The Witching Hour

amye84

Dear fellow MoMs,

Have any of you gone through the lovely phase where one or more of your babies fall to pieces in the evening and become screaming, crying banshees who refuse to eat or essentially be consoled in any way shape or form? Please tell me we're not alone! K and V will be 3 months in a week and a half and everyone I've talked to says this is the magical age where it gets better. Any truth to this? Poor DH comes home from work every day to several hours of discontented babies. Too much more and he might decide to send them back! (Only kidding.. But it does suck that a large part of his time with them has to be like this!) Enlighten me with your experiences please!

Sincerely,

One worn out mama 

jcath

Oh Yeah.  It's miserable.  It did get better around 3 mos but for us it wasn't like one day it stopped, it just started getting easier.  We wore them in the baby bjorn alot during that fussiness and it seemed to help and at least we felt like we could accomplish something.  The swing also helped.  Sometimes I could get them to take a little catnap in the swing..sometimes it just helped to put them to bed earlier.

SweetBijou

Ugh, yes.  We went through it.  Some nights were so bad that I wanted to cry along with them.  Like jcath said, it did start to get better around 3 months, but it wasn't an overnight process.  We were very dependent upon the swings during the witching hour.  Once we started to put them on a nighttime routine, it did get better.  I've heard that they get so overstimulated by the end of the day (even with all the naps) that they just lose it towards the end--it helps them release energy or something.  Hang in there!  It will get better!

Nicksmommy2009

yep, mine are three months and just stopped having the daily cry fest right around 7-9 pm. With my son (singleton), he used to have his fussy time in the early evenings and after a while it just phased out.

ColleenS629

Yes we go through that too. Lately it hasn't gotten better but it has changed. They are now fussy/ have meltdowns at random times throughout the day... not necessarily in the evening like they used to be.

jamdonut

Yup...been there! It was like clockwork right around 4:30/5:00pm...poor DH thought the boys didn't like him because he would come home and the meltdowns would begin. We joked that we were on the H&J diet as there were many a night we never ate dinner because we were too tired from soothing cranky babies.

Wearing one in a carrier or putting them in the swing helped to calm them down. Also we dimmed lights, played soothing music and tried to get them to take catnaps because they were so overtired by the end of the day.

As jcath said, it didn't just stop overnight, but as each week went by, they didn't cry as much and by four months the witching hour is now happy hour! LOL

Hang in there!

lovebugkim

Ahhhh...The witching hour...

I don't ever want to relive those days. Ours always started at 8 O'clock in the evening & of course it was while we were trying to enjoy our dinner. We finally just gave up on having dinner at a normal hour & would eat sometimes close to 10.

We tried everything!! Non stop crying, fussing, you name it we dealt with it. It lasted a good month and finally went away when they were about 4 1/2 months. After that things got so much better!!

Good luck!!