Please tell me this is a growth spurt and will stop soon!

[DribbleWiper]

My 3 mo DD has become really hard work over the last week. Wondering whether more experienced mums can diagnose and/or advise.

• She's eating quite a bit, but often fights the bottle for some time before accepting it (offering it can cause her to scream her little head off).
  
• She's fighting sleep every time she gets tired. This has been a problem every evening for the last six days between 7 and 9, when she's been clearly tired, but wails and gets really het up and hot and so then takes AGES to calm down and take the bottle or sleep. Our evenings have been completely destroyed. I'm trying to pick up on tired cues, but putting her down to sleep or rocking her doesn't make much difference and it can take an hour and a half for her to fall asleep. Today, she's gone nuclear four times before eventually falling asleep (3 x 30 mins, 1 x 90 mins). She clearly needs more sleep, but we're really having trouble getting her to have it. She's started to become quite a light sleeper, so I think she often wakes up before she should.
  

She's currently crying, having woken up from her 90 min sleep about 15 mins ago and been changed. Here we go again...

In good news, she sleeps fine after 9 and through to 6.30 with only one feed max.

Help! Growth spurt?

[DribbleWiper]

She's on 3s during the day and 2s at night. She screams at the bottle when it's put anywhere near her mouth, not when she's actually sucking on it. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

[mummy2benji]

Reflux? Both my dc's have had reflux and fought the bottle - ds was much more severe and was in and out of hospital as he refused to drink, whereas dd can sometimes fight a bit but then settle down and drink. Although fighting the bottle can just be normal baby behaviour in that they are hungry and a bit too agitated to start feeding, paradoxically. Are her bowels okay - she's going daily, not too hard or diarrhoea? Talk to your GP if you think she may have reflux or if she has diarrhoea and signs of possible cow's milk allergy. With regard settling down to sleep, if you don't use a dummy and aren't keen to (I've found them a godsend!), then you could try something like this Fisher Price soft toy seahorse that my dd has. It glows and plays soothing lullabies for 5 mins then fades out so as not to disturb baby. Dd wouldn't go down to sleep in her cot during the day but when I tried popping that in with her there wasn't a peep out of her! Hope she settles soon.

[DribbleWiper]

Coming to the conclusion that she's just fighting the bottle when she has a bit of wind or is mega tired.

We've worked really hard the last couple of days to get her sleeping before she hits nuclear explosion point and it has got better. She's starting to settle on her cot mattress on the floor in the living room during the day with a bit of singing when she's tired, which is a huge improvement. We've managed 4 hours of naps today, and, although she's been awake since 5.15pm, she hasn't screamed at us this evening. She's just nodding off again now (bath may have helped!).

She's just eating and sleeping (or looking like she wants to sleep) tonnes. In answer to the nappy question, mummy2benji, she's pooing once a day as normal. Doesn't seem to be anything odd happening down there. I've been playing music to her, which does help, you're right!

[mummy2benji]

Ah well done! Getting them down for proper naps does help a lot and saves you from unnecessary screaming. Hope it continues to improve for you.