Hungry all the time!!!!

[ames]

I'm looking for any advice anyones got. My baby is 10 weeks old. Bf was going well apart from all usual (sore boobs, milk squirting everywhere) and she was really contented but 4 last week she has been crying non stop between feeds.Shes gaining weight and is healthy but unhappy. Wont let me put her down for a second and cat naps for 10 mins every so often in the day, going three hours at night. What am I doing wrong?

I am sure you are not doing anything wrong... How often are you feeding her ? Are you sure you have enough milk ?
Could she be teething - not very common before 6 months but as some threads said last week it happens !
Did she use to sleep for longer before ? Has her whole feeding and sleeping pattern changed ?

ames this sounds familiar. i have done this 4 times now. Make sure you rest and dont expect to much of yourself, concentrate on fulfilling her feeding requirements and hopefully she will start to have longer breaks again soon.
good luck

ames, this takes me back to when my eldest dd was that age. Afraid I don't really have many handy hints, just repeat 'this too shall pass' when it gets hairy. Also, do you think your baby might have colic? You mention milk squirting - there is something called oversupply colic, when the baby gets too much lactose-rich foremilk (which can cause gas) and it shoots out so fast they swallow lots of air whilst feeding. My dd had this and it caused her green, slimy stools and lots of wind (sounds pleasant huh? ). A way of coping with it would be to not switch breasts too often (i.e. only every four hours or so) so the baby gets the hindmilk and expressing a bit before a feed to get rid of a bit of excess foremilk.
And remember - it really does get better and easier, usually at 3-4 months. Cut yourself some slack and try to take it easy. Maybe your dd is just gowing through a growth spurt + grouchy phase and it'll all be fine again in a week or so?
Good luck.

If you feel you have tried everything an dyour baby remains unsettled try a cranial oesteopath that specialises with babies. I have several friends whose babies cried for no apparent reason day and night and cranial oesteopathy worked wonders! Take care of yourself too, a crying baby is immensley difficult to deal with.

Like 2under2, i was going to suggest it could be a growth spurt, esp if she seems to want feeding again a short time after she's fed. I had something similar with my ds and it did pass, it did really. But also echo other advice to take care of yourself - non-stop crying baby is very wearing. Try abandoning all other commitments (if any!) and devote yourself totally to her for a few days (if this is possible, ie if you have no other children) and see if you can achieve a more workable pattern. Sure you're not doing anything wrong - trouble is with babies, they never seem to have read the book telling them what they should be doing!

This sounds a bit familiar to me, too. My girl had a similar phase - was constantly snacking, and then grizzling and unsettled. I concentrated on making sure she had quality feeds and made her wait a bit until the next one. This seemed to work and we decided that she was getting windy from the build-up of little feeds, and also over tired from not having proper naps. As everyone else says these phases do pass, but they do seem to go on for ever when you're stuck in the middle of one! Good luck.

Hi there
It's horrible, isn't it, when they cry all the time? Really wearing and upsetting. Can you get anyone to relieve you for a couple of hours? The thing is, you aren't doing anything wrong. My son also started wailing all the time, hated being put down and wouldn't entertain himself at all. I used to call my husband at work and cry that I must be doing something wrong and was a bad mother. Looking back, I agree with Frankie - I suspect I was feeding too little, too often (though I know how awful it is when they're crying and only feeding seems to calm them). To help space out feeds I used a dummy (to which he is now addicted!) and went for long walks with him in the pushchair or, even better, his Babybjorn, which he loved. He dozed, I went round the shops. I also found car rides made him calm down and go to sleep. That way he zonked out for a bit (sometimes hours! Yippee!). After a short drive I even got some nice quiet times in cafes drinking coffee, eating cake and reading the papers. Key tip: don't try to stop her crying before you leave the house, just bundle her up and throw her in the pram or car seat and get out ASAP before you go mad. She'll probably calm down very quickly when she gets a bit of fresh air and motion. That's my only advice really, apart from to say the crying does get better. My son is now six months and extremely jolly by day - eats loads, hardly ever cries, has a smile for everyone, loves his doorway bouncer and being thrown in the air, storybooks and being cuddled. BUT he still hates being put down and he doesn't sleep at night, so just as one problem passes, another arrives. Hey ho. It's a bugger, isn't it?
Good luck.

Ames - just to say I went thru exactly the same, about the same time. Dd was having a growth spurt i think, and I just went with the flow, tho' it was knackering and I found myself constantly questioning my milk supply/quality. It seemed to improve after a couple of weeks, when my body had caught up with the demand. One tip - don't top up with formula. If she is gaining weight she doesn't need it, and it probably won't be the cure-all it can be perceived to be. I only mention this, because when i was going thru it, every relative i have suggested a bottle - they couldn't understand this demand was 'normal'. All the women in my baby group began top ups with formula around this time, and within a few weeks all were just bottle feeding. Unless she gets the constant stimulation at the breast, your body will never learn to make extra milk. Your supply will stay the same - suited for a 10 wk old baby. As she grows so will her demand, which will be met with the formula. Good luck!

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Ames, perhaps she is having a growth spurt and also perhaps she's over tired ? My ds used to do the same thing. She didn't cry all the time but a lot in the first 12 weeks. Two problems I had - plenty of milk but quality wasn't good enough ( I breasfed for 3 months but had to stop because she simply wasn't getting enough) and then the other was that she was teething from 6 weeks ! Oh and the other major problem was she used to get over tired and I didn't realise it. She would only ever go 3 or 4 hours in the night without a feed but was only snacking so I think it was for comfort. She stopped this at 4 months.

Re the over tired thing, the doctors said she had colic. At 6.30 every night and sometimes during the day she would just scream for half an hour or more solidly. Whatever I did didn't soothe her. Then we realised at about 8 weeks that she was simply over tired and couldn't tell us (she didn't used to rub her eyes then or give any signs) so we were jigging her around, trying to stop her crying etc etc and she was getting more and more overstimulated and just wanted to be put down for a quiet nap. We had to teach her how to wind down and go to sleep.

Ames, don't forget that at only 10 weeks your baby still wants lots of contact with you and it is only natural that she(sorry I've forgotten if she's a she or he) would get upset at being put down. I wish someone had told me this. I use a sling now but it wasn't much good for a new baby, I saw someone out with one which was and they said it was a BetterBaby sling. I also agree with the person who said about keep breastfeeding - you could try doing longer feeds but I know how difficult this is, my dd snacked constantly for months and she's huge! I wish you a lot of luck and hope you can carry your baby to smiles again!

This is going to be contraversial but my 2 daughters were both hungry for "real" food at that age! When I had No. 1 it was normal to give solids at 12 weeks so as soon as she hit the dissatisfied with milk stage, I gave her purees (mainly fruit and veg)with some starch. This was at approx. 10/11 weeks. By the time I had No.2 it was and I presume still is advised not to give solids till 16 weeks. Again mine was "starving" for real food by 10 weeks and I gave it to her. Neither of my daughters had any digestive problems and far from the staring with one or two spoonfuls, it was more like one or two bowls immediately.

Hi Ames, this crying phase will stop as quickly as it started. It my well have nothing to do with feeding but perhaps as said earlier your baby just does not want to be away from you. Your breastfeeding at 10 weeks is well and truly established so try not to autimatically assume that that is the problem. Try even just putting her down for a sleep in the pram with some rocking motion.
10-12 weeks is often a crucial time for babies and mothers prematurely reach for the solids.

Cam, I am glad to you are happy with how you fed your babies but solids are definately not recommended before 16weeks. This is not just because of immature digestive systems but early solids increases the risk of developing eczema and asthma and can also result in overweight babies. Totally breastfed babies can be pretty fat but that drops off pretty rapidly as they get more mobile.
Breastfed babies infact do not need solids prior to 6 months if you can possibly manage it. If you haven't already got it I would recommend 'Breast is Best' by Andrew and Penny Stanway. This will give you all the information you need. I became more confident with each baby I breastfed and that book was my bible. The earliest I started solids was 20 weeks and my last dd 9 4th child) was 6 months before starting. She would spend a few days feeding frequently then would settle between feeds again as my milk supply increased to match her demands.

At night do you take the baby into bed with you? I just attached the baby to one breast and went back to sleep. Invariably I would wake with a comatose baby beside me. I then slid them gently back into their cot mainly because I would get a crick in my neck if they stayed in bed all night!

Keep with it. You are not doing anything wrong. Have confidence in yourself and you and your baby will both be more relaxed.

I agree that it isn't necessarily hunger that is making her cry - so please don't think you have to give formula or give up b/feeding. As I said, my breastfed son went through a very cry-y phase and I fed him every time he cried (I'm still breastfeeding and he is wonderfully fat so I obviously had enough milk!) but when I did get him to sleep (car or pushchair or sling) he could easily go three hours before he woke up hungry, which made me think he was crying for other reasons - usually tiredness or wanting to be cuddled or rocked. I discovered that a tiny baby gets tired after two hours max of being awake, and needs help to go to sleep then. Also, he liked motion and fresh air, which did stop him crying and gave me some much-needed, sanity-saving freedom. By the way, he even slept through last night, so as others have said, every phase eventually comes to an end (or at least, changes a bit).

Thanx to all who posted for the advice and the reminder that I'm not the only one. Good news anyway i tried a lot of the things you suggested and i stuck with bf when all around me were saying to give her a bottle 'that way you'll know how much shes getting' and shes back to the contented baby she was. I've even got time to post a this message. I'm even getting proper smiles and a few ooooos and ahhhhhs. So she doesn't hate me after all!!!!! Thanx again!

Hi there,
I am new to all of this. Am the mother of a 12 week old little boy and am breastfeeding. He will feed very frequently during the day,and sleeps very well at night time. He was sick at 4 weeks and had to have an operation on his Pyloric, since then having persevered with Breastfeeding he is a little slow to gain weight, he is gaining but very slowly, is there any great ideas which I could try out? he does not like being put down out of my arms during the day either, and of course my mother says that he is just getting spoilt as he likes to have people chatting to him and gets upset when left on his own??
am I doing something wrong ?? I mean about the slow to gain weight? maybe he is just not going to be a big chap as neither my husband or I are? he is very long and seems to be a placid little chap.
I think this site is great I have spent hours reading the advice while breastfeeding too!

mcm, you can call any of the bf telephone helplines, who I think will reassure you. If your little boy sleeps well at night, then he more or less has to feed often in the day simply to get his calories in!!

It is normal for babies to want cuddles and comfort between feeds, and to want to communicate with you and with others. That's how they learn, and responding to this is not to spoil them in any way at all. You might expect this need to be even greater in a baby who has been poorly, and who has had surgery.

In time, he will take pleasure from a wider range of things and people, and be able to be entertained, and entertain, in a growing number of things.

But it is normal for human beings to prefer social and loving contact to being on their own. A young baby is not that good at entertaining himself, anyway. All this is also affected by personality, and it is good to be sociable and chatty in this life! Why do we think it a nuisance or a sign of bad behaviour in a baby???!!

Your baby is lucky to have a mum who is able to respond to him and understand his need for contact.

It'll help you to meet other mothers and fathers, so you can have some adult company at the same time as caring for your baby. He'll probably enjoy it too.

BTW, NCT bf line is 0870 444 8708.

mcm- if your ds has had pyloric stenosis he will gain weight slowly, as he'll be replenishing the energy reserves that he relied on when he was so sick. If he is gaining at all, you're doing fine, and things will improve. My dd was "clingy" too for most of my 18 week mat. leave. At some point she "woke up" and started to take an interest in the world, and I found her much easier to put down. I distinctly remember dancing my way round the kitchen, trying to get dh's dinner and put some washing in the machine. Dd was in the bouncy chair, and would only stop crying if I danced!! BTW, her favourite tune was, and still is, Nellie the Elephant! Don't worry, it gets better!

Thank you both for such reassurance!
I feel much better and more willing to carry on with the b/f. he has gastric reflux too but finally that seems to be settling a little too, he has been on infant gaviscon for several weeks too (prescribed by the Dr.) and I find it easier to get him to take it in expressed milk.I guess with that going on he is luck to be gaining wgt at all?? He would be far worse I think with f/f??Thanks again.

mcm, my ds had pyloric stenosis at 4 weeks too and took a few months to get back onto his birthweight curve (can't remember exactly how long now). Now he is a strapping five year old. I'm also a firm believer that you can't 'spoil' a baby under about 6 months. If your ds is only 12 weeks cuddle him like crazy, especially if he is your first, as you won't have nearly the same opportunity with subsequent babies!