The witching hour

Somewhere between late afternoon and bedtime, a newborn who has been reasonably content all day becomes inconsolable. Fed, changed, held, and still crying. It arrives at roughly the same time each evening, and it can run far longer than an hour.

Nearly every mother meets it. Almost nobody is warned about it.

Nobody can point to a single cause, which is its own kind of frustrating. What is generally understood is that several things stack up at the end of the day.

A newborn nervous system is very new. A whole day of light, sound, faces and handling accumulates, and by evening there is more input than a small brain can file away.

Babies this age also have not yet developed a settled day-and-night rhythm. The evening falls into a gap where tiredness has built up but proper sleep has not organised itself yet.

And the household is usually at its loudest and most tired exactly then, which nobody finds soothing.

This is the part worth holding onto.

• Starts around two to three weeks
• Peaks around six weeks
• Eases around three months, often noticeably

Three months can sound impossibly far away at seven in the evening on day nineteen. It does arrive, and it usually eases sooner than mothers expect once it turns.

Nothing switches it off. Several things take the edge off, and different babies answer to different ones, so expect to work through the list.

Get ahead of it. If it lands at six, start winding down at five. Lights lower, voices lower, fewer hands.

Go outside. A change of air and light resets more evenings than it has any right to.

Motion. Walking, rocking, a carrier, a stroller. Being close and moving is often the whole answer, and a carrier gives you your hands back.

Sound. White noise, a fan, running water, or your own voice. Steady and boring is what works.

A warm bath. Sometimes it lands beautifully. Sometimes it makes everything worse. Try it once and you will know which baby you have.

Feeding. Cluster feeding and the witching hour overlap heavily, and comfort feeding through it is fine.

Hand the baby over. A fresh, calm adult often settles a baby the exhausted one cannot. This is not a failure. Tag out.

Put the baby down safely and step away. If you feel your patience going, a baby crying briefly in a safe cot while you stand in another room and breathe is safer than a mother at the end of her rope. Every mother has needed this. It does not make you a bad one.

It is not colic, though the two get confused. Colic is usually described as crying for more than three hours a day, more than three days a week, for more than three weeks. The witching hour is shorter, predictable, and tied to the evening.

It is not a sign your baby is in pain, is not fed enough, or does not like you. It is not caused by holding your baby too much, by something you ate, or by having visitors.