Hi I just wanted to ask about bedtime routine. Every night we bath our little girl (who is 12 weeks old) at around 7.30pm which she loves, put her in her night clothes/grobag, take her into the darkened bedroom, give her a bottle and put her to bed. However, from the moment we take her out of the bath (where she is all smiles) she cries-sometimes screams which I find really upsetting. She continues this crying all the time I am doing her nappy, putting her clothes on etc. It's as if she hates getting ready for bed and rather than be a pleasurable, calming, winding down time the whole bedtime experience is quite the opposite. Once we pop the bottle in her mouth she stops crying and she settles down to sleep quite well and only wakes once in the night (about 3/4am for a feed). I know it is probably because she is really tired but does anyone else have this problem? Is there anything I should be doing different as I hate to see her so upset, especially just before bedtime?
upset at bedtime
- Thread starter loobylou
- Start date
I had this problem with Anaïs. OUr bedtime routine is almost identical to yours, and i suspect that the problem is nothing to do with going to bed...
There are t wo things I changed, and I am not honestly sure which thing made the difference. It has occurred to me that the bath is nice and warm, when you take her out the air is cold against her skin, and this may be a bit of a shock to the system. I found that wrapping her quickly in a towel and holding her quite tight for a couple of minutes calmed her, while drying her mostly - also rub her head lightly first when you go on to drying the rest of her, as it helps to warm her. The other thing is that I let her play in the bath for a quite a while now, until the water starts to cool, or she starts to grizzle. In this way she has really had her fill of bath and also the difference in temperature is less marked.
Hope this helps
Lisa
There are t wo things I changed, and I am not honestly sure which thing made the difference. It has occurred to me that the bath is nice and warm, when you take her out the air is cold against her skin, and this may be a bit of a shock to the system. I found that wrapping her quickly in a towel and holding her quite tight for a couple of minutes calmed her, while drying her mostly - also rub her head lightly first when you go on to drying the rest of her, as it helps to warm her. The other thing is that I let her play in the bath for a quite a while now, until the water starts to cool, or she starts to grizzle. In this way she has really had her fill of bath and also the difference in temperature is less marked.
Hope this helps
Lisa
DS is the same and DD used to be like it too. It seems from the minute they're out of the bath and dry they're desperate for that last feed and suddenly get turbo tired. I just rush through the nighttime routine as fast as I can with DS until he's dressed, in his grobag and finally calm for his last feed.
