Nevermind a hole, I dug myself a crater!!

[BlankSpace1]

Where to even start!
Okay so my daughter is 3 months and 2 days, and she's my second baby, my eldest is two so I've done before everything I'm doing now.. sort of.
Turns out my eldest was an absolute angel compared to this little one!
My first battle with LO was colic, she used to scream and scream and scream and there was nothing I could do but watch on and rotate the endless cycle of ways to try to calm her down! That and slight reflux made our first few weeks hell, I tried medicine, burping positions, even a cranial osteopath.. but eventually it settled down by itself. HOWEVER, this has led to awful habits that are completely my fault I know, I was bf for the first 5 weeks, I couldn't bf my last one longer than 2 weeks because she had an undiscovered tongue tie, so I was determined to succeed this time. I did as a last resort offer her a bottle one time and she fed right away and calmed down, so from then on we've switched to formula and bottles which has been going rather well. The trouble is, that with this initial struggle I went from cosleeping, to swaddling and bouncing her off in a bouncy chair (it was genuinely the only way she would settle for the first couple of months) and now that is a routine she currently uses to sleep though the night. She usually wakes up for 2 feeds if I get her off around 9, and then wakes up around 7. But there's more.. the past few days she has woken up anywhere from half 3 to half 5 and just cries and cries!
She has become a nightmare to feed, 80% of the time she just screams so hard you'd think she's in pain! This is day or night, and we try everything to make her feed (this is when she's hungry she does this) we've tried rocking, singing, bouncing, winding, cuddling, even white noise. Nothing works, we just have to battle for 10 minutes before she decides to suddenly start gulping down her milk.
Her teeth look like they're ready any minute, she was born like it, so I did treat that with a very good numbing liquid and calpol, but that seems to of settled down now.
My questions here are how do I fix this!? She does self settle in the day sometimes so I know she's learning to do it which is good, but what does she scream!? How can I transfer her into her crib or even get her to sleep without half an hour or more of bouncing after every feed! I know this is my fault, I fell in to bad habits while trying to grasp the couple of hours sleep I god for those first few weeks, but how on earth do I now deal with the early morning crying fits!? She's in good health, not hungry, not allergic, comfortable temperature and very loved! My last one was nothing like this and I really need to try to find some sort of solution as I work 12 hour shifts 3 days in a row and when I'm not I'm chasing a toddler!! (My partner has the children when I'm working) sorry for the essay, all advice very gratefully received as right now I can't even get her to settle at all

[FATEdestiny]

Your DD is 3 months old, you don't need to be fretting about long term habits. Just get her sleeping however that happens.

Your post sounds a bit frantic and anxious to read. Are you ok?

Have you tried a dummy?

[luckiestgirl]

At 3 months old you haven't dug anything yet. Give it a few more months before you worry yourself about forming bad habits.

[luckiestgirl]

Posted too soon.
The last few days is probably because of the 4 month sleep regression. Just do whatever you can to get through it. It's fucking horrible. But it passes. Be kind to yourself.

[BlankSpace1]

That's reassuring to hear that I haven't quite ruined everything!
My first one was sort of hard to settle into a routine, until at 11 months she was waking around 4/5 times a night and I just though enough! Was tough for a couple of days and now she sleeps 11/12 hours a night completely self settled and in her big girl bed, but she didn't start off with these habits so I was starting to wonder if I could ever achieve similar with this one!

Sleep regression, that's something I've heard before but never actually read about, might give that a google I think!

I'm okay, just have work for the next 3 days so I'd really like to get a bit of sleep as I started last weekend on 2 hours i can cope with being sleep deprived, but I don't want to get too stressed out as I suffer from depression but have been quite well for the past month and I don't want to get all worked up and start getting down again!

She's settling a bit now (I think) I hope this is just another phase that we can get through then, would be so much easier if she could tell me how to help! X

[BlankSpace1]

Also I did actually try a dummy, I don't like them personally and I haven't used one before, but teething early meant she was too small to hold things up to her mouth so I offered a dummy to chew on, trouble is she didn't have it from birth so kept on spitting it out!
So I kept them as a back up, but we don't currently use one as she doesn't seem interested x

[FATEdestiny]

Feed as much as possible, as often as possible.

Make sleep as easy as possible - do all the tricks in the book.

Trying to avoid the rod for your own back is likely to be the very thing that creates any lobg term bad habits. For now, make sleep easy.

I don't like them - good job you are not the one sucking for comfort. Babies don't often read the rule books of stuff you like or don't like.

Dummies are ace.

[BlankSpace1]

Okay, I won't worry too much for now then!

I wasn't being rude when I said I don't like dummies, I have my own reasons for not liking them, but I still used one as a last resort in order to try and help my baby because she is all that's important. She didn't like it anyway, yes I'm well aware they don't read up on my likes and dislikes.

[seven201]

Are you sure the silent reflux hasn't come back just in the night? It's often worst at night.

Also agree it could just be early 4 month regression or just a phase. She's still really young so don't worry too much about bad habits.

[Scrumptiouscrumpets]

She has become a nightmare to feed, 80% of the time she just screams so hard you'd think she's in pain!

Perhaps she really is in pain? I'd get her back on reflux medication if I were you.

[BlankSpace1]

She's not screaming anymore, she just cries endlessly. She doesn't have any signs that come with reflux though. She lays on her back quite happily, doesn't cough or spit up often, doesn't projectile vomit anymore, she's not really sick tbh.
Poo's are fine and normal, and she's content when she's been fed.

When she cries like she does and won't feed, we end up having to bounce her u til she's falling asleep to feed her, she also just pushes out the bottle with her tongue, like doesn't always open her mouth properly to suck the whole teat.

I really don't know, just seems like a phase I'll have to try and get through.

[FATEdestiny]

It sounds like an over tiredness spiral. Poor sleep leads to worse sleep, unfortunately and it starts to spiral.

I would clear the diary for a few weeks and have a massive focus on frequent feeding and napping. I'd say a short nap and sleep cycles to get you past the major over tiredness, then follow baby's lead for timings.

The idea is that you follow a repeated pattern of feeding and sleeping really frequently throughout the daytime. An example would be:

• Wake - note time
  
• Feed
  
• Awake time - about 20-40 minutes from waking, raising to 40-60m once out of the overtired cycle.
  
• Sleep. Bounce bounce bounce into submission. Keep gentle bouncing going through the sleep to encourage longer naps through this overtired cycle. Naps of 30-45m are usual.
  
• Wake - note time and start the cycle again.
  

You'll notice this gives only about half an hour between naps (give or take), hence why I said about clearing the diary and not planning on going out much during the day. Think of it as hibernating with baby, it'll just be a few weeks.

One final thing, it sounds very much like a dummy will help her a lot given how unhappy and unsettled she is. Dummy does sometimes take perserverence but it's worth it for a content, calm baby.

[BlankSpace1]

Honestly this isn't that far off what we do, she may be awake contently and when she does that then she will play for a while, but sometimes it doesn't last long and we do end up just trying to settle her and get her to nap quite often!
I've literally just for the dummy back out and tried to give her it but she wouldn't take it, most of the time she does but she doesn't know to keep it in her mouth and spits it out all of the time.
I will try with the napping more frequently, but she doesn't already nap more than what is expected of her age, other than that I'll just have to keep trying and hope that it passes

[FATEdestiny]

What's her daytime like at the minute in terms of sleep and feeds?

[BlankSpace1]

Any advice on how I could get her to take the dummy then? It was a last resort but she's just so difficult I'm going to do it.
Once she gets used to it, it may help to soothe her when she's distressed, which is half the time!

[BlankSpace1]

Up around 6-7, change, sometimes feed.
She wakes up happy, so plays for a while, change, feed and nap after about an hour and a half.

Doesn't sleep more than an hour, up, play, feed when she's ready, this pattern continues but she does have a longer sleep during the afternoon.

She's fed on demand, but is less little and often and more spaced out but larger amounts.

She will drink a whole 6oz bottle when she has a proper feed and will be moving up to 7 soon, healthy weight so no worries there

[FATEdestiny]

Draining 6oz bottles at 3 months old are very large volumes. Rather than increasing the amount per bottle, I would make them more frequent so you add extra feeds in.

For example 6 6oz bottles every 3h (7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, 10pm) could change to 7 or 8 6oz bottles every 2h (7am 9am 11am 1pm 3pm 5pm 7pm 9pm).

An hour an a half awake time (between waking from one nap and going to sleep the next nap) is a massive awake time at this age. I wouldnt suggest longer than an hour, closer to 30 minutes while unhappy.

[BlankSpace1]

Her feeding isn't too much, when she has a proper feed, she will almost finish a 6oz bottle but this is maybe 3 times a day. The rest is just as much as she wants and there's usually 3 hours or so between a feed.
Since she's fed on demand it's her call,
And in the evening she has a bed time feed and then one in the night.

Also her sleep is normal. At 3 months she is expected to nap around 3 times a day, being awake for an hour and a half is pretty much on point for her development.

[FATEdestiny]

Your baby isn't happy during the day, as you've said.

I would suggest that the most likely cause of her distress is that she needs to feed and sleep more. Only 3 full feeds per day and only 3 naps per day is not the normal behaviour of a 3 month old, its quite exceptional. Often the simplest answer is the right one.

"Feeding on demand" means never leaving a hungry baby to wait for a feed. Sometimes babies don't show signs of being hungry (or tired) until they are very, very hungry/exhausted. In such cases baby was actually hungry/tired much sooner, but it might not have been obvious.

"Feeding on demand" encompasses anticipating feeds being needed and giving them in plenty of time before baby gets distressed. You can feed earlier, before a feed is "demanded". Same with sleep.

Also her sleep is normal.

16-20h in 24h at 3 months old is normal. A grumpy/distressed child would be on the higher 20h end of that.

From where are you deriving your expectations? They sound a bit Gina Ford ish to me.

3-nap days would be a reasonable expectation of you had a baby sleeping solidly without waking for about 10-11h a night. That isn't all that unusual for a formula fed from birth 3 month old, maybe that's where your expectations come from?

Is your baby sleeping without waking for around 11h at night? You will need to adjust your expectations accordingly.

What do you think the cause of her distress is?

[BlankSpace1]

I didn't say she only fed 3 times a day, I said she drains a bottle of 6oz around 3 times a day, of course she feeds more then 3 times! Yes I know what feeding on demand is, I've done it twice. And I do not wait until she is crying and screaming before I feed her, because I know how parent.

At 3 months, she is supposed to sleep 14-16 hours a day, not 20. I know because I get weekly updates from BabyCentre and NHS, she sleeps for a good amount of time at night, so her routine during the day in regards to naps is fine! It's actually more than what is in guidelines for her age anyway.

This whole thread was started to gain advice on if I should move off bouncing her to sleep at night, and we're totally off topic. Yes I did mention her crying and fighting, but since everything else is fine, id say she's teething. Since her teeth were basically coming through when she was born, and she spends all day dribbling like crazy and chomping her fingers, since I've been trough every other issue with her, and since she's not my first, I'd say that's a pretty educated guess.

I'm happy to accept advice from others and take on board what people have to offer, but frankly you're just trying to undermine everything I say. So thread over.

[FATEdestiny]

Ok. I was just trying to help you.

I am one of life's "fixers". I see a problem and I try to solve it. I am sorry if none of my suggestions were helpful, that was the opposite of my intention