Bedtime help....

manna1212

So the last few days I have been trying to give DS an earlier bedtime, in hopes that we would get some longer stretches at night. Also, I go back to work next month and DH and I both work at 7:00 so DS will have to get up around 5:30 every morning. For the last three nights DS has been incredibly fussy and irritable when we begin our routine. We do a bath, diaper change, pj's, breast feed, held upright for 30 minutes due to reflux, swaddle, bed. We have been doing this for weeks and it has gone well. The last few nights he has been crying and screaming through breastfeeding. I have to stop him and let him lay on my lap with a pacifier to get him to calm down while eating. It is taking quite a long time to eat because of this. Then when I need to be holding him upright, he gets fussy again and just wants to wiggle all over the place, and this is the time when he would always fall asleep. When he does finally fall asleep, I go to put him down and he is wide awake. So what used to take maybe an hour, now takes almost two or more. We did get 2 nights of 5 hour stretches out of it, but I cannot figure out why he looks so miserable. Any thoughts? I hope this makes sense. Looking for some ideas to make bedtime a little smoother.

operaghost

Hi there - no real advice but I'm kind of going through the same thing.  We had a good routine of changing, swaddle, feeding and then bed, but the last few nights the kid has been fussy and squirming and it can take hours to put her down.  Maybe your DS is just working something out of his system? That's what I tell myself.  Hope it passes soon!  Also, if he is fussing during breastfeeding maybe it's because he swallowed some air and just needs to be burped? 

meli1025

My DS fusses on the boob at night too, so much so that he was hardy eating before bed. My new routine is to nurse him around 7:30, even though he's fussy just to get something in him, then around 8:30/9:00 I give him a bottle of pumped milk. For the last three nights I got five hour stretches then an almost six hour stretch! We've been up every 2-3 hours before me trying this and I feel that for some reason when he's tired and irritable it's easier for him to take the bottle than work at the boob. Good luck!