5.5 Month Old Hysterical at Bedtime

[goingonholidayz]

Desperately looking for advice.

DD is 5 and a half months old. Since birth, she's always been absolutely brilliant at sleeping between around 11pm and 8am, taking feeds quickly and then going straight back to sleep. Since around 3 months, she's had one dream feed at 11pm and slept through til 8am. Very occasionally she will wake up but will always get straight back off with a few sucks of her dummy. So far so good!

Daytime sleep is a little trickier but we follow wake windows and I think she generally gets enough sleep. Sometimes this is in her cot (recently she's been doing one 1-1.5 hour nap a day in her cot) but more often this is in her pram or carrier or a contact nap.

Evenings have always been trickier. Up to 3 months we used to have to walk her for hours in her carrier every evening to get her to sleep and stop her screaming. At 3 months she stopped screaming in the evenings and started to go down around 7:30/8, albeit with a fair few re-settlings. We had a lot of family staying over December and her evening sleep went to pot - most of it was done napping in someone's arms at the dinner table - but we didn't mind as she was getting the sleep she needed and still going down well overnight.

Over the last 2 weeks however, evening sleep has totally deteriorated. She has a bottle at 7:30/8 and then we put her sleeping bag on, sing some songs and read. She's always calm and smiley during this and often already falling asleep on us. However, as soon as she goes down in her cot she becomes hysterical. Properly hysterical - bright red, shuddery breaths and completely unable to be comforted by us. She'll scream for anywhere between 10 and 40 minutes and the only thing that seems to work is lying next to her, holding her tight and repeatedly putting her dummy in until she falls to sleep. I've tried cutting out the cot and just lying her in our bed next to me straight away but she still becomes hysterical as soon as it is apparent it's time to sleep. I assume it is over-tiredness as once she drops off she remains fast asleep and she always goes straight to bed after her last bottle without any fuss. Changing the time we put her down (both earlier and later) hasn't helped.

Has anyone got any advice? It is awful seeing her so worked up and being unable to comfort her when she is usually such a happy baby

Sounds a bit similar to my 5.5 months old baby boy... Previously he would quietly self settle to naps / nighttime sleep but recently he would cry and fuss before going down to sleep, though only for a few minutes.

His bedtime is from 9pm or 9:30pm to 7:30am or 8am though. How many hours' sleep does your baby get every day?

Also my baby's last nap usually ends around 5-6pm so there is a relatively long awake window before bed when he sometimes screams. We just try feeding / reading / soft music / playmat / watching some TV and usually one of these would calm him down.

Have you tried offering her a teether as well? Think it's approaching teething time too.

Thanks for replying. She has about 3-4 hours of daytime naps and previously around 11.5 hours of night-time sleep (split with the 11pm dream feed) but I guess this is now reduced.

I didn't think about teething. There's nothing in her mouth but she's been very red cheeked and dribbly for a while and biting anything she can so perhaps I should try something for that. I wonder if teething would only cause upset at bedtime though? (I have no idea!)

Also do you interfere as soon as she starts crying or fussing when put down to cot? I found that our baby if you leave him alone for a few minutes without interfering, while playing white noise, he often dozes off himself, even if he was still crying the previous minute. If beyond five minutes there is still no sign of him de-escalating I would pick him up to comfort him until he's calmer and then put him down for another five minutes... which usually works. Good luck!

@katerose2022 I’ve tried giving her half a minute (sounds nothing written down but feels so long in reality!) to see if she’ll settle as I think I probably am over stimulating her. She becomes hysterical whether I leave her, pick her up straight away, cuddle her, rock her - nothing seems to help. Perhaps I should try giving her a little longer to give her some space though.

On the teething - it only really bothers my little one at night time. Fine during the day (red cheeks and chewing) but really disturbs his sleep. Could try some Calpol/Nurofen/anbesol?

Could it also be a phase of separation anxiety? Sounds like she's getting lots of good sleep over 24 hours? I remember my little one going through phases like this but it all changed quickly enough and in the meantime just continued to feed/cuddle to sleep.

Solidarity, OP. Our six month old is the same. Has been a fairly brilliant sleeper up until now, but hysterical at bedtime the last few nights, and doesn't easily self-settle.

If you find a solution, do let me know!

Nothing yet @Sapphire387. I tried teething gel just in case but it didn’t help. I also tried fussing her less which initially did seem
to be working but then she got upset and I couldn’t leave her like that. It is also hard not to fuss her as she spits her dummy out and the dummy is the only way she can settle, so it does need replacing. DH has a bit more luck settling her for some reason but it’s still not great. She’s clearly tired but fighting so much! Even taking her for a pram walk didn’t help and this has always been our go to! Hoping it is a short lived phase. She’s otherwise a total delight!