It's been this way for about 2 weeks, now

[dampscribbler]

The baby simply refuses to go to sleep at night without spending 10-30 minutes screaming first. She napped so wonderfully today, but comes bedtime, and she has to scream like hell. Why??

Comments

[tamyranev.livejournal.com]

What are you doing for her bedtime routine?

My sympathies--having to end the day on that note really sucks.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

I've been feeding her and then Eric takes her up to the room, swaddles her and walks around with her till she relaxes and falls asleep. I decided last night, though, that she may be telling us she wants a new routine. I had fed her and Eric had fallen asleep, so I put her in the cosleeper and just stayed in the room. She chattered a bit and complained a little, but she didn't start screaming until he woke up and swaddled her and I left the room.

Poor Eric. He thinks she hates him.

[tamyranev.livejournal.com]

I recently read Jodi Mindell's Sleeping through the Night: How Infants, Toddlers and their Parents Can Get a Good Night's Sleep and it was helpful. Her approach seems reasonable.

If you want to put Maggie down when she's already asleep, you might try bundling her up and taking her for a short walk in the stroller. Just walking around the block used to knock Derek out immediately. Once she gets older, you can establish a firm bedtime routine, but she's still so little that you probably don't want to put her down and just let her cry.

It might be the switch from you to Eric that's upsetting her, but if you're tense and gritting your teeth, trying to get her to sleep, that's not conducive to a peaceful bedtime either. She may just have to get used to the idea that that's Daddy time.

Or, you could swaddle her first, then feed her and let her fall asleep at the breast, if she'll do that.

Now that I've looked her book up in the library catalog, I see another one that might be good: On Becoming Babywise Book One: How 100,000 New Parents Trained their Babies to Sleep Through the Night the Natural Way.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

My doctor recommended the "Babywise..." book a while back, I should pick it up, I think.

Every night seems to be different right now -- last night I nursed her to sleep, and she re-awakened twice. Both times Eric walked her around and got her back to sleep pretty quickly. I guess we're in a transitional phase right now. I've heard that sleep patterns only start to develop right about now. So, maybe this will smooth out over the next few weeks.

[chocolatesmudge.livejournal.com]

I've come to the conclusion that Linus hates night. He *always* screams in the car if we're driving after dark. Until he was probably three or four months old, bed time was always hellish. I've heard that end of the day is bad for lots of babies...they're worn out after a hard day of eating and sleeping and pooping, I guess.

I hope it gets better. I know every baby is different, but if it helps, the ways we get Linus to sleep is (a) nurse him to sleep, (b) walk him around in sling (inside if he's only mildly cranky, outside if he's screaming his head off) or (c) swaddle him and walk around with him for awhile. He's getting kind of big for swaddling though.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

Hm, we haven't been driving after dark much, but the couple of times we did, Maggie complained a lot, too. Night is hard, definitely. I suppose somewhere in our hard-wiring, we know that predators are out at night. However, there are no predators in our bedroom. I wish she'd understand that she's safe.

Bedtime had gotten better for a couple of weeks, then it got worse again. Nursing seems to be the one method left that works consistently (and quietly), although if she's not swaddled, she often wakes up when I put her down after nursing.

[melanie.livejournal.com]

because it keeps you there, maybe? or does it?

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

Nope, I leave the room. After 10-12 hours with her through the day, I'm ready to hand her off to Daddy. I hope that's not what is making her mad.

[melanie.livejournal.com]

maybe it is. that doesn't mean that it's a bad decision on your part, though, just because she doesn't like it. ;)

if dad is checking on her every 10 minutes or so, making his presence known while also showing that he isn't giving in and picking her up, then she knows she's not been abandoned all alone. after she realizes that she can't force your hand on the bedtime issue (2-3 days, usually, if you're consistent in NOT giving in and picking her back up) then she'll give in to authority.

do you have a "before bed" routine that you do with her, to give her a little heads-up that bedtime is approaching? for instance, with our daughters it was a clockwork-reliable process of 1. bath, 2. sofa cuddles, 3. book, 4. nursing/bottle, 5. bed. we would start mentioning the word "night night" to them right before the book, because the book was a positive thing. it seemed that, for my kids, letting them know what was coming and not having it as a surprise in any way helped prevent a *lot* of meltdowns. i still give them 10-minute and 5-minute bedtime warnings, and they're 11 and 5. (although lorelei, at 11, often puts herself to bed without having to be told)

now, every kid is different, so your little one might not respond to this like mine did. or you might not be able to bear the crying....me, i was a coward. that's why neither of my kids slept through the night until they were 3 or 4, because i never was able to stick to the bed thing without picking them up until that age. :\ but, really, as long as they know they're not abandoned, they're fine to go ahead and cry.

i'm sure there are some parents who would disagree with me and consider it abuse to make a baby stay in bed when it doesn't want to be there. *shrug* i'm pretty sure my kids don't feel abused (well, except when I make them clean their rooms or do dishes) or have abandonment complexes, though.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

We're still doing a lot of holding her for comfort, since she's jsut 4 months old. She seems to be ready to start weaning away from that now, though, and Eric letting her play in her co-sleeper alone while "checking" on her every few minutes, like you suggest, and she seems okay with that much of the time.

Eric thinks the screaming was related to him swaddling her -- maybe she's jsut outgrowing the swaddling. She's been better with him since he stopped trying to do that.

Another possibility...

[(Anonymous)]

Kristi, sorry I missed this or I'd have commented about this sooner. Both of my kids went through this between 3 and 6 months of age; my first-born daughter more so than my son.

From what I've read there is a chance that children at this age have been through a lot of stimulation all day and have difficulty organizing it at the end of the day. They're basically in overload, their nervous system not quite caught up with the increasing stimulus. Many people call it colic; a lot of folks treat it as if it were indigestion. I tried warm water bottles, rocking on their tummies, changing diets -- nothing worked...

Until I found that something which created white noise actually calmed them; in particular, vacuuming worked. When they got cranky somewhere between 6pm and 8pm (bedtime fluxed with age and nap length), I would put them in the NoJo sling and wear them while I ran the vacuum. It would calm them down enormously, to the point where they'd fall asleep. Part of it was the rhythm, but I could put my son in the baby swing and just leave the vacuum on for noise. My daughter preferred the sling. Mother-in-law got a kick out of it; she's always commented on how clean her carpets were during those vacations we spent at their home when the kids were that age.

I've seen and heard a lot of feedback about hairdryers used for this purpose, too. Can't hurt, might help to try vacuuming during these jags. Eventually they grow out of it as their nervous systems mature.

Re: Another possibility...

[(Anonymous)]

You know, I just realized that I didn't sign my name to the above comment all those weeks ago! Sorry, no LJ account to leave a name. Hope the crying has eased a bit by now. Happy New Year! // ~Rayne Today