10 week old sleep/hysterical evenings

[Pendore]

Hello. DD is my second child and is 10 weeks old. With my first (DS) at this age I could feed him to sleep at around 6/7pm and he would sleep until 9/10pm and wake for another feed then go to sleep until 3pm.

DD is completely different and will cry from around 7pm until she gives up at around 11pm. I’ve tried feeding to sleep but she just goes mental when the boob is near her. Either me or DH will pop her in the sling and bounce her on the ball or rock her to sleep or walk around with her on our shoulder. She will sometimes fall asleep briefly at 9ish but then wake again and get hysterical.

I suspect she is tired as it sounds like a tired cry. She gets quite a bit of sleep during the day (over 4hrs I would say) but somehow when it gets to 7pm she just can’t get to sleep. I don’t think she has reflux as she is really quite happy during the day!

DS is 2.5 and is full of beans so could she be over stimulated when he gets home?
Is there anything I can do to get her down at 7pm or at least avoid an evening of her getting upset?

She sleeps in her next to me crib next to our bed and we sometimes co-sleep if she doesn’t settle in the middle of the night.

I wondered if this was just the witching hour phase as she has been like this since she was 4 weeks old but I thought it would have got better by now or feeding to sleep would have fixed it!

I had a similar thing with my daughter, I kept trying to feed to sleep but she got more and more upset. I belatedly realised that she wanted to suck to feel calm but didn't want milk. Could you see if a dummy helps?

Can you try putting her down earlier? This may mean her waking for a feed during the evening, but if you treat it more as a late nap, and have bedtime later (when you go to bed?) it may help with the hysteria?

@Fantail86 thank you! I have tried two different types of dummies but she just makes a choking noise and spits them out so I figured dummies aren’t for her!

@Seeline I might try this today. She usually has a nap from 4pm-5pm in the sling but I might put her down for this nap instead of the sling and see what happens

Isn't purple crying around this age?

It does sound like 'purple crying' though that usually starts at about three weeks.

Not sure if this is helpful but my daughter has just turned 11 weeks and doesn't go to sleep much earlier than 11 most nights. She naturally got herself into that routine from quite a young age and it's just stuck for now because it works for us. I've tried putting her down earlier but she will wake again and never seems to properly settle before around 10:30-11. I used to worry about it but now I just go with it - I stick to wake windows and encourage her to nap in an evening (which she always wakes from after an hr or so). I'm not sure if that helps if you feel she is tired and needs to go to sleep earlier though. We used to have really fussy evenings but once I got on top of the naps in an evening we don't really get anymore evening fussiness. I've had reassurance on here that others babies bedtimes naturally came forward overtime and a more solid routine emerged so im not sweating it for now. She sleeps well overnight and the added bonus at the minute is she stays in bed until around 9am-9:30am which is fine for us as she is our first baby so it's do-able. Not sure I have any answers or solutions for you there though sorry!

I'd try putting her down earlier to pre-empt her getting overtired. Even if she naps then and wakes for a feed later, that's got to be better than screaming all eve!

It sounds like classic colic/purple crying/witching hours to me. Crying, not wanting to feed, unable to sleep.

Both of mine did this until about 12 weeks when it started to reduce and eventually I could put them down earlier.

My first screamed all evening most evenings, my second didn’t really scream but was restless, fidgety & grizzly. Outside of the evening hours they were fine.

Hopefully you are almost through the worst of it now, just do whatever it takes to get through the next couple of weeks and it is likely to settle on it’s own. Also worth continuing to try bringing bedtime earlier, one day she will surprise you and stay sleeping and you will start to get your evenings back from there.