The Big, Bad Witching Hour, Explained!

If your baby turns into an entirely different creature every evening between 5 and 10pm, you've met the witching hour. It's a predictable stretch of evening fussiness, and I want to say clearly: this is common, it's normal, and it is not a reflection of anything you're doing wrong.

What causes it:

An immature nervous system.

Newborns get overstimulated easily, and by evening, all that input from the day has caught up with them.

Overtiredness.

Daytime naps are often short and inconsistent in the early weeks, so by evening, sleep debt has built up.

An undeveloped circadian rhythm.

Melatonin production is still immature in these early weeks, which makes settling into evening sleep harder.

Cluster feeding.

Especially in breastfed babies, evening feeding often ramps up, which can add to the fussiness.

The witching hour tends to peak around 2 to 6 weeks and usually improves by 8 to 12 weeks. It doesn't mean your milk supply is low, it doesn't mean your baby has colic, and it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.

What actually helps

• Lowering stimulation, with dim lights and reduced noise.

• Babywearing.

• Getting outside for fresh air, even for a few minutes.

• A warm bath.

• Skin to skin contact.

• Tag teaming with a partner or support person when you have one.

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Sometimes the goal isn't to fix the witching hour at all. It's to get through it with support in the room. This is often the exact window where an extra set of hands, even just for an hour, changes how the whole evening feels. If you're local to Portland, York County, or the NH Seacoast, this is also one of the most common reasons families reach out for daytime postpartum support in the first place.

Last post in this series: wake windows and sleepy cues, the practical piece that ties everything together.

Talk soon,

Jillian