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By Natalie Ebrill
Many babies experience an unsettled whingy time in the afternoon usually starting around 3pm and ending by 11pm. This time is commonly referred to as ‘arsenic hour’ or ‘witching hour’ when baby doesn’t seen to know what they want, they won’t feed well or sleep well and all they seem to do is whinge and cry. This time in your baby’s day calls for survival techniques never seen on TV!
There have been no researched reasons for this unsettled period so all we can do is have strategies to cope with it. Of course it happens to be in the busiest time of your day as well with your energy at its lowest, the dinner needs to be prepared, the washing brought in and your partner not knowing what they are coming home to. If you have a talk and are prepared for it you will both cope easier and be ready.
Over a few weeks you should be able to identify how long your baby’s ‘arsenic hour’ goes for. It will be somewhere between 3 pm and 11pm, but usually only last for a few hours. Once you have worked out when your baby is finally ready to calm down, you can aim to put them to bed around this time.
Those around you who care about you will support you, accept any offers of help. It might feel like it ……but it won’t last forever. This is a sensible time to get your partner to bath baby and have some bonding time. If baby doesn’t want to be asleep you may as well make appointments, invite friends/relatives over ‘to play’ or be in and out of the car.
Generally your baby will be awake for a longer period than usual, but it should not be more than one hour longer than their recommended uptime. It is normal for baby to only sleep for 45 minutes to 1 hour during ‘arsenic hour’ and to want to feed more frequently. Breastfed babies need to ‘cluster feed’ (feed frequently and often because mums supply is lower than other times in the day) and a bottle fed baby will just want to be awake.
During ‘arsenic hour’ try everything to make your baby happy. Feeding, cuddling, wrapping tightly, go for a walk in the stroller, a baby sling, bouncer, swings etc. You can try to keep them in their usual routine and put them to bed in their room, but if they are not cooperating just try everything.
Often going for a walk outside makes you feel better, gets you out of the house, and the crying doesn’t sound so loud outside. You may even bump into other mum’s doing the exact same thing! If your baby will not settle in their bed and the weather doesn’t permit going for a walk you could try wrapping baby as usual and putting them in the stroller. Tuck baby in as tight as possible and put a cover over the stroller to avoid distraction and stimulation! Push the stroller back and forth over a bump in the floor (between tiles and carpet), the bumpier the better. When baby falls asleep, leave them in the stroller somewhere in the house until they wake up. Remember to only expect a short sleep during arsenic hour. If you feel baby needs more sleep attempt to put back to sleep again in the stroller, but only try for about 20 minutes. If they don’t go back to sleep in that time, get them up and move on with your evening with ‘feed, play, sleep’.
If you are out and have succeeded in getting baby to sleep don’t let anyone or thing wake them! A sign wouldn’t go astray either pinned to the stroller…“you wake ….you take!”
Try and prepare dinner earlier in the day, have takeaway or accept dinners from friends in the early weeks (if you are breastfeeding remember to avoid spicy, rich foods that might upset your baby. Often well meaning ‘childless’ friends don’t realise their thoughtful gift could cause problems).
This unsettled period often lasts up to about 12 weeks of age, so accept all offers of help, you have a lot of surviving to do!
The 5 keys to surviving arsenic hour are:
1. Be kind to yourself and be realistic. Your baby is going to unsettled and generally not cooperate with any routine.
2. Work out how long your baby’s arsenic hour goes for and at least have a goal time when you know ‘it’ will be over.
3. Feed as often as necessary.
4. Try everything you can think of to calm baby until ‘it’s’ over.
5. Go outside. Make this afternoon period your power walking time, appointment time, visiting time (so others can experience it and help!)
© 2008 Natalie Ebrill- Sleep and Settle- Baby Sleep Consultant 0-5 yrs
RN, Child and Family Health Nurse. Mother of three.
I want to give you your life back! Would you appreciate being empowered with an understanding of your baby's needs and a gentle strategy that you apply to your baby/toddler's personality? Do you feel like you've read everything and nothing is working?
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There are many reasons for your baby 9 months or older waking early in the morning around 5-6am and not wanting to go back to sleep. If the early waking is not working for your family and you would like to try and extend the morning wake time, we need to identify the possible causes of the early waking and deal with each issue.
Common issues to address are:
- Too much light coming in the bedroom in the morning
- Household/environmental noises
- Baby not dressed warmly enough for the early morning temperatures
- The reward of an early breakfast
- Waking for a milk feed
- Habits and routine already established as a younger baby, of an early start to the day
- The timing of the first day sleep
- Your baby's bedtime in the evening
- Genetics! Your baby is made up of two parents
So once you decide what the possible causes are you can begin to play with some solutions.
Always give each try at least a week to have an effect on your baby's body clock and be patient.
It is easy to adjust the amount of light coming into the bedroom with appropriate window coverings of any sought. Whatever is handy will work, it doesn't have to be professional or expensive to be effective, just block out the light. Think an old quilt cover, dark sheet, large towels, a picnic blanket, coated block out fabric.
Sometimes we can train the family to be quiet around the house early in the morning, but sometimes outside factors affect your baby's waking. Try playing soft sleep time music such as 'Music for Dreaming' on repeat all night to cover some of the noises and wean baby off the music in a few months
Over 9 months Babies are very mobile in the cot and should be dressed for the night assuming they are rolling around in the cot and will not be under the warm covers all night. Think how you would feel, sleeping in what you have dressed your baby in, if you were sleeping on top of your blankets without a partner. Excess blankets become a SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) risk if your baby is mobile and crawling or rolling around the cot.
If your baby over 9 months of age is currently enjoying early morning milk feeds or gets breakfast as soon as they wake, this is a nice reward for waking. If you are happy to offer these feeds, early mornings are a consequence unless you resettle back to sleep after the feed. If you don't think baby needs these feeds for nutrition and they are simply waking for them as a habit, you can drop them if baby is over 9 months and eating solids well during the day. This is a personal decision.
Sometimes mum and dad need baby to get up early for the working schedule during the week but want to encourage a sleep in on the weekends. Unfortunately baby doesn't understand the difference between a workday and a weekend, so I recommend that you treat every day like a Sunday and encourage a sleep in until the last minute and arrange breakfast for baby at the place of babysitting or childcare.
If you reward your baby waking early in the morning with a sleep shortly after breakfast, you are encouraging early waking.
If you put your baby to bed too early in the evening, they will meet their sleep quota earlier in the night and not be able to sleep in to your reasonable wake time in the morning.
The last and obvious reason is that if you or your partner is an early riser, it is possible that the baby takes after the early riser and will always grace you with their presence when they wake! After all the baby is genetically related!
Tip: If your baby's routine is working for your baby and your family, don't change anything! If the routine needs fine tuning, first look for the possible contributing factors, then put a consistent plan in place confidently and monitor your results to see what works.
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