Help needed!

[Forrest1985]

Our DD is now 4.5 months old and is giving us hell! Up to 3 months she was perfect! Slept through the night in her moses basket and was well behaved. We used the"dream feed" technique recommended by a few friends and this worked perfectly. Then she started teething. She now wakes up three times a night for dummy and twice for 3 ounces, regardless of dream feeding...refuses to nap during the day...spits out her calpol and bonjela. She also whines and whines if we put her down to play for more than ten minutes, and if we don't pick her up or give her a dummy, screams until she turns tomato red! My girlfriend and i are taking paracetamol daily to combat headaches and are constantly bickering from lack of sleep! We have started weaning her to see if that will help but she is only partly interested in this. She has a bath and goes to bed between 19:15-19:30, and from then until 11 we have to cook, eat, prep bottles, do housework and sort washing as its the only time we are allowed to do it. I know parents who have had it worse to start with but their kids got better not worse. Any advice would be appreciated.

4.5 months is very very young!

So you need to go back to basics and prioritise. You need to sleep when she does, take it in shifts if necessary. You need to also split up chores and share them out. Plan how to do the minimium most efficiently.

Babies change a lot at this time. Go to see your HV. Teething is horrible, and there is not much you can do (I used teething powder just so I felt I was doing something). Is she hungry? Maybe bigger feeds will help (you seem to be using bottles, if you breast feed then cluster feeding can help).

Does she go out during the day? Does she like the sound of the vacuum? Or the washing machine? Does she need quiet and dark? Does she like baths?

Thanks for the reply. We split chores 50/50 and do then together when she goes to bed. Its just not possible to sleep when she does as we only have 3-4 hours a night to get everything done and she doesn't sleep much if at all during the day. We will have to try teething granules to see if that works. She seems happy with 6 ounces of formula but i guess we can try increasing it. Would you recommend changing formula at all? Thanks again.

You can't do the chores together - that is the key problem - one of you needs to be catching up on sleep. Sorry the sleep depravation of small children is horrendous, but personally we only got through it, by grabbing sleep when we can, and when one person was dropping the other covering so they could at least nap to recover.

Why can't you get the basics done while she is awake? My eldest would cry if put down, but at least only one person needed to hold him, the other could get stuff done.

With my worst sleeper, I did feel as though I never ate a proper meal.

I hve a very similar aged DS and it will pass, he was like this two weeks ago and already it's starting to get easier (but it was hell at the time!!) what mummytime suggests is an excellent idea and it is really important to go back to sleeping when they sleep like when they are newborns. How long has she been like this for?

Hiya, she has been like this for just over a month now. We didnt really sleep when she did before, as my GF had a difficult pregnancy and was in hospital for a few weeks with an infection. Our DD slept through the night when she came home so there was no need to sleep when she did. We share the night feeds on a one on one off basis which is helping slightly, but thats not really the problem. Its the fact she refuses to nap during the day, so we couldnt sleep when she does. She then gets tired and irritable and is then waking for more food at night, regardless of the amount we give her before bed.

Have you tried a baby carrier? It saved my sanity in the early months, I'd chuck on some music, put the crying baby in the ergo and do the housework. I'd be happy, the house would be at least passably clean and the baby would be happy and tended to sleep better too after being carried around.

I'll second using an Ergo; it was the best carrier for my high need 3rd child and the only way he'd sleep during the day. Do you get out much with your baby? Fresh air might help a little.