meltdown every night?

i really need help. my girls are not the best sleepers. whether it's naps or at bedtime. they literally hysterically cry for an hour every night after our bedtime routine. i'm not sure if it's because they are getting too tired. the only way i can get one to stop is to wear her to calm her down then nurse her (again). the other will just need to be rocked for the entire hour and then i have to nurse her again.

i am on the eat, play, sleep routine. they take naps but always wake up several times during their naps. they will do about three naps and then a short catnap in their stroller after the late afternoon feeding. they do not sleep through the night at all. they also get up every hour after 3 to nurse.

i don't know what to do anymore. i have to go back to work in a few weeks and don't know how i'm going to handle it when i get back. has anyone ever gone through this?

 

Can you try to put them to bed a little earlier?

 

What time is their bedtime? :hug: It's rough at that age, especially if they might be teething or going through a growth spurt. :hug:

 

We start our bedtime routine (bath, feed, rocking) around 7:00pm. Sometimes they go down at 8:30 but other times they don't go down until 10:00. The 10:00 is what really kills us since we've been trying since 7 for them to go to sleep.

I can handle it if I know it gets better. Does it get better? And when?

 

QUOTE(kwinnies @ Jun 4 2009, 08:19 PM) [snapback]1341534[/snapback]
I can handle it if I know it gets better. Does it get better? And when?


It does get better, but it's different for everyone. I know this isn't what you want to hear. For us, well, my dd, it got better around 5/6 months.

I usually had mine done with their routine by 7:30 at that age. Could you try maybe starting the routine at 6? And then being done by 7ish and ending with a feeding?

 

I would put them to bed earlier. That worked for us when we were in the same situation. Whatever feeding was closest to 6 was the last feeding of the "day" then it was bath, massage, pajamas, snuggle, swaddle, bed.

Overtiredness was the cause of a lot of our troubles in the early months, but I didn't realize it at the time. An early bedtime helped so much!

 

I start bed time at 6pm...baths, cuddles, bottle, bed. I have been since 4 months and they sleep until 630-7am

 

I agree, you might try an earlier bedtime. At that age we were putting them in sleep blankets so it was bath, bottle in low lights, into sleep blankets and in to a dark bedroom with white noise. At about the age of yours they started sleeping from about 7:00 PM to 6:00 AM so I am a proponent of feeding before bed and swaddle/sleep blanket. We didn't really do CIO at that point but we did no rocking, no stimulation, and put them in bed drowsy but awake to teach them to self soothe so there was some crying in the crib rather than in our arms for a few minutes before they went to sleep.