by Brandi Riley posted in Parenting

It's the time of day when I feel the most inadequate. My baby is fussy and nothing I do seems to help. I try to nurse him, he doesn't want milk. He doesn't want to be held, but cries when I put him down. He won't go to sleep. He doesn't want to play. It's enough to bring a mama to tears. What is wrong with this baby"
It's not that I'm a bad mother and doing things wrong. My baby isn't going through a terrible crisis. We've just entered into the witching hour.
As the mom of two with eight years in between them, I had pushed all memories of the witching hour out of my mind. When my infant son couldn't seem to get comfortable right around dinner time every evening, it all started to come back to me. As I tried different methods to calm him down, my ears ringing from his shrill cries, it helped to remember that I had gotten through it once, and I was going to get through it again. Witching hour was not going to conquer me! All of the frustration, discomfort, and uncertainty -- it's not easy, but we're still here. Both babies and I are surviving the witching hour, and you can, too. Here's the thing. If you want to survive witching hour, you have to be open to trying new things. Every baby is different, and a method you used to calm him down one day may not work the next. These are some of the things I've tried over the last two and a half months to soothe my baby boy and get us past the witching hour.
1. Give him a bath
Wheneve...