Can someone explain this to me please?!

[Sammie101]

One very stressed out, pissed off with evil baby mother posting here!

Can someon explain why when my baby has a cold she will not, no matter how hard we try, take her dummy or a bottle? But she is quite happy to suck on my boobs until my nipples feel sore? (I've never had nipple pain before from breastfeeding so it's new to me)

My thinking was she's not taking her dummy/bottle because her nose is blocked and she can't breathe through her nose so she can't suck on them. But then wouldn't that mean she can't take the breast either??!

To top it all off, since she turned 6 months we started weaning her off the breast and onto formula. We had just introduced a third bottle and since she started refusing them (Wednesday) I have had to give her the breast even though there's not as much milk there for her. Which has meant she's not been getting enough and been extra fussy. So I feel like I've taken a step backwards :-/

Gah! Sorry, just having a bit of a rant because the constant crying at naptime and bedtime and increased night waking has taken it's toll! I've just had to let her cry it out because there's nothing I can do to help her sleep (she will not sleep without a dummy except from her midnight feed) which I feel awful about.

Baby has finally stopped crying, I've already told DP it's not too late to think about adoption :-/ and breeeeathe!

Oh dear Sammie that sounds horrible!! I have no useful advice at all, just didn't want to read and run. DD is 4 months and we are just coming out the sleep regression so your anguish is very familiar, as is the occasional consideration about adoption!! I feel like such a bad mum even joking about that so it's great for me to see other people joke about it too- joking keeps us sane.
Good luck and I hope the cold and breast obsession calm down soon

I would imagine that the keenness for breastfeeding is mostly down to comfort if she's feeling grotty. Don't forget the bfeeding is about more than nutrition, and can often be for comfort or closeness. It might also be helping her clear her sinuses a bit as well, due to the different suck when bfeeding rather than a free flow bottle.

On a side note, I hope by "cry it out" you mean that you stayed with her and comforted her whilst she cried?

Thank you Kiki, I'm glad I'm not alone with the adoption joke! I would never be without her of course, when she smiles it makes the anger fade away! Going to venture to the shops to see if there's anything that will help unblock her nose.

Exbrighton I'm ashamed to say that most of the time I've just had to leave her selfishly for my own sanity! I absolutely hate it when my mum said I should just leave her to cry and hate that I did it. I go in to try to calm her down and it seems to rile her up even more. Sometimes picking her up works and she calms down but then if I put her down she screams even more. I normally go back in and feed her and can see her eyes drop and she gets sleepy. Then if I put her down there is usually more crying which settles down quickly. I did it before and she was nice and calm but when I put her down she got upset again so I had to leave her and go have a cry myself.

It all sounds very stressful Sammie. At the risk of being patronising, have you tried waiting a good long while before putting her down asleep? Also do you have a sling? Maybe she might sleep if carried by you, although this is obviously not always possible depending on how heavy she is.

Not patronising at all Brighton, I appreciate any advice normally she goes down after 90 minutes but I've recently been wondering if I she could stay up longer. I'll try it today and see how she is. We have a baby carrier which she likes to sit in facing the world, if she faces me she cries (nosy baby, I think) I've considered a sling but never actually tried one before. It would probably make life easier as she wanted to be held yesterday when I was cooking tea so I ended up putting her in her chair watching me cook which she seemed to be happy with. I'm just hoping that by tomorrow she will be feeling better and back to her usual self. My cold has let up and I feel up to going out (for the first time in 5 days!) so fingers crossed she'll be feeling better too.

Is there a particular sling that you'd recommend? DD is 14lbs so not heavy, but she's got quite long legs!

Ah, sorry. I'm not a sling expert just have lots of friends that use them. There are some Facebook groups about slings, I'll see if I can find them and get back to you. Also there are sling "libraries" where you can try then out. Maybe you could find one locally?

I used to also find going in riled mine up.
They sleep better when they learn to get themselves to sleep rather than being fed to sleep.
I now find waiting until she is visibly tired eye rubbing yawning helps

Have a look at ruckingmarvellous.com/ for more about slings, or on Facebook try the group "Babywearing FSOT" which is a closed group, so you have to ask to join.

For clarification, when I was describing taking more time before putting her down, I meant - let her fall asleep on you, wait for a good long while, and then transfer her to her cot. Which you probably already do, so feel free to ignore me!

It can be confusing on here about sleep, as there are often quite different approaches to sleep management. I will admit that I am in the camp where my ds fed to sleep up until about 9 months or so, and he had pretty much all his naps on me until about the same time as well. He would sleep in the pram though, so if I wanted to escape from under a sleeping baby I would time a walk for nap time. He would sleep in his cot at night, although I always put him down asleep for the first 9 months, and up to 6 months he was in a cot next to my bed.

He stopped feeding to sleep in his own time, and then would be put down in his cot awake but drowsy and drop off on his own.

Now he is 19 months old, and understands a lot of what I say to him, I am more comfortable about leaving him to cry for a couple of minutes to see if he will settle. This is because I know he understands it is bedtime, and that I am just downstairs.

Invariably, if he cries when I leave the room, he is asleep within 1 to 2 minutes. If he doesn't settle himself after this time it is usually a sign that he is ill, teething or anxious and in need of a bit more reassurance. I occasionally have to sit with him for a few minutes until he drops off.

Sorry - this has turned into a bit of a long post! Anyway, I guess I'm trying to say that there are other options than controlled crying/crying it out, and that feeding to sleep doesn't have to be a problem/babies don't have to be "taught" to self settle/it's ok to never leave a young baby to cry.

People often recommend the No Cry Sleep Solution as a helpful book for sleep problems, haven't used it myself but lots of friends rate it.