Witching hour

jsw555

My four month olds scream from about 5:00pm to 6:15pm or so when they get their last daytime bottle, with a pause for bathtime giggles.  It seems to ba a cranky/ hungry cry, but they shouldn't be hungry since they have eaten a good amount at 3 pm (6-7 oz for my 16 lb DS and 4-5 for my 13 lb DD) and are on a 4 hour eating schedule during the day.  Is this just the way it is, or could I be doing something differently to make us all less miserable (such as cluster feed or something).  Not sure it's relevant but we are sleep training and trying to reduce the nighttime bottles. at night, they get 4 oz. each when they wake around midnight and we've tailored them down to 1.5 oz. when they next wake around 4am, using the Sleep Solution book. They also feed at 7am, 11am, and then 3pm, each feed followed by change, and playtime until they are sleepy.

parkit2010

I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but for us this evening grumpiness lasted until about 9 months. We had "fussy time" from 4:30 to bedtime each evening. I literally counted down the minutes until my DH would get home from work. I really feel your pain. The one thing that helped my boys was a change of scenery - a walk or trip to the store were my saviors. Good luck!

ougrad1

I've decided that that's just the way it is.  The babies have one nap now from 1 to 4 and when they wake, it's pretty much hell until they go to bed between 6:30 and 7 pm.  My oldest is very grumpy at that time of day as well. 

Our days are amazing at this point...very happy but, those 2.5-3 hours in the evening seriously take it out of me.

 

missfire

Mine used to scream and fuss from about 6:00 until bedtime until I realized 6:00 WAS their bedtime. Now DH is coming home from work earlier so we can try to get them to bed by 6:30 or so and minimize the witching hour.

emma12210

Ditto the "it's just the way it is"... DD did the same thing, and we called it the witching hour. hers started at 5pm and lasted til she went to bed (around 8pm I think). Even still, at almost 2yrs, it's her "cranky" time of day. I think for her, she was tired, but we started not letting her sleep past 5pm or she wouldn't sleep at night. Ah, trial and error! GL!

Kristen61607

my babies are also 4 months and that's the time of day they are super fussy too. Which not so conveniently is when DH and I eat dinner. I feel like we're just used to it at this point, it sucks, but we deal with it. As for STTN, my girls have been since about 8 weeks, and we feed them every 3 hours during the day starting at 9am. We do "eat, awake time for about an hour, then nap", we repeat that throughout the day. I think it's the babywise method, I never read the book but my friend told me the concept. It's obviously working well....and so far (knock on wood) it seems as if we may have skipped the 4 month wakeful!? They still sleep like a dream!

cocojack10

We could never figure out how to avoid witching hour!  It is horrible.  They are just plain ol' cranky for no good reason.  GL.