Meltdown in the evenings!

[yaya]

My 11 week old boy is doing really well with sleeping altho we still have a problem in the evening. Whereas he is relatively easy to get off to sleep for his naps (occasionally falls asleep on his own without any help from us!), the evnings are really hard. he seems to be exhausted after 6.30pm and we have had to move his bath to the morning because of this. I have tried everything including letting him nap up to another before bedtime (8pm) so that he isnt hysterical when we put him down. On the rare occasion that he hasnt been too tired he falls asleep beautifully in his bed and  I hate him going off to sleep after a hysterical screaming fit. Any suggestions???

[Colesmom]

Hi there,

I started BW at 4.5 months, so I'll have to ask one of the other moderators for help on this one.  To start, could you tell us how many naps your lo is taking and how long each one is, approx?  try and post a typical day...how long he is up before each nap etc.  This will help indicate whether he is rested enough.  also, please take a look at this link and see if he falls in this range for total daytime and nighttime sleep.

It's great that he can fall asleep independantly sometimes.  I'm sure his schedule just needs some tweaking and his evenings will be sorted out!

thanks

http://www.babywhisperer.com/forum/typical-hours-of-sleep-for-ages-1-week-to-6-years-vt3195.html

[yaya]

Thanx for getting back to me!
Here is our daily routine (roughly!)

Wake at 8am feed at 9am
NAp for an hour or so at 10 am
Activity time till 12pm
Feed at 12pm
Activty time till 2pm
Nap anywhere between 1 to 2hrs at 2pm
Feed at 3pm
Activity time and nap (as we tend to go out at this time) till 6pm
Feed at 6pm
Nap from 6.30 to 7pm
Bath time at 7pm
Bed at 8pm
Sleep till 2 or 3 am
feed
Sleep till 6am
Feed
Sleep till 8am

We have now moved bath time to the evenings again and some days are ok others are 'meltdown'. Am beginning to think it is more associated with colic??? (he does tend to suffer from colic).

Another quick question, do a lot of babies dislike being changed? Mine has suddenly decided he hates it!!

[Colesmom]

Hi there,

It looks as though your awake times may be too long.  The first one of two hours, many babies like a shorter awake time before first nap.  You may try cutting this back by at least 15 minutes.  The second interval looks close to 3 hours if DS is waking at 11 and not going down again until 2pm.  Although he goes down well, if you keep him awake too long he'll be overtired by the end of the day which sounds like what is happening.  I'm not sure of awake times for your DSs age...I'll ask my fellow moderators to help me out.  I'll be back tonight.

[Katet]

Up until 3 months most babies can cope with less than 1.5 hours of awake time (including feed time)... occasionally they will cope with more but I think the problems are due to the very long (for age awake times) at that age both my boys "struggled" with 1.5 hours, it was more like 1 hour 20mins

HTH

[Kimberly®]

the main thing I would suggest is that you start yor bedtime routine at 5:30-6pm so that you can have your LO down for 6:30. I think you'll find that he's no getting overtired and cranky that way. Once you have tht established you simply move the bedtime routine slowly later till you reach your desired time.
For example at 12 weeks I tried this and discovered that this was the reason my evenings were so hard. My LO now has her bedtime routine at 6:30 and is in bed by 7:30 at the latest. I'm in the process of moving it later.
I think 8pm may just be to late of a bedtime at this point in your LO's life.
I also agree wake time may be to long and that you should probably work on that aswell.
Combined both these points should help you.

[yaya]

Thank you so much! I was wondering whether his bedtime was too late which is why i was trying to get him to nap for an hour before his bedtime routing. The main reason for this bedtime is so dad can spend a little time with him, i know this is quite selfish but otherwise baby has very little time with dad in the week and he really enjoys his bath with dad. I will however try putting him down earlier as he is refusing to nap in the evening which means we get REALLY overtired by bedtime!
 Thank you!