Excessively whingey baby - reassurance needed

[Millsie1]

My 9 week dd whinges for almost every waking moment! Actually she whinges in her sleep too! She won't be put down and struggles sleeping. Anyone out there had a similarly miserable baby that has blossomed into a smiley and happy child? I am at my wits end...I don't know how to cope with the incessant crying - a few tales of other people's similar experiences (now resolved) might stop me feeling so goddarn awful????

My 6 year old was quite a whinger as a baby - she's lovely now - still moans about things - but I think all children doo don't they?

I now have 11 week old twins - one is a lovely smiley baby and the other is a whingey moaner. Both are capable of moaning in their sleep though. I find the fisher price vibrating bouncy chair thing to be magical when they are making a fuss - put them in and turn the vibration on. Stage 2 if they are continuing to fuss, is to stick the extractor fan on to maximum volume (loud white noise) - and third stage is the dummy. I have a friend from the school run whose daughter used to moan for 17 hours out of 24 - she had 3 tricks: wedging the pushchair up against the washing machine and putting it on spin cycle, taking pushchair over cobbles and finally holding the baby against a lous speaker (nappy to speak) and turning the colume up.

Thank you so much for message - I just would LOVE some awake time with her that isn't trying to stop her crying! It really does limit us...we can't really join in any of the mum-baby activities on offer in our town as she just screams the house down and it's extremely stressful and leaves me feeling knackered and a total failure! Am sort of confined to our small flat which I think is exacerbating the problem. I am hoping it's a phase...

yes, ds2 was awful. he just cried and cried and crid and cried and cried and I still feel like I missed out on his first few months because I didn't enjoy him at all.
he is a year old now and sooooooooooo much happier. well, he got happier from around 4 or 5 months onwards, and is great now.

things that helped me were: a moby sling (www.sasaslings.co.uk) and reading "the happiest baby on the block" by dr harvey karp.

I can't TELL you how much better that has made me feel. Here's to only a few more weeks of screeching! x

btw, please don't feel excluded from doing other activities. esp if you can try a sling and it calms her down.
I have a friend who I met at a baby group when our first were about 6 weeks old. my little boy was a happy little thing, her little girl cried CONSTANTLY.
other mums don't notice the crying as much as you do, it isn't as painful to them as it is to you. I can quite easily block out another baby crying, although when mine cry it's just awful.

so go! and don't worry if she cries. we all used to take turns at walking round with my friend's baby and jiggling her about (and we had only just met her at the time) cos we could see she needed a break and.

oh and just one more thing lol, 7-9 weeks is the PEAK of colicky behaviour, so you may well find that she starts to get a little bit better within the next few weeks.

Mine was like that!!! Never content. Have to say he didn't improve til he was able to crawl at 9 months but they are all different. He is still very head strong and LOUD if he doesn't get his own way but is a happy boy and doesnt whinge all the time he's awake, just when he's bored or tired. It could be a sign that she is just vry clever and frustrated (I told myself this about ds as it made me feel better!!!). He is happy now and fantastic at entertaining himself, not clingy, not always whinging. He is getting rather frustrated with language at the minute though but it is MILES better than at the stage you're at now, it really does pass and if it is just colic, not long til she'll be all smiles!!

How is she at feed times?
My dd was like this and it turned out to be a symptom of her milk intolerance.

My first child cried for what seemed to be all the time, and would only sleep on our chest, woke and screamed as soon as she was put down. I spent all day and night either feeding, holding her or walking with her. Then my second was the same!! But I was more relaxed about it and DH and I took turns to sleep in the armchair with dd2 on our chests for months and i had her in my arms all day - so reducing the crying. dd1 stopped when she could walk - at 9 months!!! I think she was so fed up and frustrated at being a baby - she hated it! Shes been a delight since but very active and a very poor sleeper - still wakes a lot at age 6 and moves around all night. But a really happy toddler and child, if restless. dd2 is the same and settled as soon as she could roll and move and eat solid food. She is the most settled and easy child, and such a good sleeper - will generally sleep from 8pm - 6.30am most nights. I believe everybody gets hard times at some point and if you get them as a baby they seem a delight for the rest of the time!!! And no they werent hungry (as so many people said to me!!! They grew really fast, were on the 95th percentile or over and refused more milk!)

If it helps you are not alone. Until 6 weeks my baby was awake and screaming for 20 hours out of 24. Up to 8 weeks he slept for 6 hours and gave me a whole 40 minutes a day when he didn't cry. In fact I was actually crying on the day of his first injections because I'd been warned it might make him a bit more whingey than normal and I just couldn't imagine/contemplate what more whingey would be like. From 8 weeks to 14 weeks he was fine during the day - just mildly whingey and started sleeping through (fantastic). However he stored it all up for the evenings when my husband and I were on 15 minute shifts to cope. At 12 weeks my husband and I went into a decline because the colic didn't end as promised - at 14.5 weeks the colic ended. My baby is now not the most contented child on earth, but the difference is AMAZING.
I found a friend who was also going through it and talking honestly with them about how I felt really helped. People not going through it look shocked when you say your child is anything less than perfect.
BTW our miracle way of getting 10 mins without crying was a mirror over his changing mat. The only person who could stop him crying was himself! I spent 40 minutes one night with him lying on that mat - just for a bit of peace. Also try colief or similar.
We're still waiting for the appropriate time to open the champagne we were given to celebrate his birth!!!! (but we love him loads).

Have you considered that your baby may have a milk intolerance or silent reflux? I had this for 4 months with my eldest and it turned out that he had a milk intolerance. Once we got him onto the right milk he improved dramatically and was like a new child and this combined with cranial osteopathy seemed to do the trick.

we had this ent to gp he is no on gaviscon and soya formula and the difference is amazing

Have you thought about taking Baby for cranio osteopathy?

Do you wear her in a sling at all. She has spent 9 months attached to you and only 9 weeks unattached. At the moment the outside world is probably feeling very strange to her and she just wants to be warm and cosy and attached to her mum again.

Meandmyjoe and I (and a few others) are frequent posters on the grumpy babies thread!

My DS is now 10 months old and a really active, happy and clever little boy! I think he was just really frustrated as a little baby. He didn't have colic but pretty much whinged or cried through the first 4 months of his life. He started to get better at around 4-5 months but in the last few months, he has really blossomed. I think he was just so frustrated as a little baby as he now tries to get into everything everywhere. (He's being pushed around in the trike he got for Christmas and happy as larry at the moment!) Merry Christmas, it really will get much much better. Give it time...

I have had two of these and have to say they get better and better.
But I would echo the idea of a sling - just strap baby to you and do all the things you want to do...

My little nephew used to whinge and whinge, he was an emergency caesarian, and he used to sleep with his head slightly cricked, he was constantly twisting his head. He was always feeding, and had no problem with milk intake or weight gain or intolerance, BUT we now think the problem was a cricked neck. That's why he just couldn't settle. I think he magically improved at 12 weeks after going to a cranial osteopath do seem to have a wonderful effect on crying babies, partly because they provide a listening ear to poor mothers as well..

Do hang in there - it's so hard when they just make your life miserable. You feel like your the only mum in the world that can't bond with your baby. Also I know how depressing it is to be captive in your own home.

Keep trying things until you manage to find SOMETHING that works for you - you will soon find that all the advice from other parents is worthless because whilst it worked for their 'little darlings' yours wants to be different. Oh yes and feel free to think spiteful thoughts about ANYBODY that dares to tell you that a baby can pick up on your stress levels. I suggest you ask them to babysit for a day whilst you go shopping so they can spend the day stress free with your baby! Seriously though, is there anybody you'd trust with your baby? At 6 weeks I got a professional babysitter for one hour. It was expensive, but made a HUGE difference to me. Firstly I found I actually missed my baby so realised I had bonded and I got my first (and only for another 3 weeks) smile when I got back.

It WILL get better and it will be quite sudden (for us was 14 weeks 2 days). You will be amazed that it only takes about an hour for you to suddenly feel you have the most amazing child in the world. Good luck

My eight week old is exactly the same, he started off getting really coilcy in the evenings and night but is now even whingey during the day, sometimes even in a sling or travelling in the car! I thought these were supposed to be failsafe ways to stop the crying. everyone around me seems to have smiling happy babies but in our house we have what has become known as happy half hour. Am trying to keep smiling but sometimes it really gets me down

My eight week old is exactly the same, he started off getting really coilcy in the evenings and night but is now even whingey during the day, sometimes even in a sling or travelling in the car! I thought these were supposed to be failsafe ways to stop the crying. everyone around me seems to have smiling happy babies but in our house we have what has become known as happy half hour. Am trying to keep smiling but sometimes it really gets me down

My eight week old is exactly the same, he started off getting really coilcy in the evenings and night but is now even whingey during the day, sometimes even in a sling or travelling in the car! I thought these were supposed to be failsafe ways to stop the crying. everyone around me seems to have smiling happy babies but in our house we have what has become known as happy half hour. Am trying to keep smiling but sometimes it really gets me down

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My son was the same from he was about 12 hours old , even the midwifes had to take him few times during the night to give me a break , he had colic and reflux. Only thing that settled him was after 6 weeks of crying all the time was a blanket near his face and he didnt cry as much , for some reasons some babies like this , he is 10 months and still a whine at times but when you give him his blanket he shuts up for a bit

yes, she cried and cried and cried during the day. i kept on taking her to the doctor who kept on saying she is just a baby, babies cry, then her eadrum burst and they figured out she had had a pretty severe ear infection and was crying out of pain.