Why does my baby scream nonstop every evening?
Babies often go through predictable periods of intense evening fussiness where nothing—feeding, diapering, or holding—seems to calm them down. This relentless crying triggers intense frustration and feelings of rejection in parents, quickly taking a heavy emotional toll on the entire household.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Skipping or shortening downtime to avoid leaving the partner alone with the baby
- 2Taking 10-15 minutes of decompression time in the car before entering the home
- 3Taking walks outside with the baby
- 4Wearing earplugs to muffle the crying
- 5Baby wearing and walking around the living room
- 6Using a baby swing
- 7Offering extra evening feedings or cluster feeding
- 8Adjusting bedtime earlier or waiting for the phase to pass
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“He's fed, diaper changed, wrapped in a warm blanket, and cradled by his mom. Yet cannot calm down in the slightest and sometimes feels like he falls asleep through sheer exhaustion. Right before going to bed every day. It's taking a toll. How can we stop this?”source ↗
“I had this with my second. Unfortunately he just wanted to cry for hours in the evening. It was awful.”source ↗
“My one month old has hers from 5-8 every night. She screams nonstop and practically lives on the boob, then just stops at 8 every time.”source ↗
“Dad finds it incredibly frustrating and tends to quickly lose his temper.”source ↗
“He has come to believe that baby doesn’t like him in particular and that he can’t do anything right.”source ↗
“He’s started calling baby names and has told me tonight that he hates baby right now.”source ↗