Breast fed new born wont settle at night

[Lolokins]

My baby daughter is just 5 days old and whilst she is doing very well at breast (I think) she never settles at night... I have tried giving her a good long feed before trying to place her in crib but she becomes unsettled very quickly lifting her knees which I have been told is a sign of wind. She becomes distressed and cries and the only way I can stop her crying is to give her another feed which in turn means I may be giving her more wind??? Any advice would be appreciated. She also gets really sore sounding hiccups too

Afraid this is normal. She doesn't know its night she is a new born. Could try infacol for the wind.

This is fairly normal. Legs up could be a sign of wind, or just that she's unhappy. Lots of babies want to feed a lot at night, probably so they are near you rather than because they're actually hungry.

If you can make your bed safe for cosleeping and lie with her to feed and fall asleep, does she stay asleep for longer? You could perhaps feed to sleep lying on the bed, lie with her until she's fast asleep and then move away gently?

From my experience with DD she is probably still hungry. Bringing up knees can be wind, but can also just be something they do on waking or getting frustrated with hunger. What time do you want her to 'settle'? I'd expect to cluster feed most of the evening. Mine generally went to sleep at midnight after feeding every hour or so, and woke again at about 3am.

At five days, if in doubt, feed! She needs to get your supply going. I'd expect to do a long feed every 2-3 hrs at five days (DS did every hour...), with no long sleeps yet (at a few weeks you start getting a 4-5 hr stretch if you're lucky)

Thanks everyone. Lie down feed and co-sleep is the only way she will settle but I do worry about the safety side. Sadly when you csnnot stay awake any longer you will try anything. I guess keep going as we are and eventually she will find her wee way. Glad to hear this is normal hard not to feel you are doing something wrong as a first time mum. I have no "bedtime" in mind per sey would just like to know if there is a routine I can follow to give her a more settled night

Are there any foods which are good to eat whilst breast feedin? Ive been told things like brocolli and sprouts can cause pains for baby but noy much advice on what is good - perhaps there bis nothing!

Cake is an excellent food to eat while breastfeeding a newborn.

Totally normal, she's so new she doesn't know up from down yet let alone day from night! Congratulations

Chocolate, cake, and treats are all good (unless it turns out you've got one like mine who reacts to caffeine but that's fairly rare!) as are fruit, vegetables and oats which can help your milk supply. Especially in the form of flapjacks

Totally normal. Hard, but normal. OH and I slept in shifts until DS was around 10 days old-ish as he wouldn't settle anywhere except in our arms and I really couldn't co-sleep as I was terrified of it (next time I'll just bring baby in with me!). By 2 weeks old he was settling in his moses basket for up up a 2 hours stretch.

I don't really think the foods you eat will dramatically affect your milk- just have what you fancy. My DS was born just before Christmas so I ate LOADS of chocolate and Christmas cake!

Far safer to bedshare on purpose than by accident.

Co sleep co sleep co sleep! You can make your bed safe for your baby, just keep her away from the pillow and use a sheet and blanket if you need it rather than a duvet. There is a great - very biased - article on co sleeping here which I found helpful. co-sleeping.

You're lucky that the weather is so nice, I co slept with my first baby in the middle of winter and was going to bed in three jumpers just to stay warm.

My dd2 is 4 weeks old now and is sleeping in her bednest just fine (6 hour stretch last night!), but we co slept for the first 10 days or so. I find it a bit stressful too, especially with the current guidelines being so anti co sleeping, but it makes all the difference to the amount of sleep you'll get.

If you do want her to sleep in her crib, have you tried swaddling her? SwaddlePods are excellent, I've found them much easier to use than other swaddling blankets.

If you think she struggles with wind then some people find Infacol given before every feed helps.

But you're probably not going to get a nice long sleep at night for a while yet unfortunately. When they say babies feed every 2-3 hours, it was a total shock when I realised that meant around the clock!

Teenage it is not always a question of just making the bed safe. There are some medical conditions which need to be ruled out on the parents' part, for example.

It's not a case always of just 'wanting' to use a crib.

Having emailed LLL on this matter, sadly I got utterly fobbed off... everyone should breast feed (and by default co-sleep) it seems, unless it's not safe... in which case they have no advice whatsoever to give about solutions. :(

If co-sleeping isn't for you (for preference or necessity) then there are lots of other things you can do to help her settle. Have you tried:

• waiting at least 20 minutes after a feed so that she is in a deep 'limp limbed' sleep?
• swaddling her tightly before the feed so she doesn't notice the movement from your arms as much?
• combining either of the above with warming the crib with a water bottle, using a swaddle cloth/muslin/blanket you have slept with and smells of you
• keeping your hand on her tummy for a good while after you put her down.
• Stopping to wind her part way through the feed? All of mine take/took in most air at the start, so you could feed part, wind and then feed to sleep.

Worth a go?

ps. Although he is very pro-co-sleeping, Dr Sears has lots of other tips for getting a baby to sleep IIRC. He had a big section in his baby book about how you don't want the mother to 'burn out' by being the only one who can settle the baby.

That's very interesting Madrigals as the email volunteer's reply basically said it was 'preferable' to co-sleep as it might impact on BF if I didn't but there were 'solutions out there'. How odd.

Co-sleeping sometimes means sharing a room doesn't it, as opposed to bed-sharing?

It took a few weeks for my ds to settle at night, and we did end up bed sharing for a bit as it is the only way i got any rest.

Reading about the 'fourth trimester' theory really helped me to understand the newborn stage, and not stress about routines, forming bad habits etc.

Could you get a co-sleeping crib? I hired a bednest from the NCT (£100 for 6 months inc new mattress) and it was a lifesaver at night. It was far easier moving baby sideways into the bednest than picking up and putting into a Moses basket - I found that the downwards movement often triggered the startle reflex which would jolt baby awake. You don't sleep right next to your baby, which alleviated my worries about rolling onto them, but you can out a hand on them and look straight at them.

You guys r amazing thanks so much for all the tops!!!

The Ikea £15 cot can be cable tied to some types of bed if you need a cheap option - I have one, didn't use it for that but it is fairly stable with the side off (I tried it for ds to see if he was ready. He wasn't!) Think it's called Sniglar?

Also my ds settled more easily when i got Ewan the Dream Sheep (essentially white noise on a timer)

Great tip Purple! Slightly disappointed Ikea products don't accidentally have rude names anymore though

We're still using Ewan at 20months Chaby I had to go and buy a new one, the first one got totally trashed! Shame he's not washable

squizita :o