I hate bedtime!

BoilerUp1

Ugh!  DS will not go to bed.  We have tried everything and he just won't stay down. We do the bedtime routine (bath, book, nurse, rock) and he is out cold.  I wait 20 minutes to put him down.  He is in a dead sleep.  I take a step towards his crib and he wakes up.  I put him down and he stirs a bit but goes back to sleep.  I keep my hand on him until he is good and out again.  5 minutes later, I'm downstairs and the monitor lights up.  He then needs rocked back to sleep, rinse, repeat.  What gives?  We've tried the drowsy but awake thing too and that just turns into hysterics!  

HELP!  Bedtime takes 2 hours over here.  I'm exhausted!!

megahof

I have no advice, but I can commiserate, because that is exactly what happens at nap time for us, except you can add in a half hour of screaming beforehand in our house. Hope someone out there can help...

BoilerUp1

megahof:

I have no advice, but I can commiserate, because that is exactly what happens at nap time for us, except you can add in a half hour of screaming beforehand in our house. Hope someone out there can help...

 

Haha. We need to call each other, apparently!  Mine starts screaming as soon as I lay him on his changing table so putting on diaper, lotion, etc is all a screamfest.  We're not even getting long stretches of sleep anymore  3 hours max.

 

Isn't it funny how babies just don't understand how AWESOME sleep is?  The older you get, the more you value sleep! 

BoilerUp1

Seriously.  He's been down for 1.5 hours and has been up 3 times...

88eve88

I feel your bedtime pain, Momma!

I find that my DS will wake after 5/10/20 mins of sleep when he's overtired and fighting sleep.  His little brain won't settle and let him relax enough to get into a super deep sleep.  Bedtime takes a long time for us too.  Actually, it's been long nights with many wake ups recently.

Drowsy, but awake doesn't work for us at all ... it also leads to hysterics in our household. 

I honestly think there is a window of opportunity for bedtime, where LO is sleepy, but not overtired.  That window may fall at a time different than what we've decided is "bed time".  I'm still trying to figure out when my LO's window is, since it's different every day (due to inconsistent napping).  Eventually, I think a pattern will emerge and then things will be much easier.  Like you, I'm exhausted from broken sleep and being stuck inside the nursery trying to get LO to sleep for hours on end.

I don't have any suggestions other than trying different bedtimes to see which is optimal for your LO.  I hope someone with sleep success pipes in!