is she teething or has she had a personality transplant???

[motherpeculiar]

DD2 (5 months) normally very placid, easy to put to bed, happy girl has over the last four days developed a severe resistance to being put down, wither during day or at night, even when she is obviously exhausted. Seems ok when she is up and distracted. Hasn't done a poo for about the same length of time. Is this

a) teething
b) severe constipation
c) combination of above
d) complete personality transformation

and how can we come out the other side in one piece?

at wits end

If she hasn't done a poo - she may be constipated - have you tried diluted fruit juice to get her moving or prunes? Is she being put down before she's overtired?
Describe her routine and what happens when she is being put down to sleep/nap?

well try giving her teething granules which wont do any harm even if she's not teething as they homeopathic, give her as much cooled boiled water as pos, obv she still needs to drink her milk too, hopefully it'l flush her system and if her teeth are hurting the granules will do the trick, all i can think of!

Am no expert Motherpec but I know if DS goes over a day without a poo he turns into the child from hell, he is 5 months too, I usually give him a bit of apple juice diluted well into water ad it gets the motion going. The HV told be boiling raisens and giving him the juice works well too. Am waiting for the teeth too!

have tried the teething granules - she is distracted while they are in her mouth but the same afterwards

have also tried sugary water for the constipation but to no avail

haven't given fruit juice or anything like that as she isn't on solids yet and I thought it might be too harsh. What do you think?

she doesn't have a strict routine. A typical day used to go like

7am ish wake up, bf
9.30ish rubbing eyes, off to bed, bf if cranky but not always
11.30ish wake up, bf
she would then typically stay awake for a long stretch and have a nap of between 30mins and an hour some time in the afternoon either whenever I noticed she was getting distracted/sleepy or in the car or buggy if we were out and about
she would start to get tired again about 5.30pm but between nappy off time, bf and bath we could stretch her out until 7pm at which time she would have bf and bed, happily

now she won't nap in the morning, only falls asleep in buggy or car during day and causes havoc in the evening, last night I managed to rock her to sleep on my shoulder and the two nights before that she stayed up with us until she fell asleep in her rocker chair

we had got her down to one feed in the night too (using some dr ferber techniques) but now she is up and feeding 2 and 3 times a night again

it feels like having DD1 (who NEVER slept easily and still doesn't) all over again.

please tell me it is just a phase and my beautiful easy sleeping happy girl will be back soon...

exhausted MP

thanks inkyminky - will try those suggestions

it could be a growth spurt which is why shes wanting bf during the night, how long has it gone on for? prob best to wait for a movement and then see if it still the same, coz i know dd wont go to bed if she needs a poo, she screams till i get her up, does her poo, lets me change her nappy and then its off to bed happily!

POLITICALLY INCORRECT SUGGESTION:

a five months, have you thought about a bit of food? i know they say wait until 6 months, but from what you say, it sounds like she's hungry to me - you could try some breast milk mixed with baby rice

oh, and about the poo - 1 part apple juice, 4 parts water works a treat (this is what i used on DS, even though he doesn't get fruit juice at all normally - he's 17 months now) and i don't think as a "one off" it does much harm

good luck

Is there a fail safe way to get her to have her nap? eg car. I used to take ds out in car on the 2 hour mark to guarantee he would nap. If you know the routine is right then you can rule out overtiredness iykwim.
It prob is a growth spurt and she is just needing more milk to see her through the night.
Maybe 7 pm is too late for her to go to bed - try 6.30?
It IS a phase and it will get better - and then sometimes it will get worse - you just need to go with the flow and not get too stressed - it will end!
Don't forget a little bit of calop will help if its sore teeth - the granules/gel didn't do anything for my ds.

food wouldnt be politically incorrect, my dd was weaned at 4 month, she could be hungry i suppose, try her, she'll prob really enjoy it (my dd thinks shes onlder than she is) she refused formula at 10 months and had to be put on cows milk! (the age guidelines are guidelines and all babies are different!)

I think my ds was 5.5 mo when I weaned him -5 mo is almost 6mo anyway - tho solids didn't help my ds and his sleeping. Just gave me something else to stress about!

did try some solids a couple of weeks ago and she loved them BUT they made her really unsettled in the evening and at night so we figured her system wasn't ready and gave it a rest for another while

definitely want her to have a poo before bringing solids into the equation again

Tracey - do you think they need to have a sleep every two hours or so? I know they are all different but as i never managed to get Dd1 into a sleeping routine during the day (she napped once in her cot for me, ONCE )I am really keen not to have the same happen this time around, and it was all going really well, until now.

m- have you tried "Babywhisper" E.A.S.Y routine ?I found this very useful at this age

(eat, activity, sleep, you)

It took me till ds was about 10 mo to work out his flipping nap needs. But once I knew what to look for it was almost to the minute - 2 hours after waking, nap, then awake for 2 hours and then another nap. So I'd drive to the shopping centre - 45 mins away and if he was still asleep, grab a coffee and mag from the petrol station and wait for him to wake. Then shop for 2 hrs and then pop him back in the car and drive home.
Around the 10 mo mark he started to nap in his cot, or snuggled on the couch regularly. BUT I did need to put my hand on his shoulder (to hold him down)and stroke his forehead for 5 mins or so as he did protest.

ps Koala - it was the babywhisperer book that taught me these signals at the 10mo mark!

have the baby whisperer somewhere - will dig it out and hope for the best

thanks

good website too - babywhisperer.co.uk

will check it out - ta again

MP, my DS (now just 6 months) had always been easy to settle for daytime naps and at night but also started 'playing up' around 5 months. He started really crying when I put him down and I had to pick him up and rock him off to sleep, something I haven't had to do since he was little.

He is now through this, it was 'just a phase' (isn't everything) and to this day, I don't know what caused it. It wasn't teeth as he still hasn't got any, it wasn't hunger as it stopped as suddenly as it started and I'd done nothing different and it wasn't over-tirdeness as we were following the same rough routine. Not much help I'm afraid but just wanted to say maybe it's an age thing and she will come through it (took DS about 2 weeks).

On the nap thing, DS sleeps about every 2-3 hours. It was 2 hours to the minute like TracyK said but now he's a bit bigger he can go longer and definately can in the late afternoon. Our days goes roughly - up at 6.30am, nap in car on school run at about 8.45am or cot during weekends usually for about 45 minutes), nap after lunch in his cot at about 12.30/1.00pm when he sleeps for upto 2 hours (I try as often as possible to be home at this time so he gets a really good sleep). Depending on what time he wakes up, he sometimes has a quick catnap late afternoon (20 minutes) then it's bed at 6.30pm.

HTH

thanks busywizzy - that sounds exactly like what we are going through. How odd that you had it too. Reassuring though I have a chart somewhere that shows their early development in terms of sunshine and clouds, must check whether about 5 months is generally a particularly cloudy time. I think like your DS she is now able to go a little longer without sleep, so maybe i should start nudging her more towards a lunchtime nap, rather than expecting teh two hours she used to do in the morning.

I am finding it paticularly hard as I am just back at work (although "lucky" enough to be working at home at the moment)and find it so difficult to just leave her to it (I have someone here looking after her for me) when she just seems to need lots of TLC (and masses of boob comfort which only I can provide!)

MP, I really sympathise as I had a near breakdown last week when DS was doing this, at the thought of going back to work and having to get up in the night .............. and I don't go back until after Xmas

Hope it gets better soon.

PS - Agree that you should be trying to encourage a longer lunchtime nap but see how your little one responds. Sometimes DS does his 'big sleep' (as I call it) in the morning and has a shorter one at lunchtime. No idea why

any of the evening crew have any experience of this?

Little bit of prune juice should sort out the bowels. Just not too much, or you'll have the opposite effect!! I don't have that problem with my 6 month old - she poos about 5 times a day. Drives me crazy!! Now that I think about it, my DD, who is normally all happiness and light, also went through a bit of a moany period about a month back. Didn't want to be left and generally just niggled, although I couldn't put my finger on what might be wrong. Just put it down to her teeth and gave her a powder twice a day. It only lasted a few days and she was fine again. I would just weather the storm a bit longer before starting to stress too much. Sometimes wish I'd kept a diary of DD's development since birth - would have helped so much when having no. 2. Oh and by the way, her first tooth is just starting to break through the gum, a month after her niggle period.

my dd is 23 weeks which is 5m.too we had this teething thingy for ages, sometimes cries, screams, must really hurt. she started having boiled water with apple juice so dont have constipating.
she is really content, but during last two weeks she wants up or hold most of the times.i had newsletter , which says its common at 5m baby, 1st cause they are teething 2nd they want ur attention, cause they know now who you are.
btw, i wonder how this first teeth take to come through???

Just wanted to add since no-one has realised here yet, that if your little one is breastfed its TOTALLY NORMAL to go up to 10 days without doing a poo and there is no reason to resort to fruit juices which are not recommended before six months anyway.
I think you were right to back off the solids, babies don't need it before six months but she may well be teething.

My little one got her first teeth around 5.5 months and was grumpy and grizzly for around three weeks before they popped through.
I found the teething granules helpful, or you can just buy Chamomilla homeopathic remedy from boots which is just a tiny pill which you pop in their mouth. I saved Calpol until nighttime so I didn't feel like I was giving it to her all the time but it definitely helped.