Sleeping FAQ: 4-6 Months – Settling/Sleep Associations

My 4mth daughter is difficult to settle at 7pm. We have to resettle her several times or she wakes after 45minutes

I have a very unusual problem with my four month old baby which is driving me crazy! My daughter is a great CLB except for one thing – she is terrible at settling at 7pm. She often cries and refuses to settle a few minutes after being put down or, if she does settle well at 7pm, she usually wakes up yelling 45 minutes later. This is really perplexing as, for all of her other sleeps, she settles herself off easily. Indeed, for her day time sleeps she is put down wide awake and babbles herself off to sleep within a couple of minutes and sleeps through until I wake her. After the late feed she is drowsy but certainly not asleep when I put her down and she settles off really well until I wake her at 7am the next day.

Since starting the CLB routines I have never had to walk the floor with my daughter or cuddle her to sleep.
She has been sleeping through the night for the past three weeks when I introduced a late feed. (I did not do the late feed until this time as prior to this time, she was waking only once between 7am and 7pm and I found it easier to go to bed early myself and feed her whenever she woke) . At present she is woken at 10.15pm and put back down by 10.45pm. She is given 7oz of formula however we are slowly knocking this back and winding back her waking time to 10/1030pm.

Despite being absolutely perfect for the rest of the time, my daughter is difficult at 7pm and has been for the past couple of months. We have tried everything – putting her down earlier (6.30pm), later (7.30pm), putting her down asleep, putting her down wide awake, rocking the crib, letting her scream (for 1hr and a half before we gave in) and just going straight to her for a cuddle. In the past few days we have thought that it must be hunger waking her as she is so good the rest of the time so we have topped her up after the breast feed with up to 4oz of formula. But nothing seems to work!

She usually settles after one or two attempts but some nights we have two goes to get her down at 7ish and then have to go back to her 45mins later.

We have not yet started solids yet as she sleeps well through the night and seems to be happy on milk.

We don’t know what to do. We have been reluctant to let her cry as we can’t help thinking that there is something wrong, given that she has no sleep association problems and is great for all other naps. When we did let her cry last week she went totally berserk for almost and hour and a half and made herself sick. We are concerned though that the current pattern at 7pm might cause bad habits that flow onto other sleep times.

My daughter is breast fed throughout the day taking 30 minutes at 7am, 11am and 6pm. She takes 20 minutes at 2.30pm. At 6.15pm she takes up to 4ozs of formula after her feed and 7ozs at 10pm. She weighs 15lbs 6ozs.

My daughter naps at 9-9.30am, 12-2pm and 4.45-5pm.

Although you have already tried a few things to help your daughter settle better at 7pm, it would be worth trying a combination of methods to see if she is both hungry and overtired at this time.

By 6pm your milk supply may be running low so, to eliminate hunger, offer your daughter a top up feed straight after you have breast fed her. Offer her as much milk from a bottle as she will take at this time and this will give you an indication of the level of your milk supply. It may also help you to express at this feed time one evening just to see how much milk you do produce at this time of day. If you do this when your partner is around he could feed her an expressed or formula feed at the same time and you can freeze the milk for future use.

Once hunger has been eliminated as a reason for your daughter’s difficulty in settling, then look at the possibility of overtiredness causing the problem. You have already tried an earlier bedtime but, combined with a top up feed, it should be more successful. Put her down by 6.40pm at the latest. Make sure that you have a quiet bath time and give her feed in her room with the lights dimmed. If you do not have a lullaby light on her cot already try using one to help her calm down at this time. If your daughter begins to settle better you will know that both hunger and overtiredness were the causes.

To help her stay awake nearer to 7pm, and still be able to feed well, it may help your daughter if she had a slightly longer afternoon nap. Let her have 20-30 minutes before 5pm, rather than her usual 15minutes.

Once you have made these changes use the “crying down” practice to settle her. This means leaving her for about 10 minutes to settle herself but then going in to check and quietly reassure her. A baby who is overtired may take up to half an hour to properly settle. Her cries will gradually subside and there will be pauses in between as she settles down to sleep. If you realize that this is what your daughter is doing then let her settle herself, as the more you pick her up and disturb her the longer it will take her to resettle herself again. For a full description of “crying down” look at The Complete Sleep Guide, page 39.