Witching hour...

For those of you not familiar with newborns, many babies are unsettled for no apparent reason in the early evening (and some at more unsociable hours like late at night or early morning...). It's called the Witching Hour.

For most of the day, babies eat, play and then sleep for a bit. Or they eat then play, then eat then sleep. Then you hit the witching hours, and nothing seems to make bub contented. You feed, play, cuddle, change nappies, put them down in bed because they look tired. But instead they cry. Get them out of bed, check nappy, see if the want to play. They cry the minute you aren't carrying them, or giving them your full attention, which is exhausting when you've done that pretty much all day. Try putting them in the bouncer while you start on dinner, but little bub's bottom lip quivers and sobs and you know if you don't pick him up pretty soon, he'll be wailing.

E-chan is an average little baby, and has his fair share of unsettled evenings. We have recently decided to give up trying to put him to bed between 4pm and 7:30pm, because he just cries. Last night, I had a bath and E-chan came in with me. Not only does it save getting the baby bath set up, but he seems to like it. It's absolutely lovely feeling baby skin in the water. He may just be a little water baby, and already has an accomplished breaststroke kick! He has learned to close his eyes when water trickles over them. He's had a few showers with his Dad also, and that works well. Also last night, we put on music we like to dance to, and one of us dances holding E-chan while the other gets on with whatever needs doing.

These seem like manageable strategies for the timebeing. With luck he'll grow out of this phase before too long, anyway... Well "they say" it usually stops after about 3 months.