to want to return by 6wo baby to the stork for a full refund?

[derah]

Disclaimer: Can I just start by saying that I'd really appreciate not getting any "be happy you have a healthy baby and stop being so ungrateful" posts in response to this, cos I don't think it would be very helpful and I already know I'm being ungrateful and selfish?

I'm at the end of my tether, really. My 6wo baby just won't stop crying unless she's in a sling or being held and jiggled. She won't even go down in her moses basket during the day (though thankfully does at night), so she's in my arms or strapped to my front all day, which is killing my back. It's also very unfair on my 2.6yo DD1, who gets very little time with me since I'm jiggling the darned baby all day.

I've tried putting her in a swing chair, a vibrating chair, under a baby gym, in her moses basket with b/w pictures to look at etc etc. But she just starts howing within 5 minutes max. If she's awake, she's crying. I'm bf-ing her but she comes off the breast crying. I thought she might be hungry so I've tried topping her up with a bottle, but she's not really interested. Some of the time it's colic, but most of the time she's just crying for no obvious reason.

On Friday we've got an appointment with a cranial osteopath, which I'm praying will help. But in the mean time, I thought I'd a) have a rant and b) see if you wise MNers had any advice. Because instead of bonding with my new baby and thinking she's lovely, she's driving me nuts and driving a huge wedge between me and DD1, so no-one is happy.

More than once I've found myself wishing I'd never had her.

Why doesn't MN have a New Baby Advice section, btw? I couldn't really find an appropriate place to post this except within my post-natal group and they all have enough worries of their own!

I hold so much sympathy for you here..my Dd was like that for around 28 weeks - I seriously wanted to kill her and I'm not proud of that, but she was awful all day every day and had me up every hour throughout the night EVERY night. I almost got to the shaking her stage one day, but thank God, sense took over...I shouted at her and felt like I would explode. I wanted to hit her. I even got to the point of planning my 2 Dc's and my deaths it got so bad. I'm not telling you this to make you(or anyone else) feel bad or tell me what a dreadful person and mother I am(or was), but to say that you have to harvest some help from people around you. Give yourself a break from your baby so that you don't get to the stage that I did. It's easy to take the road of no return.
I hope you get this sorted soon and that baby settles...wish I'd have looked at cranial osteopathy as I've heard good things about it since. Incidentally, my Dd no longer screams all the time and although I still have night time problems with her, it is so much better now.

Oh you poor thing. My dd (my 2nd child) was like that. She's now 5 and still never shuts up, but at least she's talking instead of screaming. Dh reminds me how at some point when she was a few months old I practically threw her at him and just said "take her, I don't want her anymore" and stormed out of the house. Luckily dh can make any crying baby (not just his) into a cooing baby. (If you are in London, I recommend paying him a visit...cheaper than a craneo..).
With my dd, we eventually found out that she had silent reflux. When dd was 5 months we went to the us and my paediatrician there prescribed a special staydown formula (Enfamil AR) that is available but hard to find in the uk. Dd had been exclusively bf up until then, but we added a bottle a day of the formula in addition to the bfing. It really helped a lot. The other thing I did fairly early on was put dd to sleep on her belly. We didn't have any of the other risk factors for cot death in our family, so I felt it was a safe risk to take. She really didn't get a good night's sleep until we started putting her on her belly. Also, dh would carry her in what I think is called tiger pose: belly facing the ground and resting on dh's open palm (my hand wasn't big enough or strong enough to do this hold easily).
I still occasionally tell dd that I'm trading her in for a quieter model. And ds (7) keeps begging me to hurry up with the extension plans so he can have his own bedroom and stop being kept up at night by dd talking her ear off.
Good luck and hang in there.

interesting on the warm/cold theory... you could also try a baby sleeping bag - they're excellent for settling down and then putting in cot with minimum disturbance and they stay nice and toasty too...

Hi, going through the same situation and feelings here. I'm in Germany and they swear by giving baby fennel tea to sooth wind. My DS2 is suffering a lot and no amount of massage or pats/rubs shifts it. After a few sips of the tea he lies back, lets rip with an ENORMOUS fart and promptly falls asleep.
Fennel tea is my new best friend!!
Chin up, and keep posting. MN is the only way I'm getting through these early weeks. It was so much easier the first time round...

oh yes, the first few weeks can be horrid horrid. is it your first? with my first i just bunged in the pram and went for walk, walk walk, rain or shine. it helped him stop screaming, made me feel better and helped me lose weight. what a winner! it will get better i promise

oh just noticed you have an older. then it's not so easy to walk walk walk. in which case, get all the help you can - beg if necessary. i was lucky and roped in my brilliant parents to help with one or the other all the time. don't be afraid to ask for help!

It's reflux - my elder two had it and I'm pretty sure my 2 wk old is developing it. It's miserable and I completely sympathise - save the cranial osteopathy money. I took dd1 to one and was told I had a "very angry baby" - not a very uncomfortable one who got heartburn every time she was laid down.

derah - huge buckets of sympathy for you on this. If it is any comfort I have read in several books that 6 weeks is the age when babies' crying peaks and it was certainly the case with mine.

Good luck with the cranial osteopath - it can't hurt and could certainly help.

the other lovely mums on here have given loads of useful advice and frankly I can't think of any more.........

derah - i've just posted about this on our postnatal board, but my BIL gave us a white noise/womb music CD that he said really worked on his two and it seems to have a great calming effect on our DS. He doesn't really like being put into his basket (we tried the warming thing and now have him sleep on a wool blanket rather than the cold sheet which I think helps make it cosier) and hates my lullaby singing But this CD really works - it's just a fuzzy noise like an out of tune radio. He calms pretty much immediately and then is asleep within a few minutes. He also was quite happy in there the other morning listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 (!), so I think he just hates silence. It might be worth seeing if some background noise helps your DD - she may not feel like she is on her own.

Derah - my dd was exactly like this. My mum used to come round every night and we'd take turned prancing around the living room trying to stop her crying. Arched back, red face, living hell. She'd scream in the pram (still does ) and strangers were constantly asking me what was wrong with her.

I think it was a mixture of wind and frustration. She was much better once she could sit up and even better again once she could crawl. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I really think its a question of time. Having said that, its also a question of personality. She is definitely not a quiet, chilled eleven month old now. She's a spirited, gorgeous, impatient, dramatic, beautiful little madam most of the time.

I had to accept somewhere along the line that she wasn't the placid baby I was imagining I'd have, and embrace her personality. Now I love her fiery little temperament, most of the time and wouldn't want a quiet, boring little bundle for all the proverbial tea in China.

HTH

More words of comfort: my two older children turned from wretched infants whom I was embarrassed to take anywhere because they just whinged and screamed, into delightful crawlers/toddlers. Meanwhile, my friend who had planet's most placid baby now has nightmare 3yo who has a face like thunder and temper to match.

I know people say that their personalities are there from birth but I think that is rubbish. They do improve out of all recognition.

Are you suggesting that I am talking rubbish?

Derah my DS was a velcro baby (fab description whoever thought of this) so you have all of my sympathy. Like you, I also found out that the warranty period expired early on

Things that worked for us - Hairdryer (white noise thing I guess), Infacol seemed to help a bit or at least bring up some stonking burps. But until he was about 8 weeks old he only had 3 states - asleep, feeding or crying. I carried him everywhere in a sling and just stopped fighting the "sleeping on Mummy or Daddy only" rule.

I know you know it will get better but I just wanted to add my support to the nice messages so far hugs

If it helps, I felt exactly the same when DS was 6-8 weeks old. My partner kept threatening to put him on ebay , I just had constant thought of 'what the hell have we done?!'

It gets better.. hang in there. DS is 20 weeks old now and like a different child

x x x

hey derah my dd was the same at this age...being awake seemed to involved alot of shouting (mostly her, sometimes me )! I was always envious of other people's babies who would just lie on the floor gurgling happily for a bit (well in public anyway). She hated the pushchair and I found it quite stressful being out with her and having her screaming at the top of her lungs. She didn't like being put down either, would only sleep in my arms and seemed to get overtired very very quickly. Getting her off to sleep was never easy and involved tight swaddling and lots of jiggling while she howled and eventually wore herself out...

We took her to a cranial osteopath which seemed to help, though I could never be sure that it wasn't just her getting a little bit older and calmer anyway.

Things WILL get better.

by around 9 weeks I'd had enough of carrying her around ALL the time so I started to put her down to sleep at night and for daytime naps too. I'd noticed that she was getting more and more squirmy in my arms and would wake up very easily if I moved around so it was becoming unfeasible anyway. Tbh I think she was ready for it-there was some crying at first but no worse than before and it was amazing to get my arms back!

And when she started to enjoy the baby-gym etc things got better during the day too. Still had to be careful not to over-tire her and she never was what I'd call an easy baby. Reaching developmental milestones generally involved alot of frustration and grumpiness! But life improved out of all recognition from those first few hellish weeks.

She's still pretty feisty actually-but at nearly 2 very funny and generally fairly happy.

The first few weeks can be hideous-lots of sympathy for you! get as much help as you can is my advice.

sorry that was soooo long

Derah

I know how you feel, i could have written this post when dd2 was this age.

I do feel that dd2 birth was a lot to do with it, I had a difficult pregnancy and a induced birth at 41 wks because i was in so much pain and unable to move.

She would cry for hours and nothing would/could passify her.

On one hand i feel she was forced into the world when she wasn't ready but also i don't think she like being a baby. Now she is 7mths and been crawling now for a about a month she is so much happier.

If she had been born first we would never have had another baby. As she is so different,dd1 would eat sleep and hardly ever cry but she didn't sleep through the night until she was 2yrs, but dd2 goes down between 6 - 6.30pm has her last feed at 11pm and sleeps through to 6 - 6.30am.

Derah,

does she sleep during the day in the sling? If she is awake much of the day it sounds like she may be very very over tired.

I know I usually proclaim this the answer to all woes. We had a DD who screamed much of the day at about the same age. Once I got her sleeping in the day better, she settled much more. I carried her round in a sling fro quite a few days, so she'd sleep when I wanted her to, then put her down when I wanted to wake her for a feed.

How long has she been doing this for? Weeks? Days?

This is a bit of a long shot, but DD used to cry non-stop at weekends. I thought it was because she didn't think much of DH but it turned out she had an egg allergy - and I only ate them at weekends. Time for a diet change?

Good luck, I really sympathise.

Another sympathetic mum here. My DS was exactly the same. Things that worked for us were:
*Swaddling. We used a "miracle blanket" which is very difficult for babies to get out of.
*A dummy (although I'd previously thought they were the devil's work - what an fool I was!
*Large doses of infacol at every feed.
*A big glass of wine at the end of the day for me, because I bliming well needed it.

At around 12 weeks my DS gradually began to scream less and less. But he arrived early so your DS may start to change earlier.

Ooh, it's tough. It will get better.

PinkJenny I do not think you are talking rubbish at all! My dd was like that for about 6 months and then turned into a gorgeous little girl. Obviously I loved her to bits all along but my ds was the easist baby in the world and she was a shock. he still a very laid-back 3 year old but my dd who is now 11 months is a fiery, determined, stubborn bright baby. Some babies are just like that!
For Derah, just stick with it and things will improve. Sometimes I think you just have to ride it out and know that it will improve. For my dd as soon as she could sit up she was much happier. The she got bored of that and was a bit grumpy until she could crawl! She's happy again now but is definitely ready to start walking!

ds1 was a high maintenance fellow as well derah. i love the replies here, i hope htye help, and ditto the osteo.

if i had my time again i would use these 3 things to help (didn't at the time, just took the hit and felt punch drunk and viciously angry at the world in my worst dips down, and that's without guilt of 'letting down' old kid at the time):

1, remember and tell yourself you are half way through the worst of it, it will get better soon.

2, imagine how you will look back and go 'that was hell' but not somehow remember the actual aches and torment as such. I think what i mean is look forward to looking back, helps you remember it is, as they endlessly say to us, just a bloody phase

3, break out the cash from wherever you can to give to local teen you like and trust to take baby out for 1 or 2 hours after they've done at school, to walk baby in pram while you focus on older child. even here in london i can tap into a couple of sweethearts who can do this 5 times a week for an hour on their way home for just 20 quid a week. in fact iu'm fighting one of with a pointy stick at the minute as the time she is free is a good time for us, i need someone during school hours really!

Sorry I've been MIA, I've had no MN time the last couple of days

I will get to reading the rest of your lovely and helpful posts as soon as DH gets home and I get a break.....

My dd was like that for at least 6 months, unless she was asleep or with my breast in her mouth, screaming. In retrospect I think I fed her too often and should have given her a bottle more.
She did not have the mythical collick she was just fucking miserable!!