How do I stop my baby being over tired?

[claireh29]

I know it seems a silly question but no matter what I do my baby is always over tired by bed time.

She is now 9 weeks old, i also have a so  who is 4yrs

I find it hard to get her down for naps, the school run gets in the way, I don't have loads of time to sit and ssh her because getting son ready/demands of a small child (play, food, toilet etc).

She had really good tired signs and I spot them right away būt that doesn't seems to help.

I have been putting her in the sling for naps or go for a walk but she will only sleep for about 30/40 m which I know is a classic sign of being over tired.

Bed time is awful, we have a little routine and we have using ssh pat since 5 weeks which was working but the last few days have been awful. Real red sweaty faced screaming. She will sleep 30/40m, wake up scream for just as long then sleep another 30/40m before waking up again. At this point I feed her and she falls asleep, it's normally my bed time by them so she stays in the bed with me.

I by know means want her to 'cry it out' but it seems this is what she is doing just with me watching (heart breaking).

What should I do? Just watch for tired signs and put her down? And hope over a few days she just learns what's happening.

[jessmum46]

(((Hugs))), these early weeks are really hard.  I'll be totally honest here but my feeling is at 9 weeks, most babies are going to be overtired or overstimulated by bedtime regardless of what you do, and that's without having a second child in the mix to deal with.  Add to that many babies have an unsettled crying period in the evenings (this peaks typically at about 8 weeks so I'm told) and so even with 'perfect' naps LOs can often be tough to settle.  At this age I wouldn't necessarily see 30-40 min naps as a sign of over tiredness every time - it can equally just be that LO hasn't yet learnt to connect sleep cycles and has an (appropriately) immature daytime sleep pattern.  Honestly I would be at this stage doing what it takes to get through so I wouldn't be expecting LO to self-settle at bedtime, I would feed and put her down, or hold her in a sling until she's out for the count, or something similar.  There's the ideal, and then there's real life with more than one   Just a thought though - has she got anything that could be making her uncomfortable - gas, reflux etc?    That would be the only thing xx

[claireh29]

Thanks for that makes me feel better.

I want so desperately for her to sleep well by herself so can spend more time with my son. I'm forever telling him I have to do something for the baby and when she is in the sling I can't sit down to play I age to keep moving.

People told me the second baby just 'fits in' well it's like fitting a square peg in a round hole at the moment.

I'm sure people block out the first 3 months!!

[jessmum46]

Yup it's not easy but what I did find good was actually getting out to the park or toddler groups so older one was busy and entertained and didn't notice quite so much that I was trying to get baby to nap.  The other thing I did sometimes was just decide that the older one was the priority for the day and that baby would just have to sleep when he could, sounds a bit crazy but baby's needs are very simple (feed, change, snooze) whereas investing that extra bit from time to time in the older ones emotional needs was good for us both xx