Hello! (my phone autocorrected that to ‘help!’ which is also appropriate) 🙃
We have a bedtime hell situation going on and I was looking to see if anyone has any pearls of wisdom or different techniques we can try…
DD2 is an overall decent sleeper. On a good day she has 2/3 solid daytime naps. Last one being about 4.30/5pm. For weeks now actual bedtime has been a bit of a nightmare. We have a consistent routine and I can see that she responds to that in terms of knowing it’s actual bedtime (rather than another nap).
After a nice, long, cozy feed she goes down about 8pm, although of course the routine starts before that, just after 7pm.
Every single night without fail she wakes maybe 45 mins to an hour after this screaming absolute bloody murder. She doesn’t scream like this at any other time. She doesn’t respond to any type of settling at this point except for a breastfeed. Sometimes she will go down again after that and the cycle continues until maybe midnight, every night! After that she normally sleeps until 5am, feed, back down for a couple of hours. She is sometimes up for a little feed around 2am/3am also. Sometimes she is mostly awake throughout the 8pm - 12am stretch and I am just constantly breastfeeding.
This might sound selfish, but I’m going a bit batty not having any ‘evening’ to speak of. There is no downtime and by the time I actually get to sleep at midnight, I’m frazzled and exhausted. I can’t go to bed early because she isn’t sleeping at that time. My partner is the same. He feels a bit helpless as no amount of cuddling or rocking helps. She also refuses a bottle of expressed BM. She does take a dummy but again, not during this initial bedtime period.
DD1 was an easy-going baby and slept without much fuss so I’m very inexperienced here.
ANY advice would be appreciated! Thank you.