Satan Hour

[sharvs]

My DF and I are blessed with a calm, content baby boy. That is, until about 5pm every night. Our little baby goes away & satan comes out to play.

From 5pm until bath time (7pm) he is very clingy and cant be left alone. If you put him down he just screams until you go and pick him up. Any other time of the day & it probably wouldnt be sucha problem but we are trying to get tea ready etc. I thought originally that it was just because he gets tired but today he only woke up from a sleep at 4.45 and by 5 he was cranky already.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what we can do to eliminate this at nights? Every night we are hurrying to scoff our food because he is screaming.

[Funkychicken]

Firstly, your bub is just gorgeous! I love the pic. We have had this too. I call it the witching hour. It's off with the head and on with the pumpkin for bub. Actually we had it with our first one, second wasn't too bad and this time I just go with it. I know Hamish is ready for bed by 5pm. Even if he has only woken from a 2 hr sleep at 4-4.30 he still wants to go back to bed. If he is getting cranky, I put him back to bed and skip the bath. It's not worth the hassle and he only gets more stressed. I want his water experiences to be fun, not a screaming time.
I have done much scoffing over the years with babies. If dinner can wait, I put bub to bed and then eat. DS#1 used to be fed whilst I ate dinner so he would often wake up with bits of my food in his clothing!
Go with the flow-he'll grow out of this pretty quickly and you'll hardly remember the horrible bits. Well maybe you'll remember some of it!:)

PS Your bub is born on my DH's birthday!

[Foxy]

Hi Sharon

I agree that this can be the most stressful time of the day. Like your little one, my DS is an angel at all times except from about 5:30pm until bedtime at 7:30, despite sleeping from 2 until 4 in the afternoon.

A few things we do have helped. We have kept aside some cool, interesting toys that come out at this time only. We have pay tv, so if he is really cranky, I put Hi 5 on at 6pm and he is happy for 1/2 hour. I do feel a bit guilty about this, but hey it can't be finger-painting all day can it! We do the bath / story routine from 6:30 and then it's bottle at 7 with cuddles until bed at 7:30.

We wait until DS is in bed to have our dinner, so we can relax and sometimes eat naughty things that we don't want DS to have!

S
xx

PS. I agree with Sal008 your boy is so gorgeous! :)

[emilysmumma]

I think all bubs are born knowing that the busiest time of the day is in the afternoon getting dinner ready, looking after your other kids after school, DH coming home etc etc etc, and this is some test that the gods have devised to test our limits. :banghead:
We have it too from around 4 onwards. Always when i'm about to eat dinner. I tried to have dinner an hour early last night but she still seemed to know.

The best thing I think is if you can during the day get dinner ready so all you have to do is heat it up once bubs is asleep. This way you can devote your attention solely on bubs during this crotchy time.
Also try putting bubs to bed as soon as you can even if it's earlier than usual. We don't give a bath every night so don't push it unless it helps make him calmer.

Good luck, your not the only one and really there is no magic button with these little guys (damn), you just have to find whats best for your situation and really don't try and fight it, just go with the flow.

[sharvs]

DS loves his bath time! He would stay in the bath all night if we let him. Even if he is cranky before a bath, as soon as we put him in he is calm & relaxed.

He usually has a bath at 7.30, then a bottle & off to bed. Tonight we are going to try giving him a bath around 5.30 then keeping him awake until about 7ish. Not sure how it will go considering he is used to having a bath right before bed but it cant hurt to try it - last night was horrible!

[Baby Girl]

Gotta love arsenic hour!!!

It seems to be a design fault with the current model - actually all models!!

BUT...there is light at the end of the tunnel I promise. Both of my girls kind of grew out of it around the 6-7 month mark. One of the things that helped us immensly (sp?) was if DP cooked dinner while I kept bub happy and then we fed her while we were eating (DP is pretty clever at eating with one hand and balancing baby and bottle on his lap or shovelling food into bubs mouth and his own at the same time - I however, am not very good at it!!). After dinner, DP would do bath and pj's and I would clean up from dinner. Then it was quiet cuddles in front of the tv or read a book and maybe a bottle (if they didn't have one at our dinnertime) and then off to bed.

Routine seemed to be our saviour and even when we had to deal with DD2 and her horrible hours we just kind of fit her into the routine we already had with DD1 (which hasn't changed much over 3 years) and it worked.

And the other bonus...... I very rarely have to cook dinner because DP would rather cook than try to entertain one cranky baby and one very active toddler - little does he know that I rather playing with the kids than cooking....sshhhh ;)