Witching hour?

watermellens · May 2013

DS is only 8 weeks but I thought I'd ask here b/c you mamas have been through it

DS can't seem to settle down at night without a fight. No matter when he's showing sleepy signs (anytime between 630-830) and I nurse and put him down he'll be up 45 minutes later (one sleep cycle) and will fuss for quite a while.

Last night, he went down at 715 and was up from 8-930. But when I say "up", I mean eyes closes, crying, whining, grunting, searching for the paci, etc. DH rocked and soothed him until he went down at 930 and then he slept until 230.

What's this about? Just a fussy period/witching hour?

If your LO had this, when did they outgrow it?

watermellens · May 2013

yes we swaddle...wish it were as simple as that!

BBS! · May 2013

No advice but what I noticed is just when you think a phase will never end, it does. This year will fly by and there will be a million different phases.

Aisham28 · May 2013

My LO was perfect until 7 oclock hit then she wouldn't sleep until sometimes as late as 11. She grew out of it at around 4 months. What I always did was just try to put her down every 10 minutes or so once it hit 7 instead of fighting with her for an hour. They forget when they are that young and I found it was easier to leave the nursery then come back a few minutes later and try again. She got less fussy that way.

huwehotaling · May 2013

My DD has been doing this lately too. It's really hard! We just keep trying to put her down until it sticks. Sometimes it means rocking her for a long time until she's in a deep sleep. The last 2 nights she has been fighting sleep until 11p. It stinks!

DublinMama · May 2013

DS gets super fussy between four and five in the evening. He fights his last nap of the day terribly, and nothing we do works. Sometimes if we can't get him down, I cash in my chips and start over with his bedtime routine and try to get him down for the night at 6. There are days where he will need a nap at around 4:30-5 based on his last wake time, but fights and fusses so hard that 90 minutes goes by and I might as well just put him to bed because by then he's bordering on overtired hysterics.

I find that if we can get him down for his last nap by 4, with him waking up at around 4:45, that gives us the easiest night. But the way his eat/sleep/play routine has been falling it hasn't worked out that way and it's been a battle from 5-7:30 for almost two weeks. I battle I fight alone until the weekends bc DH works nights. Brutal.

Wild_flower25 · May 2013

yep. It was a miracle to get DD to sleep before 10:30 or so until she was almost 3 months old. And even some nights now she fights it and I'm soothing her until 8:30. I just know now that she's going to get fussy about 6:30/7 and at that time we need to start the bedtime routine.

jglandon@hotmail.com · May 2013

Our twins are now 15 weeks and they - especially DD - started getting that way around 8 weeks as well. Our entire night from 6-10 was spent rocking her and holding her paci in just trying to get her calmed down and asleep. A few weeks ago I finally had enough and said something had to change. Since then I've been trying to follow the "2 hour rule" and not let her be awake more than 2 hours. I find she actually gets sleepy after only 60-90 minutes most of the time. This has meant trying to squeeze a nap in around 4-5. I've also tried to get her to bed earlier, which is as early as 6:30 some nights. After doing this only a couple days our evenings were SOOOO much better. Most nights both babies are in bed by 8:00 now and we at least have a little downtime. Our evenings are still hectic, but I feel it's gone from dealing with frantic, fussy babies to spending the evenings rocking them to sleep before they get to that point.

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