aha- will try mum's shhets for a couple more days as seems to be slightly better with them but if not then feel trip to mothercare coming on...
thanks all. will keep you posted.

Me either, until we got a commercial one and did it up REALLY tight he always wriggled free. Was very happy once wrapped up though.
Think ours were from mothercare
xx

That should be

'I could NEVER keep ds's arms in with just a blanket. '

The commercial swaddle blanket I linked to is more than just a sheet - it has special flaps that hold their arms down and stop them escaping. I could keep ds's arms in with just a blanket.

hello- we've been trying to swaddle her but she absolutely hates having her arms pinned and struggles against the swaddling- arms are out within a few minutes despite tight swaddling. are the commercial swaddling blankets just flat blankets as mum's made swaddling sheets out of soft cloth- in other words do i need to buy a swaddle sheet?
tiktok, yes, she grumbles and whinges in her sleep but only at night. when she is asleep in the daytime- no noise. in fact, often completely unrousable. the whinging then slowly escalates to crying and she will wake even if just fed- and this is different to her urgent 'give me food now' cry which is very normal during the night. also after feeds in the evening she will wriggle and cry as if in pain, sometimes eased when a burp comes up.

I second the swaddling, we swaddled our son from 2 weeks and he stopped waking himself up with flailing arms! He was like a little houdini so needed wrapping up tight but he loved it and did the cutest big long stretch when we unswaddled him in the morning.
It's so hard at this stage esp. when you're beside yourself with tiredness but I'msure your LO will settle down
xx

Have you tried swaddling her at night? My ds2 was similar to this, very unsettled at night. To begin with I was convinced it was wind as he thrashed about,knees up to tummy etc, nad I spent hours trying to burp him etc.

Then one day someone lent me one of these and he was transformed.

In hindsight, his twitching and thrashing around was overstimulation and overtiredness, not wind at all.

May be worth a try.

I can see this is puzzling, Gilby. Is she wriggling and grumbling in her sleep? She must be, surely, at least some of the time, because in your first post you say she wakes twice for feeds...so she must be asleep first The crying would be normal as babies may cry when they wake wanting a feed.

It's unusual for a baby of 3 weeks to go two days without a poo but not significant if she is healthy in all other respects...but she is only 3 weeks so that makes me think there is not a reliable pattern yet. The increase in wriggling could be illusory, really - you are keen to see a pattern, understandably.

Babies pull their legs up and bunch their hands as part of normal movement range - I know there is an idea that it is an inevitable accompaniment to wind, but I am sceptical that it is always so.

It is also normal to burp even after being burped. Babies normally don't need to be burped anyway, though we do it a lot - it's probably just cultural.

The short period of pain you have at the start of the feed is not normal, though it is very common. It should not be a problem at 3 weeks in, but if you can bear it, then trying to seek out someone who can fix it is probably a difficult task as you have been there, done that!

So I suppose I am saying that it's hard to tell whether your concerns are things that will ease off anyway as your baby gets a little older, or if they are to do with some underlying issue with the feeding. It seems too soon to start messing about with your diet, on the very, very small chance your baby is reacting to (for example) cows milk proteins in your milk - this is hard to do and to keep up.

It could well be that the wriggling and grumbling you see at night is just the way she is at the moment - some babies are like this and if she is sleeping at the same time, then she is not in discomfort at all.

What do you think?

Thanks tiktok. The wriggling and grumbling lasts literally all night- and eventually leads to crying. It's usually much worse if she hasn't opened her bowels that day- she sometimes goes for 2 days without having a poo but they are normal colour and consistency so not worried about that. She also pulls her legs up and makes fists of her hands. Also frequently brings up pockets of air despite having been thoroughly burped after feeds. But yes, odd that she doesn't scream.
Will get latch checked again- to be fair, I have told all the BF counsellors that it really hurts when she first latches on, then eases after a minute- they say this can be very normal. It feels like she's clamping her chops round a bruised area but really, I don't mind so much as long as she's healthy and well.

Gilby, all this sounds on the normal spectrum though would be useful to know even more.

Wriggling and grumbling and 'seeming' to be in discomfort does not sound like a baby who is in pain or distress. Babies who are suffering cry, scream or 'switch off' so they can' be roused. Wriggling and squirming sessions happen to most newborns on occasions

It is fine to let her sleep when she wants without the persuasion to wake and feed again - there's no concern about health, growth or intake so no need to persist with the ticking and so on. This is not nice for a small baby and the sound sleep she goes into may be her way of resisting this excess stimulation - would be different if she was not feeding well or often enough, of course.

You're right to drop any expction of long gaps between feeds. An hour or two is fine - sometimes she may 'cluster feed' with gaps of much less.

'Perfect' latch does not normally hurt - you might want to get that checked again.

Hope this helps.