Very unsettled baby

[Staceyrhe]

To ask

Hi,
We are currently having an extremely difficult time with our newborn. She's just over 2 weeks old and she's our second baby. Currently we are getting about 3 hours sleep at night and it's making us exhausted.

From the evening to the morning, each feed Is lasting close to 2 hours. In the day she's perfect but in the evening/night she turns into a different baby.

She is bottle fed, and if I leave her to drink the whole bottle, she will drink it all in about 20/30 min. After that she just complains for over an hour. It's not hunger and I doubt it's wind as I'm winding her for the entire 2 hours (she does suffer from wind but only to a point). She's not being sick or has any other medical condition that I know of.

She doesn't always cry. She just squirms like it's wind or gas, but doesn't bring anything up. She seems uncomfortable and then does random screams, crying for a bit then back to squirming.

I want to try anything I can before I give up and say "oh it's just a baby", or "oh it's just colic". I have tried feeding a bit, then wind, then a bit more etc, but it doesn't make a difference. We have tried cuddling to sleep (doesn't help), various cots and Moses basket inserts. We are using infacol, dr brown bottles. Nothing helps.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Could it just be wind/gas that we just have to put up with? Could it be reflux without being sick? Or should we see a doctor?

Poor you :( :(

Sounds like you have been through a long list of things to try, but none of them can have been tried many times as she is only two weeks :) Is there anything you suspect might have an effect if you tried it consistently, over, say, three nights, before you are sure it does not work? Infacol, for instance, seems to only work after a time, so it might be worth trying this again, or a product like Colief might be helpful. Neither Infacol or Colief has much proper evidence to show it works, but it's safe to say that individual parents have found both helpful - it's just not in the research!

The other thing you might try is just to see if putting your baby to your breast helps. You are not breastfeeding, but being at the breast can be comforting for babies and even if there is no milk and the baby is not actually transferring milk. the act of sucking at the breast can be soothing....would you feel comfortable with this?

Hope things improve soon. It's not a bad idea to discuss with HV and GP anyway.

Sorry you are having a tough time. I have a 5 week old who will only fall asleep in a sling. Have you tried that? Have you tried different formulas?