Struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

[milkyjo]

Hi

Can anyone give me some advice on my hopeless parenting!!! I have a 4 month old who is generally miserable all day long. Sleeps through the night from about 7pm until 5:30am but very hard to get to nap - sometimes spending up to an hour trying to settle him just for 30 minutes of sleep. We have tried letting him cry, baby whisperer, gina ford, ferber and nothing works. He has been like this since 8 weeks and all the books and people say, " don't worry he'll grow out of it", it seems to be getting worse! I am breastfeeding and I demand feed, sometimes every 1.5 hours. I don't know what he wants when he cries and it really upsets me because apparently I am supposed to know! Feeding is a real issue because it's so frequent and he really struggles at the breast, squirming and pulling, he suffers from wind and reflux and is on medication for the latter, we tried infacol which made him vomit more. It's as if he doesn't get enough milk because he sometimes feeds for up to 2 hours, it's as if my milk supply is not catching up with him. He's dropped 2 percentiles since birth. People tell me he can't be hungry as he sleeps so well at night!

I think I can cope with the catnapping if he was not miserable all day, we have about 20 minutes of playtime after feeds where he is all smiles and giggles but it is so short lived, he can manage about an hour of awake time after waking up, I can understand if he was only tiny but he's coming up to 5 months now.

Anybody have any advice? Thanks.

Firstly your parenting is not hopeless, its very hard to know what a baby needs (if only they could tell us). My son has been a grumpy baby from 2 weeks old, he is now 10 months and is getting better but we still have some really bad days! Do you have a set routine every day? I found the baby whisperer EASY routine was a good basis (eat, activity, sleep, you time), if my son was awake for more than 1.5hrs he would get grumpier and overtired so i set the routine around that, could never rely on him to sleep for a certain length of time though so if he woke too soon we would do activity before eating, really just adjust it as you need to. Never really got the Y bit of the easy schedule though because of him not sleeping very long.

It doesn't seem right that he is feeding for up to 2 hours, even young babies should only breastfeed for about 40mins. I breastfed my son for first 4 months and it was every 1.5-2hrs but I had a problem with milk supply (I wasn't eating enough - didn't have time!) so it finished abruptly at 4 months and had to switch to formula. I would speak to la leche or another breastfeeding support group for advice about the feeding but if he is feeding for so long and has dropped 2 percentiles you may need to increase your supply or consider offering bottles as well as breast. My son had a bottle in the evening every day from 2 weeks old as he would cluster feed so much that my boobs were just empty.
Having tried the routine and sorting out the feeding problem may help but he may just be a grumpy baby (some are unfortunately) but should grow out of it eventually! Good luck with whatever you decide to try :-))