Unsettled babies

[little_O]

I know the old wives tale where the time of night called the "witching hour" where babies are unsettled and cry a lot. But what time of night does this happen for you? What is generally the reason for them being unsettled. What works for you to calm them?

[Arcadia]

Three weeks is a wonder week I think...do you have the book or app? It's a brain or developmental milestone which leaves babies unsettled.

Dd used to cry 7-9pm and seriously nothing really helped, she just grew out of it suddenly at 12 weeks.

I used to sing, pat , rock, bathe etc but the best thing was really just getting outside for a while (summer baby).

Otherwise watch tv with captions and just hold bubs until they're settled. That's all I did with ds and he grew out of it also.

[Mum2twoBoys]

My ds would cry from 5pm til about 8pm every night for the first three months. We took turns, initially what worked was one of us held him whilst the other made and ate dinner, and then we'd swap. Then he wouldn't even settle down then. So we borrowed sleep right, sleep tight from the library. And used a few techniques out of it. 1 darkened room low stimulation, white noise, and we'd stay with him patting while he cried, with our faces out of view. We took it in 15min turns, for our sanity.

We think he would just get overstimulated from the day, cos his naps would get shorter as the day went on. Plus getting used to night and day. And then its also the busiest time of day.

But I agree a lot with the fact that it is a development thing, and they eventually outgrow it. But starting with our sleep routine early on has led to us now having an easy to settle baby, and self Soother.

Sent from HTC wildfire using TAPATALK, so forgive any spelling errors its a small keyboard.

[Novella]

for our three it was any where from 5pm and would last up to 9pm. They all grew out of it from 3-4months

not much helped settle them except being held and even that wasn't guarenteed. Like WM it was more about what we could do for ourselves tog et through it, eating in turns was one of them, DH would give them a bath so I would get some time out as I bf them all and they just wanted to feed on and off during the whitching hour. Walking them helped but walking or three hours wasn't an option. During the day dd3 has been unsettled and Ive found putting her in the carrier and walking around the shops helped settle her and stopped me going mental looking around the house thinking about what needed doing. Shame its winter as a walk around the block in a carrier might help, I get too tense doing senseless pacing in the house.

Good luck it improves, although all five of us are probably at our crankiest between 5-7pm at night still!

[Mum2twoBoys]

I forgot the senseless pacing, especially in the early days after having bub.

Sent from HTC wildfire using TAPATALK, so forgive any spelling errors its a small keyboard.

[onthefly]

about 4-7pm.

time....

[~Hestia~]

With my first it was around 2am...

With Buster it was right on 8pm! You could set your clock to him Fortunately he was a summer bub so I'd just walk him in the pram or carrier, would settle right down.

Both boys only had it for a couple of weeks.

[Lisa B]

Grizzle time has always happened between about 4-6pm. Difficult because we are trying to get dinner cooked and all of that. I think it just DS being worn out. We get it even when he gets good day sleeps but it is definitely worse if he misses some sleep during the day. He is now 15 months but hasn't outgrown it. We get some respite by walking outside (difficult when you are trying to make dinner) and if it is really, really difficult I resort to a dummy (we usually only use it for sleep). Other than that I just have to be there for DS and just wait for DP to get home before I can get dinner on. I'm not sure what I would do in terms of preparing dinner if DP wasn't home between 5-6pm.