Help with 10 week old evenings

[Timmysmummy]

Hi all!

I could really do with some help to get our little boy settled in the evenings. Here's what he did yesterday:

Wake and eat 8am
A
S 9am
E 11am
A
S 12noon
E 2pm
A
S 3pm
E 5pm
A
S 6:15 (at this point he just dozed on and off til next feed - only about half hour of proper sleep in there but dozes and is content until 8pm feed)
E 8pm this is where it all goes haywire. He will eat - but not a full feed and was calm but awake until feeding again at 10
E 10pm another small feed
S 11:15pm and then unsettled until fed again at 1am
NF 1am
NF 5am

He is 10 weeks old. Am pretty sure I've got his awake time right as any longer and he only cat naps

Please help! Am desperate to get him going down earlier!  Last night was a bad night but he never settles until around 11pm normally. He is often also a lot more unsettled with a lot of crying between 7 and 9 or 10 ish in the  evening than he was last night (usually if his daytime naps have been poor).

[creations]

Hello and welcome to BW forums

What lovely naps you are getting through the day
Yes, I can see the evening is rather unsettled. There is nothing particularly leaping out from your routine though, I see you are keeping an eye on E and S times.
If your LO is calm and dozing on and off or calm and awake I wouldn't worry too much about this - I felt that those were the times my DS had some practice at self settling which was great, Tracy did say if LO is not crying and "I need you" cry then don't rush in, let LO just get on with laying there contemplating life
On the other hand though, the "witching hour" (more like all evening never mind an hour) where many LOs are so restless is very tiring. I remember this with my LO too.  Seemed like nothing would settle him.

Could you give us a little more information please?
- is LO learning to self settle yet?  How does he go to sleep, what sort of help do you give?
- Where does he sleep for naps and night? (cot? in arms/sling, pram etc?)
- is LO breast or formula fed - is feeding going well?
- any health issues or other background you think we might find helpful?

Although I don't have any specific advice at this point, the info you can give may help, and I will check back to make sure some support comes your way.

[Timmysmummy]

Thank you for replying!

His naps are not always that good! Just seem to be going well at the moment.

At night he sleeps in Moses basket swaddled (below arms). In the daytime his first nap of the day is always in his Moses basket in the dark. This is when we practice self soothing. He has white noise and I do spaced soothing using a dummy. Most of the time he then settles himself once dummy has fallen out a few times. If I'm home then all naps will be done in this way but it gets harder to get him to sleep as the day goes on so I use the dummy all the way to sleep. If we're out then his naps are more interrupted getting transferred from car seat to sling, pram etc and he doesn't ever sleep through the transfer. In the evening he will not sleep in his Moses basket beyond 5pm. He doesn't like sling then either. We sit with him on our lap on a cushion rocking him with dummy and white noise. Even if he doesn't sleep it at least most of the time keeps him calm. Holding him makes him worse. When he goes to bed at night my husband does a 10pm feed in the dark. He doesn't fall asleep on the bottle (if he does he soon wakes up) and then settles him using dummy and white noise. After each night feed he has his eyes open but just falls asleep with white noise and no dummy.

He has been formula fed from birth. Struggles a bit with reflux but is generally a good feeder (apart from in the evenings). We don't go to him unless he's crying but in the evening he needs a lot of soothing to keep him calm -which is tiring!

[Timmysmummy]

Just a bit of an update as last night went better I think.

He ended up feeding at 5:20pm then managed a cat nap on my lap for half an hour or so. At 7:50 my husband took him upstairs for the night time routine. LO was grizzly as usual so didn't eat much. He managed to get him to take another half hour kip in the Moses basket then fed him again after this catnap. He then went down drowsy but awake and slept til his first night feed which actually wasn't much earlier than usual.

Is this ok to split feeds etc in this way?

[creations]

I cant' see that a split feed in the evening is going to do any harm to routine, if it helps for now with the evenings and early part of night sleep then I'd go for it.
I'm not sure what to suggest, but I will see if anyone else can stop by with some suggestions for you.

Is the moses basket where he sleeps for the night as well as naps?  So he naps in there fine in the day (although as you say gets harder through the day) and sleeps okay for a stretch or two at night - but will not sleep in there in the evening prior to BT? Is that right?

[jessmum46]

You're having some great naps there but I wonder if they may be part of the issue?  Average A time at 2 months is about 1h15-20 (Average A times- BOOKMARK ME! ) and so it may be that although you are getting good naps, the shorter A times mean he isn't tired enough come the evening to settle into a restful deep sleep.  I'd be tempted I think to just very gently push those A times over a few days to a week, just 5-10 mins extra at a time and hold for a few days to let him get used to it  - and see if that helps.

I'm not quite sure what spaced soothing involves as it isn't a BW method - we would in general recommend that you stay with a baby of this age who is learning to settle and use shh pat to help them get off to sleep - Shush-pat - How to  Shh pat is a great tool for teaching sleep and can easily be weaned by gradually reducing the amount of help you give LO as they learn to settle alone