Clingy/windy baby = No rest/time for anything - Advice please?

[theillustratedmum]

Ok so i'm at the end of my tether.
I have a one month old daughter, first born, so I really need some help. Please.
Ever since she came home she's always loved being held, but it seems she loves it a bit too much as she just won't sleep anywhere other than some nice warm arms. Here's how it goes, just so you get the picture.

Change, feed, wind, rock, bounce, wind, feed, change, sleep, put in cot for ten minutes, cry (the baby that is, although sometimes I feel like it!) try to settle, pick up, feed, wind, change, feed, wind, bounce, rock, cry, wind, sleep, put in cot for ten minutes.... It just goes on and i've tried so many things:

She has a moses basket and I thought she hated being flat so I padded it out and made a half bed half car seat shape for her, she sleeps slightly better but still doesn't work.
I have tried putting her in her car seat, bigger cot and pushchair and still she doesn't stay down. (I have a sling but obviously you can't go to bed with them in a sling!)
I've tried holding her until she's really asleep (a good hour or so) and then putting her down.
I've tried using a dummy when she stirs (works for 2 mins)
Warming up a blanket for her to sleep on
Feeding her in her cot
Warming the room up
Cooling the room down
Making it darker
Making it lighter
Rocking the moses basket
The list goes on and I really am at a loss as to what to do. Even my mum can't make any sense of it and she's had four children!

I'm combined feeding her currently, expressing my milk and feeding her aptamil formula. (She has never been able to get the hang of latching on) She seems to get awful wind which tends to really upset her, do you think it could be the formula? I'm wondering if she won't settle because of the wind. The longest she's slept before is 3 hours which is great and from my knowledge normal but that only happened twice. She rarely stays down for longer than ten - fifteen minutes. (Unless being held,she is currently fast asleep on my lap)

Please, I need some advice, and I hope some of you out there have had babies like this. I know she's still tiny and needs to be close to people, but surely she's able to sleep for good stretches at a time? I know she's healthy, calm (when not windy) and happy so I really have no clue!
Me and my mum are currently doing shifts in order to get some sleep and as much as I love my daughter, i'd love to be able to go cook some breakfast lol. Help!

My dc3, now 26 weeks was like this. It came as a real shock as although my older two weren't great sleepers and took a while to settle they would eventually settle in the moses basket. Dc3 just wouldn't, she'd be fast asleep in my arms, I'd carefully try to put her down and she'd immediately wake and scream until I picked her up again. I spent the first 8 weeks of her life sleeping sat up in bed holding her, something I always said I would never do as I didn't feel it was safe.

It was only when the health visitor came and asked how sleeping was going that things changed. She pointed out the dangers of me being so exhausted sat holding the baby, she could overheat, I could drop her etc. I knew all this already of course but just wanted to get some sleep, did't really care how by this point!

So, we got a little bit tough. We started a bedtime routine which I think really helped. Every night we'd bath her at 6.30, put her in a grobag, feed her then put her down to sleep at 7pm. The first night it took about 2 hours for her to settle. We kept going in picking her up but only until she stopped screaming, then immediately putting her back down again. We were going in every few minutes to begin with so weren't leaving her to cry at all, but weren't interacting or letting her get too settled in our arms. It was hard but after that first night it did get easier and after a week of the routine she started sleeping much better.

She still wakes more than a lot of babies at 26 wks, still every 3 hours, but at least she resettles in between now!

Like you I think wind was a bit of a problem too and things seemed to improve even more at 12 weeks when her digestive system had matured a bit.

Really hope you manage to sort it soon, I know how stressful things can feel when everyone is getting so little sleep!

DS (9 weeks) used to be exactly the same.

He was so used to being held all the time (as new babies are, of course) that he seemed to find it quite distressing to be left alone.

Taking him out helped. He falls asleep in the car/on the bus, and since experiencing that, seems to be ok with settling in on his own more. Could you try that? And if she falls asleep in her buggy/carseat, leave her there for a bit once you get home (having taken hat etc off of course).

Also, when transferring from arms to moses basket/cot, the transfer has to be as slow and smooth as possible, so he notices it as little as possible. If we're in bed when DP has gone to work, I kind of just 'slide' him off, which is the most effective thing.

My 8 week dd is similar. I usually let her fall asleep on me during the day, then leave it 20 mins until she is deeply asleep before moving her to the cot (gives me time for mn!). At night I try and reduce this to 5mins.
Have also started bedtime routine - it's v loose but she goes to bed at 8. Me or dh hold her and then put in cot, often repeatedly, and have baby monitor on. Takes between 20mins and an hour to settle her, but gives us some evening/free time.
Good luck!

Just wondering whether you swaddle? My DS needed to be swaddled to sleep for the first couple of months. He couldn't settle unless he was tightly wrapped (like he'd been in the womb), but gradually, as he got used to have more freedom of movement, I was able to switch him to a grobag. It might be worth a try.

I would give swaddling and co-sleeping a go. I know that official guidelines are that co-sleeping should not be done before 6 months, but I could never get this as you most need it in the first few weeks! It certainly saved me. Also chamomile tea or gripe water for the wind.

Similar situation to you. Bought a moby wrap and it has done wonders. DS (5 wks) goes to sleep almost straight away for a good 2-3 hours. Took him out in it yesterday and he slept for 4 hours. After a feed, I hold him upright in fetal position on my chest and this seems to settle him.

my baby is also quite windy. whenever i change his nappy, i lift his legs so that his knees press his tummy and he lets out lots of wind.

If theillustratedmum's baby is anything like mine though even co-sleeping doesn't work, my dd was only happy if I was actually holding her, day or night. I spent £200 on a co-sleeping bednest, which although great now she's almost grown out of it was a complete waste of time as she simply screamed as soon as she left my arms, even if I was sleeping right up next to her with my arm over her, she was a little monkey! During the day it's exhausting too, I ended up with a bad back and aching arms from constantly carrying her around or with her in a sling trying to sort my older dcs, a nightmare. It really did take teaching her to settle herself, which did involve letting her cry for short periods, but I was at the end of my tether and had tried everything else (apart from chamomile tea) suggested here.

just stick her in the sling and get on with the rest of your day - she can wake up, look round, feed, go to sleep, wake up etc
you can then cook (careful near hot things though), clean, wash up, chat on phone, watch telly etc while 'wearing' her

i wanted to add my support to both approaches recommended.
dd2 is one of those babies.
initially co-sleeping plus sling worked. however, at 3mo, when she became more aware of her surroundings, she would only sleep when actually held by me and on me, rather than co-sleeping in very close proximity. this meant i could no longer sleep, and a week of this left me hallucinating with tiredness. so we did the pick-up put-down approach that hmmsleep has described. only took a couple of days and really not much crying to get her used to the cot.

at 24 weeks she is still rather insistent on being held for every waking minute, but at least we are all getting some sleep.

Your daughter sounds just like my son was in his first few months. I found switching to Aptimil Easy Digest and using Colief drops really helped with the wind. What really saved my sanity was getting a swinging chair with lights/sounds. Apart from being constantly held it was the only other place my baby was contented. He would sleep in there happily and all the swinging seemed to ease the colic too.

DD had colic until she was 3.5 months old. The HV got someone to come round & show me how to do a colic massage which helped. I also think changing my diet helped (no onions or garlic). Not latching on might not help either, the colic massage lady was also a bf councillor & helped us improve our feeding.

Do you get our of the house much? Will she sleep in the pram? I used to go for long walks with DD to stop me going insane & let her get some sleep without me having to hold her!

Other than that all I can remember doing was swaddling, playing lots of white noise & eating lots and lots of chocolate.

Hang in there, it will get better. DD went from screaming every night to sleeping through within 2 weeks!

two words "gripe water"!. I was at my wits end with my dd till she was 1 month old, it was a nightmare day and night it didnt stop then I started to put gripe water in her bottle (can get from chemist) or you can give it through a syringe and what a difference. I never looked back. I used to try the odd bottle here and there without it so I wasnt giving it to her needlessley. I think I stopped giving her it before she was 4 months though. So there is hope out there. I also second the massage idea, I had a childcare book that showed you how to give baby massage and I definetely think this helped at bedtime, she really calmed down and enjoyed it, at 3.7 yrs - she still likes to lie and let me massage her when she is feeling clingy!

It's really normal in babies under 3 months not to be able to sleep for more than about 10 minutes if held. When they fall asleep they go into 'active' sleep (like REM sleep) which means they wake really easily. After around 3 months they go straight into a deeper sleep so it's much less of a problem.

Trying to keep on with the cot in the day is likely to make it worse as a 10 min nap is effectively no nap at all, so she'll end up overtired and find it even harder to go to sleep and to stay asleep.

I'd go with the sling recommendation. DS only slept in the sling for quite a while, but by the time he was 14 weeks I was able to put him down.

Swaddling worked well for us at night too.

I'm not sure what guidelines PatronSaint is referring to on co-sleeping: I've never seen anything about 'not before 6 months', but it is recommended that if you're not breastfeeding you don't co-sleep (UNICEF have a leaflet on it here).

The 'pick up put down' method which a couple of people mention comes from The Baby Whisperer - she doesn't recommend it for babies younger than 3 months (4 or 5 months in some cases).

also silent reflux might be a possibility if she is windy and prefers being vertical

Thank you all so much for your comments!

Firstly, for the first week or so I co slept because I was breastfeeding (this was before I realised she wasn't latching on and started to express)
I got so exhausted that I ended up sat in an armchair with her on my chest, HV seemed fine with that surprisingly! I did have her in the bed a few times aswell but it didn't make much difference really and i'm not keen on it either, too worried about her over heating and such! I have also swaddled her from day one, as I really think it helps them sleep better, but now I only do it at night, so that she knows she should be sleeping!

Anyway, I think i've sussed it now! At first I was convinced it was silent reflux, because I had run out of ideas as to what was wrong with her, but she rarely cries for long periods of time unless she's over tired so I wasn't sure about that and I ruled out colic for the same reason.

Anyway, a miracle has happened!
She wasn't latching on to the nipple so obviously she was hungry all the time, therefore not sleeping, but i've now realised she wasn't sucking on the bottle teat properly either, the same thing was happening as it took her a good few hours with lots of tiny naps in between to finish her bottle, and so she was getting too much air and getting too windy and angry.
So I changed the teats from slow flow (0months+) to fast flow (6months+), just so that if she was having difficulty sucking at least she'd get the milk fast enough and actually feel FULL so that she could sleep, and it's worked!
She finishes her bottle so quickly now compared to before, she's got real wind rather than niggly wind that annoys her and she sleeps soundly for three-four hours at a time! Hurrah!

I'm utterly shocked and relieved i've figured out what was wrong, I thought i'd never be able to settle her properly!
I kept telling myself that surely, for any baby, clingy or not, if they're clean, burped, full up and tired then they will go down and stay down until the next feed? I couldn't get my head around it so I have spent the last few days trying to figure it out and finally I have :)

For any of you that are having this problem, give it a go because I think a lot of simple things like that go unnoticed, I mean it's taken me a month to work it out, and I genuinely think she has problems sucking, but who'd have thought it? Anyway, new routine in place now, and she's a lot happier. Sorry for the huge post, just wanted to share my success! x

P.S. When your baby cries, they're telling you something, and we've all felt that incredible urge to just pick them up and stop them from crying, i'd hold my daughter every minute if I could. I don't agree with just letting them cry until they fall asleep although some women have a different view on it.
I'm just a big softie really but I feel proud that I didn't just let her cry and carried on trying to work out the problem because now we're both happier.

Have you tried Dr Browns bottles? They really helped reduce wind in ds1 and dd1 who were both v v hard to settle

Colief was my life saver, it does make your baby windy at the other end but it stopped the colic in the nights. Its expensive but worth it. I alwo invested in a baby swing, it really settled him when he was grumpy

allgoodindahood - I haven't but I might do, although now that I seem to have sorted it i'm not sure if i'll need to but will keep them in mind :)

Catherine2255 -
I haven't got a baby swing - yet! I really want to get her one, I also like the look of baby hammocks!