4 month old bedtime screaming

[MrsB25]

Hi,
Just hoping for some advice/solidarity from anyone who has experienced anything similar.

My daughter is almost 4 months old, we’ve always fed/rocked to sleep at bedtime and she’s always gone to sleep fairly easily with just a bit of whinging sometimes. However the last few nights she has started screaming and crying hysterically at bedtime. It starts when we put on her sleeping bag, she then calms down and feeds but quickly gets upset again. Then there’s absolutely nothing we can do to console her- rocking, holding, cuddles, stroking etc.- nothing works. We’ve ended up putting her in her next2me and just lying on the bed stroking her as she cries and she has eventually fallen asleep. Both nights she has then slept through from 9pm ish until 5am, then fed and gone back to sleep so it hasn’t had a negative impact on her sleeping- but I hate how upset she has been getting and that she has essentially cried herself to sleep as we haven’t been able to calm her down.

I don’t think she’s overtired- we keep her wake windows to no more than 90 minutes during the day, often closer to 60 as she tends to have quite short naps. We haven’t changed anything about her bedtime which could have triggered this.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar or has any advice?
Thank you!

Feeding and rocking to sleep are hard habits to break so it's not a bad thing to stop these.

You're doing the right thing, comforting her in the cot as she goes to sleep. It's not like you're just leaving her to cry. The tears are just frustration at not being able to get to sleep.

A dummy may well significantly reduce crying. It's impossible to cry while simultaneously sucking.

Also try patting her in the cot, this can be soothing to many babies.

@MrsB25 I have a four month old and bedtime screaming started for us a couple of weeks ago. It’s pretty harrowing! We often can’t even get him to feed he’s so inconsolable so we often just put him straight down at 7ish and either he’ll wake for a feed 1-2 hours after or I have dream fed him on occasion. Like you the screaming starts the moment we start the bedtime routine. Unlike you, our nighttime sleep has gotten worse with more frequent night wakings and reverse cycling so he’s feeding more at night. He’s very distracted during the day.

I’ve been reading @FATEdestiny advice on here for several months and I put my son down to sleep in the snuzpod and settle him there with a dummy, hand on cheer and stroking his cheek. We also use white noise for naps and Ewan at bedtime. We were swaddling but given the recent heat and then a fever after his immunisations we went cold turkey on that after a couple of weeks of one arm out which has further added to sleep disturbance.

I know you said your baby naps well in the day but your bedtime or 9pm does maybe sound a bit late? My baby decided for himself that bedtime needed to move from 9pm to 7pm around the time the screaming started. His need for daytime sleep has also gone up significantly I guess because it’s such a tough month developmentally. I’m certain he screams through over tiredness. He settles quickly when we put him straight to bed and nothing else works e.g. cuddles, feeding.

X

Thank you @FATEdestiny, sorry I should have said she does use a dummy for sleep. During the screaming she either has her mouth open so wide that it falls out or she pulls it out, not sure if this is just frustration as she accepts it again when we re-insert.

Sorry you’re struggling too @Muriel84 the screaming really is horrible isn’t it. Makes me feel so helpless. Sorry your night time sleep has got worse as well, being tired must make it even harder to deal with.

I did think that maybe it was a sign she was starting to need an earlier bedtime so we started everything earlier last night but still had the screaming 😭 you’re right about this being a tough period so I am really hoping that it’s just part of that phase.

Yes my LO has started doing this. She's fine through bedtime routine until right at the end when we put PJ's on. Then crying starts! Not sure of the cause? Maybe because they are feeling very tired?

For us I think it's tied in with four month sleep regression as she now is very hard to settle and wakes up every hour overnight