Surviving The Witching Hour With A Baby And Toddler

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I don’t know about you all but the witching hour with a baby and toddler can be a bit crazy in our house.

For those who don’t know, I have a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old at home with me and it is as if they become different people when the clock strikes 5 in the evenings.

During the day, they are mostly calm.

Well, as calm as a baby and toddler can be.

In the mornings, they are both at their calmest.

They are just waking up, eating breakfast, and getting ready for the day so nothing too crazy is happening yet.

And then we will run any errands that we need to get done that day or I will take them somewhere fun where they can run and play before grabbing lunch.

After lunch, we transition into quiet time and nap time for everyone.

So as you can see from our daily routine, everything is going smoothly.

It’s when they both wake up from their naps fully energized is when it becomes chaotic.

As opposed to the calm morning playing, my 3-year-old becomes extremely hyper wanting to climb and jump off everything.

While my 1 year old can be anywhere from hyper to fussy to clingy in the evenings.

And all of this is happening while I’m trying to cook dinner and my husband is walking in from work.

When we are trying to slow down in the evenings, the girls are just getting started.

And the crazy part is this energy lasts all the way up to bedtime which can be a good 2 to 2 and a half hours of the girls acting like energizer bunnies bouncing all over the house.

This is what the witching hour looks like in our house.

I have written several posts on how to “survive” certain phases in parenting that I will link below.

Read More: How To Survive Breastfeeding A Newborn Through The Night
Read More: Surviving The First Trimester With A Toddler
Read More: Surviving The 4-Month Sleep Regression

And this phase is no different.

I want to offer some tips on how to navigate the witching hour with a baby and toddler in case I have some mamas who are trying to figure out how to get through those rougher evenings.

Here I will discuss how to survive the witching hour with a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old.

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What Is The Witching Hour?

Before I get into how to survive the witching hour with a baby and toddler, let’s talk about what the heck the witching hour is.

So what is the witching hour?

Well, based on what I said above, it is a time period during the day when your kiddos are most likely to act the most out of character.

According to Little Big Dreamers, the signs of the witching hour include:

Irritability
Easily frustrated and upset
Clingy
Whiny
Fussy
Easily distracted
Less able to entertain themselves

You may have otherwise content children all day and then here comes the evening and they start showing the signs listed above.

And even though this time period is called the witching hour, it can definitely last more than an hour.

The Babywise Mom states that this witching hour can occur anywhere between the early evening hours (5 PM) and into the late night hours (12 AM).

For us, this time period falls between 5 PM and 8 PM.

During this time period, my 3-year-old becomes easily bored, more likely to throw a tantrum, and very whiney.

As for my 1-year-old, she becomes more clingy, and fussy, and wants to nurse constantly.

I’m typically making dinner around the time the chaos starts around 5 PM and this will continue until we start their bedtime routine around 7:30 PM.

It isn’t until we get the girls in the bathtub is when things finally simmer down around here.

No one knows the cause behind the witching hour.

It could be a number of factors from overstimulation, lower milk supply, or even colic.

So all we can do is our best to get through it and figure out how to navigate this rougher time period during the day.

With that being said, let’s get into how I survive the witching hour with a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old.

Surviving The Witching Hour With A Baby And Toddler

Expect It To Happen

The very first thing you can do when it comes to the witching hour with a baby and toddler is expecting that it is going to happen.

Especially if you have already picked up on this pattern with your little ones in the evening when they go from being content all day and then turn fussier or more hyper in the evenings.

This completely caught me off guard with my first daughter when she was younger.

I thought that something was wrong at first because she was so calm and happy during the day and then when evening hit, she didn’t want me to put her down at all.

I remember having to hold her and nurse her way more in the evenings in order for her to be calm.

With my now 1-year-old, I have picked up on this same pattern.

She wants to nurse more frequently and will follow me all around the kitchen while I’m trying to prepare dinner.

It’s as if I have to be within her sight at all times.

When she was smaller, I would wear her in my baby wrap in the evenings and nurse her more so that she was full and content.

But now that she is bigger, I don’t wear her anymore so I have to find different ways to keep them entertained during this time.

This leads me to my next tip.

Wear Younger Babies

While on the topic of babywearing, babywearing is something that I highly recommend when managing the witching hour with a baby.

If you have been keeping up with the blog since my youngest was a newborn, then you know that I’m all about baby-wearing.

In a previous post of mine from last year when I talked about our transition going from one child to two, I mentioned how babywearing was essential as a second-time mom.

It was literally the only way I was able to get anything done with 2 smaller children under the age of 3.

I found myself wearing my baby girl the most in the evenings because that was when she was the fussiest.

She would literally cry and want to nurse almost every hour.

The baby carrier that I used at the time was this one from Boba.

BUY HERE

But another carrier that I recommended is this one from Solly Baby.

This carrier worked great for my daughter as she got older.

BUY HERE

Cluster Feed If Needed

As I was saying above, my baby girl can get super clingy in the evenings, but that is not all.

She also wants to nurse constantly too.

Even at 14 months old, she still nurses more in the evening.

However, instead of every hour, she now nurses every hour and a half to two hours.

During the day, she nurses every 4 hours so this is much more frequent for her in the evenings.

This constant need to nurse is what has been called cluster feeding and it is very common with breastfeeding babies.

With cluster feeding, your baby is not only filling their bellies with breastmilk, but they are also reveling in the comfort that nursing provides.

My 1-year-old will start cluster feeding the moment she wakes up from her second nap between 4:30 and 5 PM.

She will nurse when she wakes up and then will start showing signs of wanting to nurse again after having dinner which is around 6:30 PM.

After her bath, she will want to nurse again which usually falls around 8 PM.

And then she wants to nurse for a final time between 9:30 to 10 PM before calling it a night.

In a span of about 5 hours, my daughter will have nursed 4 times.

This is what cluster feeding looks like, but it keeps my baby girl calm and content in the evenings.

Find Different Ways To Entertain/Distract Your Toddler

Babywearing and cluster feeding works great for younger babies, but for toddlers, not so much.

As I said above, I also have a 3-year-old so for her, it is less about being clingy and wanting to nurse all the time.

And more about being a little cranky if I had to wake her up from her nap, being hungry and ready for something to eat, and even being just flat-out bored.

I typically start by giving her a snack in hopes that it curves her hunger until dinner is ready so she isn’t complaining about being hungry.

After she has had a snack is when the boredom will set in.

And when my oldest daughter is bored, it either leads to someone getting hurt or something is possibly broken.

This is why I try to incorporate some activities into the evenings to keep her occupied.

Whether it is a play-based activity that she can do such as coloring, painting, or playing with blocks or legos.

Lately, my 3-year-old has been wanting to help me in the kitchen when I’m cooking so I try to let her help me sometimes so that keeps her busy and distracted.

Whatever I can do to distract her from destroying the house or possibly hurting her younger sister, I am all for it.

Take A Walk Outside

So everything I mentioned above works when my girls aren’t causing too much havoc or when they aren’t really restless.

But there are days when it gets really chaotic.

When I notice that they both are super hyper, restless, and in a bad mood, I know that it is time to head outside.

One of the things that we love to do as a family is take walks around our neighborhood.

My 3-year-old will ride her bike while we put our 1-year-old in the stroller and push her around.

Sometimes we will even let her walk with us for a little while so she can burn off some energy.

I have noticed on the days when they are rowdier, a walk around the block does the trick and calms them down.

And they also have a tendency to fall asleep much faster at bedtime too.

Start Bedtime Routine

And my last tip for surviving the witching hour with a baby and toddler is to initial the bedtime routine.

One of the things I always highly recommend having for your kids is a bedtime routine in place for them.

Having a bedtime routine for your child gives them the chance to start calming down and allows them to begin unwinding before settling in bed.

If you are aware of our daily routine, then you would know that we start the girls’ bedtime routine between 7 and 7:30 PM with a bath.

If they are just really restless, then we will start it sooner so that we put them to bed sooner.

I go through their bathtime routine and then follow up with pajamas, a bedtime snack, brushing their teeth, and reading books.

Both of our girls are aware that when it is bathtime, bedtime is near.

If you are interested in the toddler bedtime routine I used with my 3-year-old when she was younger, you can check out that post below.

Read More: My 2-Year-Old Daughter’s Toddler Bedtime Routine

Your Turn

Well, those are my tips for getting through the witching hour with a baby and toddler. I want to hear from you all now. Have you heard of the witching hour? If so, how do you get through it? Let me know in the comments and while you are still here, check out my previous post below. Until next time!