12 week old baby cranky in evenings and impossible to settle

[sazza1970]

My 12-week-old baby girl is very cranky from about 5pm until her bedtime between 7 and 8, at which point she wants to feed constantly and will not settle in her cot - we often spend an hour and a half feeding and settling her, only for her to wake in 40 minutes and need a further hour of suckling and settling to finally go to sleep. I suspect my milk may be low in the evenings and she could be hungry, but I have tried to give her a supplementary bottle and she will not accept it. My partner and I are exhausted - does anyone have any advice?

This is normal I'm afraid. She may well have colic. May I suggest a warm bath (get a tummy tub if you can - worked a treat for DD) and actually your milk is more plentiful in the evenings than at any other point - may not feel like it because you are knackered - but it is and your daughter is what is called 'cluster feeding' which is normal again for her age (and will change btw as she grows).

Added to that she's probably hit the three month growth spurt - if you can go to bed with her for a few days and just nurse her as much as possible.

Fear not, it does get easier!

sounds like colic, lay her gently on her front over your knee and rub her back.colic drops are worth a go, My son was the same and my saving grace was a baby swing/chair which lulled him off to sleep. she will grow out of it though

aw. very normal.

with ds1 i had to waltz around the living room for frigging hours every night. there just had to be motion or he would scream the place down. and of course he had to be upright, and facing away from me. i've got arms like popeye now. that and the constant feeding...

with dd1 it was fairly easily solved with infacol.

fortunately the passage of time has erased the evenings of dd2's first year from my memory, for which i am eternally grateful.

this too will pass.

Buy a swinging chair. Worked for 2 out of 3 of my children.

or, If you can be bothered, try bouncing energetically in a bouncy chair. If you'd rather do something else you can bounce with foot while reading your fav mag, watching telly or anaesthetising yourself with vino!

Don't worry, they eventually grow out of this, i reckon its a combination of tummy troubles and being overtired.
HTH

We had the same eventually went to a combinated of infacol before milk and dentinox in it - recommended by GP as apprently work in different ways? not too easy if BFing though, but worth trying them? Also highly recommend tummy tub, ours fitted perfectly in the washing basket so she was much higher up so we used to sit on the sofa and hold her head up in there and watch tv for a good 30 mins each evening, water stays really warm too... Swing was our other best best buy, couldnt have survived without it in the evenings!!! - only other thing was to put her in wrap sling and get out for an evening walk, even if she still cried we felt better for getting out, but after a few days the walking helped to settle her enough to get her to bed!

Could you let her have a short nap around this time (maybe in pushchair?) to help her get through to bedtime? My (now) 4.5 mo was always better after an early evening catnap at 3 months. It really isn't too close to bedtime for a short sleep at that age and they settle better for the night sleep if not overtired.

You've nothing to lose by trying it!