3 week old hard to settle at bedtime

[thegodwingang]

My LO is 3 weeks and exclusively breastfeed.  Does well with EASY during the day; activity time is 45 minutes and naps are 1 1/2-2 hours.  Will sometimes drift off to sleep on his own, others I rock for a few minutes or encourage the pacifier.  Sush-pat is overstimulating, for the most part.  I do use a sound machine on occasion.  Typically up at 7a and bath is at 7p, bedtime 730-8.  Birthweight 5-7, about 7 lbs now; 2 1/2-3 hour easy.  THE PROBLEM:  he nurses at 715-730 or so and I put him down.... that lasts about 10 minutes and he is up and fussy.  From this point, it is usually 11p before I get him settled.  He started this one week ago.  Before that was down between 8-9p and nursed twice during the night.

example.... Last night; nursed 720-750 and put to bed, up fussy at 915, nursed and gave him to my husband.  It was 11 before he settled.  Up at 250, back to bed at 320 without any problem and up for the day at 645.  Activity time til 725 then swaddled for nap; drifted on his own and slept 2 hours. 

He does beautifully during the day but 730p is another story!  What do I do?  I have used EASY twice before but don't remember this being an issue.  My other two were the typical "fussy and five" babies.  Thanks in advance!

[jessmum46]

Hi and congratulations

It sounds like you are doing great, actually!  In the early weeks it is really really common for babies to be fussy in the evening and have trouble settling down to sleep for the night so you are certainly not doing anything 'wrong' at all.  Have you thought about ruling out things like gas discomfort, reflux?  Or cutting down on stimulation during the day, especially pre-bed (appreciate this may be difficult with older LOs around)? 

It may just be a case of waiting it out for a while - many mums find things settle a lot by 12 weeks, and often earlier.  You could try just a touch more A time (5 mins or so) to see if being that extra bit tired helps, but I suspect if naps stay good this will probably resolve itself

(((Hugs))), the first few weeks can be really tough but they will fly!

[thegodwingang]

I guess his fussy time may just be later than usual.  He is hard to settle for naps in the afternoon too.  Although my second child had reflux, it doesn't seem to be an issue yet.  In general, he is just fussy; nothing seems to make a difference except the breast!  Stimulation during the day is minimal and I did try a little more A time but that created a nap issue Thanks for the words of advice!

[jessmum46]

You're welcome - FWIW at that age I was frequently up to 1am or so trying to get my DD to sleep - 11pm was a good night!  But I think by 8 weeks she was going down by 9pm, and gradually that moved earlier and BT got much easier from that point onwards x

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Just jumping in to say I'm having the same with my 2 week old, though he's done it from birth. If it's just started for you then could it be a growth spurt? I think they have one around 2-3 weeks? I remember having the same problem with my eldest during the 6 week growth spurt. It all suddenly got better after the growth spurt passed at 7 weeks and was fine from then on.

With my son (the 2 week old) I'm going with the theory that things will improve with time!

[MamaLiz]

Jumping in to say "same here" with 7 week old dd2 - really botches things for BT for 2.5 year old dd1.  It's so strange since dd2 does so beautifully during the day.  Three to four 1-2 hour naps (or maybe a 40-45min catnap), goes down awake but drowsy, seems to totally know the drill when the 4s starts, has 1-1.25 A times, more or less 3 hour easy - it's all good until 7:00pm.  So frustrating, although I know what you mean about "I feel I shouldn't complain" when the day is so nice... Worst thing is I often can't even AP dd2 down, or rather I can, but she won't stay down, even when I hold through the jolt at :20, she usually won't make it past the transition at :40 (I know this is probably because she is then falling asleep in my arms and waking in cot, but this used to be the only way to get dd1 down). Now they both have a cold and congestion so dd1 is a bit of a toddler bear and dd2 is just miserable and back to sleeping in the bouncy seat which keeps her more upright... uuuuggghhhh - good thing LOs are so wonderful in every other way! Maybe a few more weeks then....

[kde1022]

Hi ladies!

My daughter is 17 days old and I got on here today to post the SAME question! She does beautifully with E. A. S. Y. during the day.... goes down for a nap still awake and sleeps 1.5-2 hours no problem. However, for the last 5 nights (since we started the routine) she stays awake for the whole 3-hour cycle between 8pm and 11pm. I try to treat the 8pm feeding as a "dream feed" just barely waking her up, but it doesn't make a difference. Little girl is WIDE EYED and BUSHY TAILED 8pm-11pm! I have just been persistent with the 4S's to the point of my own exhaustion until last night my husband finally convinced me to let him take her so I could sleep to prep for 1am and 5am feedings. I was soooo tired! He thinks this is just her pattern and we should just let her stay up if that's what she's going to do - rather than fighting it so hard. What do you guys think? Just wait it out and hope it improves as she gets a little older?

So glad to see I'm not the only one! 

[LBK]

Hi! I logged on today for the exact same reason! We did EASY with DS and bedtime was always so simple. Now, with our second LO (DD), she does great ALL day with EASY (really great ...), but bedtime is always a BIG struggle and has been since about week 1. She is now 4 weeks. We have tried everything, but from 7-10pm she is just fussy, won't settle for long (maybe 10-12 minutes and then up again). We have ruled out gas, reflux, etc. DS was fussy 4-8pm for weeks 1-6, so maybe this is just her fussy time ... just hard to keep going after a long day and DS is finally in bed and still trying to get this one down! But she's been sleeping from DF to 6:30am for a week now, so really there is nothing to complain about ... Glad to see others have the same issue! Just sort of baffling! Oh well! Could always be worse. Hugs to everyone! We are all doing a great job!

[MamaLiz]

I think with these very young LOs it is just the way for them...?  DD2 is 8 weeks tomorrow and battling a cold, but BT does seem to be getting a bit better - down at 9:00 and even 8:45 last night.  Since she's been sick (and also just because BT has been a bit brutal), I am feeding (for comfort I would guess or maybe just the last bit of the cluster?) almost to sleep like a top up at BT - eventually I would like to eliminate this feed, but it works for now.  I am still trying to pd awake, and it seems when I pd asleep is when I get the WU 10-20 min later.  After reading and posting on a couple other threads, I decided to stop fighting it and just get dd1 down at her regular time with dd2 along for the ride or with DH, then depending on how dd2 seems, it's usually time to start her BT WD after dd1 goes down (usually 8ish). Sometimes I get a later or longer CN to help her get through to this later BT, but sometimes we just end up with a longer last A (which I think may end up backfiring at some point, but hasn't seemed to bother her yet???). Clearly I don't have any good advice to "fix" this issue, but we've been happier since giving up on the 7-8pm BT, and it seems like it's already creeping toward that anyway, but I've got a few weeks on most of you! HTH to know that it does seem to "self-correct" to some extent - get some extra sleep during naps if you can.

[thegodwingang]

He is now 6 weeks and daytime routine is still perfect.  Fussy time is now about 6p-10p, although he isn't as fussy.  Bedtime is still a struggle.  He is WIDE awake after that 5-6 ish catnap.  I even moved bath time back thinking that may be over stimulating him so close to bedtime.  I do think that over stimulation is some of the issue and have no idea how to correct it besides sitting in his bedroom all afternoon and that's a bit unrealistic with a 2 and 4 year old They go to bed at 730.  My husband and I go to bed at 8p and get up at 4a.  Longer "A" time in the evenings doesn't make sense; he is 1 hour during the day.

[MamaLiz]

How's it going?