5 week old cries all the time

[barra]

i feel I am having trouble reading my ds. I make sure he is not hungry has a clean nappy is not cold change scenery if necessary but it feels like he cries a lot. There is very little time during the day where h is just content and awake. I don't just wan to shove. Breast in his face to quiet him all the time.
I am constantly anxious. Any ideas?

My ds was liek htis. One thing that helped him was gettign a wrap sling and just letting him stay in it as long as it made him content. It reallyt made a difference to my sanity, I had a KariMe, but Moby is pretty much the same I think. Are you winding him really well after each feed? I know with a breastfed baby it seems more difficult, especially as my ds used to happily drop off after a feed, but it will help if he's got trapped wind.

If a breast will soothe him then do that! Why don't you want to?

It can be exhausting to have a baby attatched all the time ritamorgan. I know I found it very difficult in the first few weeks to actually feel like I wasn't being touched all the time. I felt I needed some space, I think it's more common than people liek to admit. I've seen it referred to as 'touchedoutness'

I'd offer boob if it soothes him. He is very young and still building up supply and having growth spurts.

Slings are fab, yep. And someone else can do the slinging, let you get a wee break.

It is very wearing having a baby who never seems happy, but it will change and he will appreciate you and your endeavours to make him content.

How was the birth - babies can be stressed afterwards for a while.

Also, any food sensitivities in your family?

Sounds pretty exhausting having a baby that cries all the time too though :) I would also go with breast first if that's what the baby wants.

Thanks everyone . V helpful

Birth was c section so traumatic for him. No food sensitivities I know of

He's probably either got some medical issue (e.g. silent reflux, lactose intolerance, colic) or is tired. Classic ways of calming tired baby are motion (rocking, swing, pram, car ride), sshing or white noise (needs to be loud enough they can't hear themselves cry), patting (reminds them of heartbeat in womb supposedly!) and sucking (either breast or dummy). Lots of people swear by The Happiest Baby on The Block book/dvd though for us it was more of case of figuring out what worked for him.

You should expect to feed a lot at this stage e.g. every two hours during the day, but not continuously unless it's a growth spurt and they are cluster feeding in the evening.

My DD is exactly the same.
We always make sure she's clean, full, right temperature, has no wind, everything. Swinging, bouncing, sshhing, rocking, patting. Everything! Sometimes I think she's really windy as her favourite position is to be held right under the arms and bounced up and down with her feet dangling, I think this might ease the pain of wind. Another position she likes is to lie across my arm on her front and be jiggled! They really calm her.
Although, often when we wind her nothing will come up. Getting over tired is another one, she'll refuse her bottle, refuse to do anything. I'm not saying she doesn't calm down, and she doesn't cry all day by any means, but it seems like a lot and that nothing will settle her for about half an hour to an hour.
I was breastfeeding and I know it can be hard having a baby constantly attached to you! Slings are brilliant, I have a BabaSling and a sling that crosses over your front, she prefers being upright though so the BabaSling isn't very useful at the moment as she's only 5weeks. I find she will sleep in the sling fine, and on someone's chest, but she will still have grumpy hours so I guess it's just what some babies are like although will be talking to my HV just in case there's something i'm not noticing.

my ds was exactly the same. He is now 11 weeks and finally we are having a lot more smiles than tears. Dont really know how i got through last 10 weeks because he seemed to cry pretty much all the time he was awake but we muddled through! Lots of cuddles and breastfeeding was the way i suppose. Im sure your ds will settle down, its just very hard to see light at the end of the tunnel and can be very draining.

My DD was the same. Cried constantly. We put it down to colic. She needed lots of winding and bowel movements seemed to hurt her. It was clearly some physical discomfort. Infacol didn't seem to help much. Only thing that offered any comfort was breastfeeding. Did a LOT of that. Breasts really can be useful - I personally don't worry about over using them! Second best comfort was dummies. They really helped us out. It was exhausting and frustrating and upsetting seeing her so unhappy - I'd had nothing like this with DS so was taken aback - but by 10 weeks (she's 20 weeks now) she was all smiles. Hopefully your little one will settle too and give you a break.

Hi I breastfed and my son was having trouble getting wind up so used infacol before each feed, it really helped so might be worth a try to see if thats whats bothering him :-)