Nap before teatime? 17 week old

[rooibosh]

My ds will be 4 months old tomorrow and teatime with him and our 2 1/2 year old dd are unbearable. I don't want him to sleep too near bedtime but then he gets over tired. Letting him nap near bed time started to mean he'd have a shorter sleep once he went to bed, waking at 10pmish, which seemed to mean he then woke every 2-3 hours in the night not 3-4. He's so miserable in the evenings, eg 5-6.30pm, how long will this go on and what have people done to make teatime more bearable (dd often loses it then too)

DS just turned 4 months last week. I've started to make him nap 5-5:30pm, then putting him to bed at 8pm. By 'making him nap' I mean feeding him to sleep then letting him lie in my arms asleep for half an hour. He now sleeps to 7am when he used to be up at 5:30am (I do wake him for a feed at 10pm and he usually wakes one other time for food). His mood in the evening seems better now, he can happily last until 8pm.

Don't know if that helps!

rooi this sounds very tough. My advice is very limited I'm afraid as my ds didn't sleep at all at this age!!
I think there may be someone out there who can help you so will bump for you
Maybe if you constantly do the teatime nap thing he may then settle down into a better routine through the night?? Not sure but you defo need to make it as easy as poss for yourself

thanks for sympathy and nap today improved tea!

I still let my almost 1 year old have a sleep as late as 4pm as he would never last until bedtime otherwise. As long as there are at least 2 clear hours between him waking from a nap and bedtime (around 7.15/7.30pm) than he normally still settles ok at bedtime and sleeps through.

We take a very similar approach to Supermonkey will our DS who turned 4 months on the 15th. If he hasn't had a good nap around school run time then I usually encourage him to have a sleep about 5.30pm (again by feeding him and letting him lay in my arms - good excuse for a sitdown ). This is OK if DH is back from work, if not he is in the pram and being rocked to sleep by one of the others.

If we don't do this then he can only last until about 6.30pm and falls asleep before having a good feed at bedtime.

He currently going through till about midnight and then one other around 3am. He has gone back up to 2 feeds a night in the last few weeks and is feeding for longer. I am hoping this is the famous 4 month growth spurt and does last for much longer!

Thank you everyone for your advice, ds now has a nap before tea and feeds right before and during and it's a lot better, dd is happier too.