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.