5 month old screaming during bedtime routine

[Barnabyagain]

We have had a routine for our baby for the past 10 weeks or so. Bath, into sleeping bag with song, bottle, bf. Having been a bit nervous of the bath she loves it now and gets quite splashy. We try not to overstimulate her. Take her out, dry her. All is fine until we start putting on her vest and she starts to scream inconsolably. Really screaming, high pitch as if she is in pain(we don’t think she is though). I can normally soothe her a bit with gentle bouncing, ssshing etc but the only way my dh can stop the screaming is to give her her bottle.

After that, when dh is feeding her, she will drink as much as she wants - sometimes half the bottle, sometimes almost all of it - and start screaming again. Dh Shushing, winding, bouncing, gentle singing etc - none of it stops it. Only me coming in to bf her. She is fed to sleep (I know, I know) and has never ever been left to cry.
What’s going on here? Over tiredness? Does she know the routine and so is impatient for the bf? When I’m doing bedtime she’ll only cry at the point when I’m changing her into her bed clothes. Poor dh is getting a bit disheartened that there is so much more screaming when it’s his turn.

It sounds like colic?

You poor thing anyway. It sounds really stressful. It’s not anything you are doing wrong it’s just the baby you’ve been given!

My only other thought would be overtiredness. You could try doing the routine a bit earlier and/making sure she gets enough day time sleep

Ditch the bottle and just feed her when she wants feeding? Dh can do something that benefits the family, mine would hoover, wash up, do the bins, tidy etc when the evening got to the point where the dc were in the mood for me only.
Point out to dh that the baby isn't there to sooth his ego, he can suck up feeling bad, he's a grown up.
Feed to sleep as long as it suits you both, mine fed to sleep until they were 3ish, it caused no problems in childcare (from 10 months). They are now primary aged and almost always sleep a solid 10-11 hours each night.

Thanks @Sadieeloise5687, i don’t want to overstate it, she’s normally a very chirpy baby so these daily five mins screams seem strange but aren’t too bad! I don’t think it can be colic as we can stop it with bottle or breastfeeding, and seems to always happen at a moment in the routine rather than always happening at a particular time, if that makes sense? I will try bringing her bath time earlier. At the moment we do it at 6.

Are her bedtime clothes warm? I always put them on the radiator whilst doing the bath so they were nice and cosy.

Also a towel on top of the change mat - they can be quite cold after a warm bath.

Sounds like tiredness - mine gets like this. It was worse around the three month mark but if he doesn’t nap enough in the day he’s very grumpy in the evening!

We do the towel over changing mat but hadn’t thought of warming clothes, thanks!

@Dowermouse I didn’t go into it in my first post but maybe I should have done. We mixed feed her as I sadly have supply issues. She definitely wants the bottle. Or do you mean ditch trying to get dh give her it, and o take over from there? That’s probably sensible.
To explain myself better, DH has never complained! He also does the cleaning and cooking every night while I bf the baby so I think I have the better end of the deal. I just get the impression her screaming is a bit disheartening because he wants to be able to calm her down then because he can every other time. It’s good to be reminded that babies don’t follow ideas of fairness though!
Good also to hear you fed to sleep and it worked well for you, thank you

@Lemonelderflower
Ah yes, naps. They are a bit of a disaster to be honest. Lucky if I get her to do 2 1/2 hours total. All on me or in sling. That’s a whole other thread but I see that it’s probably connected to this.

So she doesn’t fuss when you do bedtime except for the changing bit?

She just wants boob, that’s all. The bedtime feed is usually the last one to go so I would not try and swap it for a bottle to be honest. She so young, it doesn’t matter if she’s fed to sleep. She won’t be doing it forever.

Also you may not have supply issues - it could be something else like tongue tie etc. But the more bottles you use, the less milk you make and it then goes from there.

Sometimes when they’re babies, you have to take the easy road. Give it a couple of months and try again. But when mine were little, I did most of the bedtimes because it was easier !

It probably is connected - I really sympathise as mine tends to be pretty good at night but struggles to nap in the day as well. Slowly getting better.

Thanks @Iggly. yes, it’s screaming when we change her - I can be even more precise, it’s the moment we put her arms into the vest sleeves when it starts. Then the gap between bottle and boob. I’m not trying to swap bf for bottle, as we do both for most feeds. Just wondering if there’s anything I can do to make it less frantic.
Thanks for reassuring me about feeding her to sleep though.

@Sadieeloise5687

My only other thought would be overtiredness. You could try doing the routine a bit earlier and/making sure she gets enough day time sleep

This was my first thought

@Iggly
Yes, She has had tt corrected twice... it’s a long story but can definitely say that I’m unable to produce enough milk for her on my own. Yes the formula top ups probably contributed to that, but at the time it seemed like there was little other option (she lost a lot of weight in first few days and was readmitted to hospital). I tried everything to get my supply up but it didn’t work out unfortunately . One of the reasons why I am happy to keep bf to sleep.

It sounds like tiredness. My DD, also 5 months, is still fed to sleep and if she gets tired will scream to be fed, not because she's hungry but because she wants to be fed to help her get to sleep.

I worried about the feeding to sleep thing, but my mum says she did it with all of us (there's 3 of us) until she weaned and it wasn't a problem. I still want to set up some other associations so I do read to DD while I'm feeding her to sleep (books well above her level, that doesn't matter, it's just hearing my voice so I choose the book for my benefit rather than hers!) with the vague idea that she might then also associate that with falling asleep.

My 3 month is similar, screams bloody murder and I’m 100% it’s tiredness. 2 weeks ago we’d struggle to get him to sleep before 9 and now he’s suddenly jumped to being overtired by 8, so it’s taking some adjusting bringing everything forward.
One random tip we’ve done a few times if he’s really bad is one of us change him and the other turn the hairdryer on and blow it around him (not on him obviously), he loves the noise and the warmth and it stops him screaming straight away. Might be worth a try!

My dd always particularly hated having her arms put into sleeves, always worse when tired too... Just get it over with and get her on the boob ASAP.

Nothing wrong with feeding to sleep either, perfectly normal and she won't be doing it forever!