Battle to Feed before Bedtime...

[fhutts]

Can anyone shed any light on why my 11 week dd gets herself into such a tizz at bedtime. We do the bath bottle bed routine, keeping lights dim, music on low etc, but as soon as she gets out of the bath despite being wrapped in a warm towel, she goes balistic. She gets into such a state that she screams and kicks when we then try to feed her. I can't work out if she is just plain knackered and wants to sleep and is too hysterical to feed or what. Once I have calmed her which takes ages, and maybe got a few ounces into her, I think she is drowsy/asleep then as soon as I put her in her cot she kicks off.

She doesn't nap very well during the day despite my attempts but once we eventually get her settled she will wake maybe only once after her dream feed, which is a bonus I know, but I just cannot figure it out and I am begining to dread bedtimes

i think she is over tired and over stimulated

a bath can be too much at the end of a long day especially if napping is poor

music can also be another thing to make them over stimulated

i would stop the bath and music and just feed her in a dimly lit room - would also do it earlier and i am sure you will see a difference

fhutts, I think we've crossed paths before on the various threads about 3 month ish old DCs struggling to sleep.

My DS is very similar - struggles to nap during the day, and isn't always easy to get to sleep at bedtime. He gets overtired really easily.

I agree with rubyslippers that overtiredness & overstimulation is probably the problem. We had to bin our bedtime routine as by the time we'd done a bath (or anything, in fact), DS was so tired that he would also flatly refuse to feed at bedtime.

What I've found is that he needs a nap just before bed, so that while he's tired enough to think it's nighttime, he has enough sleep in him not to be excessively overtired. So he will nap from any time between 8pm and 8.50pm, and then wake for his bedtime feed at about 9pm, even if he's only been asleep 10 mins. At that point, he will happily feed to sleep and get drowsy. If I try to do bedtime any sooner, or do anything other than nappy change / feed at bedtime, he works himself into a state instead of getting tired and drowsy.

Unfortunately his bedtime is reliant on him thinking it's nighttime, as the only way I can get him to sleep is to feed him to sleep, which he won't do if he thinks it's daytime (during the day he will only sleep in the sling - no good for getting him down in the cot, or allowing me to go to bed). And he doesn't think it was night time until 8pm - now 9pm as the clocks have changed.

My plan is to try to do a bath / bedtime routine, then get him to have that last nap, then wake him up and do a bedtime feed.

I know your DD struggles to nap, so trying to get her to sleep may be difficult for you, but it might be worth a try. DS is always harder to settle in the evenings (DH hates being on sling duty then!) but has improved in the last couple of weeks (he is nearly 13 weeks).

I'm also struggling to get DS into his cot without him waking & kicking up a fuss. I may try waiting for longer before I put him down, and then try to gradually put him down almost asleep rather than fully asleep.

And at least be cheered by the fact that your DD sleeps so well after bedtime - DS is up 3 times a night once he's finally down, and last night we were awake between 2.30 and 5.30am when he refused to go back into his cot (or to settle in bed with me)

fhutts, I don't know if you're bottle or breastfeeding, but I've worked out a new trick with DS when he is fighting being fed (he is breastfed). I put my little finger in his mouth for a minute or so. He'll have a suck which will start to calm him down, then I'll offer him the breast again and he'll often take it at that point, even though just moments before he was refusing it and crying.

This also works for me when he doesn't think it's bedtime (bedtime is the only time he'll feed himself into a state of drowsiness). The finger trick helps him keep on feeding for long enough to get drowsy. It might be one of his particular idiosyncrasies, but it might be worth a try.

How have the last few bedtimes been?

Feel free to come and join the rest of us on the Challenging 3 month olds thread.

The above sounds like good advice to me. We struggle with a day time napper, our DD's bedtime is between 5 and 6 (shocking i know and not what we wanted at all, but its the only thing that works) She also only goes 2hr 30 mins after lunchtime feed too (FF). If we don't do this we have complete disaster.

Personally I wouldn't ditch bathtime routine as is a good habit.

For us what has worked is an early feed, then bath, then dress and bed. All in an hour to an hour and 15 minutes.
We feed before bath as she has reflux and so we need to keep her upright for a bit, but if memory serves me, we did try to bath before feed but became very over stimulated.

Probably not helped, but good luck.

Also forgot to say (difficult with moaning child in my ears)

DD had a phase where she hated her bath, would scream and scream!! but one night she suddenly decided she loved it and now giggles .

Try, earlier feed, bath. then bed in a shorter time scale. It may work!!

Have patience with the bath, reassure yourself that the temp of water is ok, bathroom warm etc then make it quick to limit screaming (how dirty can a baby be! ).

Good luck. xx