride it out.

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