Baby screams as soon as I start getting her ready for bed

[HL123]

My daughter is 4.5 months old, and every night as soon as I start putting her in to her sleeping bag and in to her cot she starts to scream and gets herself in a real state. This has been going on for a good few weeks now.
Routine is bath, bottle, change, cuddle then cot at around 7pm, and I make sure she is awake when I put her down. She's napping for the advisable length of time during the day so I don't think she's over or under tired, she just seems to hate going to bed and I can't work out why! Has anyone got any advice please?

Any ideas at all please

Could you warm the cot with a hot water bottle before putting her down? I would do bath, jammies on, bottle and down. She's having a cuddle while being fed and should be milk drunk just before settling.

@Justmuddlingalong will try the hot water bottle idea thankyou. I did start off trying PJ's and sleep bag on before bottle, but she cries when I start putting her in them and then won't take her bottle!

Maybe try pjs before bottle and grobag after. Split the difference.

My nephew did this for a bit around that age or a little older, as he was in his own room by then. There was no change in his routine but he screamed his head off as soon as they went into his room at bedtime, if they stepped back out he stopped. If it wasn’t so frustrating and upsetting to see him like that my sister said it would be funny. It lasted some weeks and they didn’t do anything special. Just waited it out. Everything is a phase.

I would definitely change the routine a little as she has a bad association, could you add a nice story after pjs/before bag and a song after bag? Lots of smiles and mmm, lovely bedtime noises.

One of mine didn't start going to bed awake until 18m, we're still cuddling the other one to sleep at 19m .

My little boy does the same. He's 8 months now but has done it since we started his proper bedtime routine at around 4/5 months.

I find it's much worse if he's very tired. Try bringing your routine forward 30 mins and see what difference, if any, it makes.

Our routine is slightly different to yours - we do bath, change, bottle then bed. He almost always falls asleep taking his bottle but he's good at self settling so it's not an issue for us.

My DS has recently started doing similar and is the same age. Assume it's related to 4 month sleep regression? It started out just being when we put him in the cot so I assumed he just didn't like that and we would have to go back to rocking him to sleep for a bit - maybe not ideal but better than screaming at bedtime. But then it progressed to as soon as we started bedtime routine.

We're currently just "tricking" him into bedtime so he stays downstairs with us in PJs but no bedtime routine - he either falls asleep or we jiggle him off on our laps. After a bit we pop him in sleeping bag and give him milk - he partially wakes up but not fully and then goes to bed without screaming although is also usually asleep when he goes into cot so possibly storing up issues for later. But things change so rapidly we'll see how long it works for! Also the lack of routine doesn't feel great long-term, but I can't deal with the bedtime screaming at the minute.

This might not be a popular opinion but can you see what happens if you just leave him for 5 minutes? My DD does this and it took me ages to figure out why - essentially I think she’s just having a bit of a ‘I’m tired grumble’ and it stops and she sleeps. Me being there and trying to settle her actually made things a lot worse and it would escalate. I didn’t realise she actually wanted to be put down and left alone!

My two would scream the house down between 6 and 8:30 every bed time when they were babies. My husband and I tried everything from soft music, to stories, it was a nightmare. They soon grew out of it then something else came along. They’re older now and those days with all the sleep deprivation become a blur.

We also left them alone to settle and they soon went to sleep on their own. It worked for us but doesn’t work for everyone.

What happens after you put her down? Do you leave the room? Stay with her? Bear in mind that while your routine might be the same she is changing. I thought that the sleeping would be linear, as in just get better as my kid got older, but in reality there have been many changes and sometimes these have seemed like a backwards step.

@HL123

Sorry, I know this was a while ago.. but can I ask if anything improved? We are going through the exact same thing and just looking for any advice whatsoever. My 4.5 month old literally starts crying every time she even just sees the sleeping bag or senses that she is going to sleep, I’ve tried everything to make it a positive association, but no luck! I think she is too clued up on what’s going on and likes to protest bedtime and naps.

Hi @RachaelMcNeill, DD is now 11 months and unfortunately she's still not a bed time fan!
It's the getting ready for bed which seems to upset her - bath time and actually putting her in the cot she's fine with, but getting pjs and sleeping bag on she just gets furious! Hopefully it won't be such a long lasting issue for you 😊