won't sleep at bed time (4 months)

[daisymelan]

Hello,

Just looking for some advice on a situation I have. 

My lo usually goes down ok for naps, but at night.... wow... how does he know its sleep time and not nap time?  it's been like this for 2 weeks at least.  Once we put him down he fusses for up to 2.5 hours at which point i nurse him for DF.  For the first week we didn't change anything but he didn't go down, so we started nursing him before he slept in case he was hungry.....  still the same thing.  He usually has about three naps a day 1.5/1.5/1 hrs (on average).

He is an Angel baby and used to just drift off peacefully.  We wake him up at 8 and put him down at 8 as well.  Except for the past week when I nurse him at 8 and put him down at 8:30ish.

His night waking has not changed... still around two times per night.

Any ideas or thoughts would be appreciated.

TIA,  Jodie

[daisymelan]

I forgot to mention that he's EBF.  He is not on solids yet and does not receive formula.

[Angel Face]

I am responding to this because it looks like you didn't get any responses... I am having the same problem! DD does naps great, but going to bed is aweful!!
Any advice out there for us!!
Is your DS doing better now?
Thanks,

[Gage and Sophie's Mom]

Hi I am in the same boat. I think my ds is overtired when bedtime comes around. I am trying to extend his naps as they are between 1 hr and 1.5. Someone suggested letting his sleep longer, having naps arpund 2 hrs each. I have tried everything else so what the heck! Also, I am going to try to make the bedtime routine a little different than the nap routine in hopes that Gage will realize that he needs to sleep for the night vs waking up after an hour. Good luck!
Hope this helps:)

[daisymelan]

I have tried a different combination of naps.  He seems to do best with 2 x 2 hours and one cat nap in the evening.  But we still have troubles putting him down in the evening.  last night it took him about an hour to fall asleep. 

This has been going on for a month or so now I htink.  I don't understand why he fusses so much at bedtime, but never for his naps.  Ok, not never, but it's never like when he goes to bed at night.

Maybe it's time for solids?  He is going on 5 months.  Maybe he's just lacking calories.  But I did try nursing him right before bed for about a week and he still fussed.  Maybe he just needs more calories during the day.

Can someone please help us?  Offer some suggestions please.

Nice to know I'm not alone in my struggles.

[Angel Face]

Hi Jodi,
I am still seeking for answers myself and the biggest one I have is teething! My DD is really struggling with it and I have tried several things such as yourself. My DD is also EBF and I have noticed when all the changes started to happen that she was needing more so I really made sure she got more and I feed her more often to get my supply up. That may have been part of the problem, but I would do it all over again to make sure she has enough to eat. With my first daughter it was around this age that she started needing more and I didn't realize it and my supply droped and then issue after issue with BF started, so I think for me BF has caused some of these issues.
I too truly do not understand why my DD does well at naps and so poorly at night. I have been doing well with her naps as you have and she goes to bed at 7-7:30pm. The one thing I was going to suggest was to see if you were doing the dream feed. I started that with DD and it has seemed to help get her a longer stretch at night. Sometimes... It use to be that she would wake up around 5 or 6 and I would feed her and she would go right back out, but now she wants to be awake and stay awake, so I have been fighting that with ptt/shhh and that seems to be working... just slowly. The major issue I have found is overstimulation in the evenings. The calmer evening we have the better she goes to bed, still some fights, but not as bad. Last night it was a 2 hour battle! We had company over and I tried to keep her quite and got her to bed and took my time away from the company, but she could still hear what was going on (even though we have a white noise for her) and it was a battle!, but she slept until 5am so we are working on it! I just wish with Touchy babies it was a little easier.
Anyways... I don't know if my information has been helpful or not, but I thought I would pass on what I have been doing, it hasn't fully worked yet, but it slowly making some progress.
Maybe we can console each other through this!!