Can anyone stop Katierocket from being driven insane by very difficult newborn......please!

[katierocket]

OK so DS1 was a really unsettled baby, had horrendous colic, terrible sleeper blah blah. We tried everything to help but it only really improved as he got older (he's 5 now). Anyway, DS2 (9 weeks) is just as bad (if not worse) and it really is driving me to utter despair (and I don't say that lightly).
He's very unsettled, and is really susceptible to being really easily over stimulated and having screaming fits. I could cope with that but the worse thing is his sleep - he is an absolute nightmare to get to sleep, you have to rock him and rock him, or walk round him in in a sling for ages or put him in the pram and walk for ages (although lately even this isn't working). But the worse thing is that once you've got him asleep he will wake up after a really short time (anywhere between 10 and 30 mins) and so then it all starts again.

Currently he is getting up at 5am in the morning (we're used to this - DS1 did it for 4 and half years) so by 6am he is knackered and screaming house down. I just can't figure out what to do to improve the situation. THings are getting worse not better.

He was diagnosed as having mild reflux and is on medicine for that, he's also been to a cranial osteopath.

if anyone has any suggestions I'd really really appreciate it.

hi KR - no advice, just wanted to say hi from the Jan postnatal thread!

xxxx

KR - we've linked this thread to the Jan thread. We are all thinking of you and sending big hugs.

FWIW, J has changed formula to Aptamil and is a different child. I know you are BF but might be worth changing to formula

(No doubt lots will disagree with me but it's worth a go??)

Email me anytime.

Have no real advice as you seem to have tried most and recieved most standard suggestions. I can only say that I have been there , and dont want to do it again!

I can add that breastfeeding can be done at any time, for comfort, and if these babies are unhappy, let them be soothed. I am not adverse to dummies as well. Try a varity, so that tummy can rest for a while.

I have four children and three were of the nightmare varity.

1st child, lots of colic, and screaming for three months , calmed down, after that and slept for five hours a night until a year then slept well. ( lots of nightime driving as car soothed him!!!)
birth weight 9lbs, breastfed for 1yr, solids at four months.

2nd child, was my dream baby, slept five hours from birth , no colic, breast fed every three hours, got very fat and content. slept through at 6 months. ( gained 1 lb in weight first week after birth!)
birth weight 10lbs 8oz, breastfed for 1yr, solids at 6 months. ( thought I had cracked this baby lark..............ha ! how wrong I was....................

3rd child, colic at birth, 20 min cat naps during day 2 seperate hours of sleep a night, until 9 months old, when he then for first time slept for five hours. ( had bstrep infection , antibiotics dont help little tummys!)
fully breastfed, poor weight gain, ezcema from day 15 after birth. all day long scream , scream , scream.
slept through for 8 hours at 21/2yrs.
birth weight, 7lbs 3oz, breastfed 18 months, soilds at 6 months.
Has food and environmental allergies, which explained all behaviour.

4 baby (unplanned surprise/shock)
bad colic, record for non stop screaming in one day 11hours. went to cranial osteopath, which made things worse to begin with then improved. neighbours showed some concern at the constant screaming.
her scream was very high pitched , she broke the sound on our camcorder.
But DID sleep for four to five solid hours a night so I could cope better during the day.
colic stopped at four months, almost overnight. sleeping all night from 9 months. contented round child.
birth weight 7lbs 8oz, breastfed 2 1/2yrs, soilds 6 months.

If its any comfort to you i thought I knew quite a lot about babies, as i worked in the baby dept of a day nursery. However, they werent MY children. It seems that everyone elses babies were wonderful when i looked after them, and my babies were complete nightmares.

The grim dark days of my third baby still haunt me, we were both driven to our knees, with little medical support. There were days when I considered putting him in to care , just so I could sleep or spend time talking to the other children without the screaming in the background.
After a while I realised that this baby was in pain all the time, and nothing was being done about it. So i concentrated on his skin care, and finally worked out that he was terribly allergic to his food and environment. His sleeping at 2yrs was only due to his dnx of his allergies, and the changes we made to his food and environment.
We are lucky he is still alive, and well to this day, as his allergies are severe and life threatening.

sorry to waffle on, just to let you know I have been there and got the scars to prove it!!

Have you tried driving him to sleep in the car - to save your aching legs!

Have no advice - my first dd was similar, I now think due to painful wind. Seems like you can go the whole medical route, but in the end its often a matter of time. I used to hang onto the words "this too shall pass" to get me thru the bad times

Poor you having to go thru' it again. Just unlucky, not because of anything you've done are doing. My dd2 (16 wks) is total dream (sorry). yet everything about the way I care for her is the same as dd1. Only difference being that dd2 did not have anti-bs at birth.

williamsmummy - thanks for taking the time to tell me that, very interesting. it really does prove that it's not what you do...but the way they're made.

This struck a cord with me: "The grim dark days of my third baby still haunt me, we were both driven to our knees, with little medical support." It's so difficult when you have those days where you literally don't know where else to turn, no wonder so many mums end up with PND.

"This too will pass" is one of my favourite sayings at the moment!

Hi

SO sorry youre going through this. DD got up very early for months so can appreciate how difficlut years is!

Just noticed this a while ago and wondered if this would help reflux babies. She certainly found it good

www.jenniferharper-deacon.com/natural_rescue.asp?id=282&q=

katierocket - I think one of the main things you need is help to get a break. Get MIL over more often and let her nurse him while you get some peace or time with DS1. Other peolpe love cuddling babies when you are at the stage of chucking them

One thing that can help is rocking in the pram but you don't need to walk for miles. If you have a large pram (like a silver cross type), put him in it and push it back and forth over a slipped lying on the floor. That gives the sensation of moving over the cracks in on a pavement. Doing it fairly quickly is effective. If you don't have a big pram though I am not sure if it would work with a buggy. I definitelt think that it is a shame big prams have gone out of fashion - I think babies could really sleep better in them (off on a tangent)

I would definitely support him lying on his tummy. He is breastfed which reduces risk of cotdeath which is the concern about stomach sleeping. What you can do is have him sleeping on his tummy during the day when it is easier to observe him. My first 2 babies slept on their tummies from birth and were great sleepers. Make sure he is not over heated.

Do you use a dummy? That may help.

Another tip is when you are rocking him in the pram, or feeding him, stroke him gently from the forehead down to his nose. That will encourage him to close his eyes.

Nothing wrong with feeding him to sleep BTW.

To anybody reading this who would like a big pram like Mears mentioned, I have two, which anybody is welcome to (for free - need the space). One is a Mamas and Papas one, and one is a Bebecar one (I think). We're in Cornwall, but are moving to Portsmouth at the end of the month, or I'd be happy to courier if you can find someone who'd take a pram that size. They were fantastic for rocking DS1 to sleep - so much so that I had one at my house, and one at my mums

mears - thanks. He has just taken a dummy and it does really help. This may be a silly question but in relation to tummy sleeping what do they do with their arms?! I know that sounds daft but how do you actually lie them down without them being face down IFYKWIM?

katie, my dd was a tummy sleeper and she used to have her hands up by her head. I'd turn her head to the side as I put her down but she could turn it from side to side by herself - I'd often find her lying on the opposite side to the one I'd put her down on. The other advantage with tummy sleeping is that they don't lose their dummies so much, I think because the dummy lands so close to the mouth they can sort of suck it back in iyswim.

Agree with Olihan. Have the arms free so that the hands lie either side of the head. Then babies can move their heads easily. My babies also found their thumbs. A curse for some but to me it is a godsend. It means that babies can comfort themselves when need be. Youngest age that they found their thumbs was 9 weeks.Fingers crossed

My dd was like yours. Luckily she was my second or I might never have had 2!

I ended up putting her to sleep on her tummy which helped a lot. Also dh would hold her in what I think is called the tiger position. Her belly facing towards the floor, resting on his palm facing towards the ceiling. Her head on his forearm. Dh was better at this than I was because his hands were bigger and stronger. In addition, paed in usa diagnosed her as having hidden reflux (different than colic) and at 5 months prescribed a bottle a day of a special staydown formula to supplement the exclusive bfing she was receiving up to that point. It made a HUGE difference. The formula is actually available in the uk, but isn't kept out on the shelves. It's behind the counter, but you don't need a prescription for it. However, gp gave us a prescription which saved a lot of money. It was called Enfamil AR. It's different from the other staydown formulas because it has rice starch rather than corn starch.

Katierocket - have you tried co-sleeping at all, with baby on your chest as you lie on your back? That is a less scary way of putting baby down on his front. But probably not sustainable for all night long.

Have you ever sung to him?

We used Infacol and nursed baby while watching tv with subtitles!

Also latched baby on as often as poss. Usually shuts them up at least for short time.

Has your dairy-free diet made any difference?
For some babies it's orange or garlic in the mother's diet. But most of the time it's nothing to do with mother's diet at all so don't deprive yourself too much, please!

Yes I do sometimes cosleep with him.

"Have you ever sung to him? " !! of course,

Well Fri and Sat he was slightly better but yesterday he was very unsettled again - wouldn't settle in pram etc and last night he was up every hour. Bloody knackered. Plus he has his jabs today so no doubt that will have a bad effect.

How long have you kept up the dairy free diet now Rocket?

Sorry you've had mega-bad night. Do take any opportunity to rest. Good luck with jabs, they don't necessarily have bad effect. My bad-sleeper-unsettled baby was ok with them.

today is seventh day, I don't think it's helping

Hi KR. Checking in to see how you're doing? Have you tried a dummy? DS was like your babies but DD much more placcid and I'm sure it's because she sucked her thumb (I used to help her put it in her mouth when she was tiny).
DD still wakes at night but DS has just started sleeping and I love him to bits for it. I know it seems a long way off but just think how carefree life will be when this stage is over!

It is probably nothing to do with your diet then, KR.

Have you tried a breastfeeding counsellor? If not, this could be a big help esp if you can get one that comes to visit you in your house.

Also, is there a Breastfeeding Cafe in your area? They are springing up all over the place - an informal meeting place for mothers and babies, attended by bf specialist hvs or other professionals and counsellors.

kr - sorry you're having a tough time. If you do need a bf counsellor, I can recommend (if I could remember her name) a great one in Didsbury. Got her name via NCT.

Did you try the tummy sleeping?

I don't think that breastfeeding itself is the problem - don't tie yourself in knots over that aspect. Try and get others to help you by taking him for you for a few hours to give you a break.

oh you poor poor thing, ds was like this he just screamed for about 4 months. had terrible trouble with bf too. apparently both dp and i were like this as babies, so maybe it is genetic. cod's suggestion of 20 mins on/off is essential, as is getting dvd for evening (subtitles/pause button) it took us three weeks to get through lord of the rings. try everything swing/bouncy chairwise, i found vibrating fp aquarium bouncer the best and still used it for naps until ds 20m when it broke. bought the swing and he hated it. oh and holding the baby tightly and bouncing on the exercise ball brought occasional relief.

and def co-sleeping, ds on my chest for first couple of weeks, then beside me when a bit bigger. as ds became more mobile and could get more stimulation things got better.

sorry that doesn't read quite right, we had trouble estasblishing bf and bad latch, but it was absolute lifesaver the only way to shut him up most of the time.

Poor you - ds was just like this though he wasn't so bad early on but got worse a bit later. It did drive me to PND but we did move to the US for 6 months when he was 10 weeks old and I had NO family, friends or support while out there so that made things much worse.

Have you tried the Harvey Karp (Happiest baby on the block) method of swaddling, jiggling and shushing or white noise at the same time? This was the ONLY thing that helped ds in the early weeks when he cried. It didn't always work but it worked more times and more consistently than anything else did. Dh was better at it than me though.

You have to swaddle the baby really tightly
(he has good diagrams on how), lay him on his side on your knee facing away from you and sort of jig your knee (while supporting his head) up and at the same time you shhhh in his ear - quite loudly. It sounds really weird but if you do it in a dark room it apparently recreates the effect of being in the womb.

It did work with ds 60%-70% of the time when he had got really worked up.

DS always sucked his fingers/thumb (and still does) but it still didn't seem to help him to sleep better or to settle to sleep well.

you know it helps so much to have all this support. only got 5 secs so don't think me rude if I don't reply individual posts. I wondered about 'bad latch' but would that really make a huge difference - wouldn't I have known by now i.e. sore nipples etc? titktok, would love the details of your contact just to check - can you CAT me? or I can CAT you.

He does have a dummy but spits it out a lot, he seems to want to suck him fingers/thumb but can;t control hands enough to do it yet. Dummy is a blessing and also curse since he seems to need to suck but then loses it which wakes him up. DS1 was liek this which is why I am keen not to go to this route if poss.

DP and I did end up bitching at each other last night after a whole night of being up - it's so hard to be civil at 4am when you've had no sleep.

ho hum, on we go

Sorry Tinker - I meant Tinker not tiktok, obviously!