What do I do with a crying baby?!

[wobblyweeble82]

DD is 6 weeks old She's a sweetie, a love and all that goes with. But lordy, can she cry!! Seriously. I go through the mental checklist of things that could be the issue - boob her, change her, wind her, chat to her, bob her under her play gym, take her out from her play gym, leave her be for while, see if she wants a sleep then start all over again and still often can't hush her up. And I haven't a clue what to do! She just seems an angry, unhappy little thing a lot of the time. She's not colicky either. This morning she cried for a good hour on and off and when I do finally pick her up (I was trying to get myself washed and dressed) she's all gummy grins and things! I don't know whether to just strap her in her sling and crack on with the day or let her realise that mummy can't hold her 24/7 as much as we'd both like to. I'm certain she's not poorly too. I already have a7yr old DS - you'd think I'd be good at this now

Sounds like a fab picnic

don't do guilt! :)

Now, for me, that there is the joy of a newborn. Those are not picnicing choices you could share with anyone else!

adair mine is the same, he's always played happily on his own, but in his ideal world, he would sleep latched on

OP what a lovely picnic :)

Sling sling sling. For the first 6ish weeks I thought I had the easiest baby in the world. She'd feed and then fall asleep. Ok the feeding was tricky at times, but she'd sleep so easily.

And then she woke up. And she was not impressed. I couldn't put her down, I couldn't get her to nap. She refused to even sleep in the pram. Would just stare at me for hours on end. I learnt how to use my stretchy wrap sling and we went for walks. Lots of walks. Every hour and a half I'd take her for a walk and she'd sleep. If she cried, I'd feed her, then take her for a walk. I ignored the "she can't possibly be hungry" comments and just went with the power of the boob.

She's 19 weeks now (how?) and I can now leave her playing on her playmat while I mumsnet wash up. She even sleeps in her pram now. One day she may even nap in her cot.

Every so often the phrase "rod for my own back" creeps into my head. But the sling works. And the boob works. So I keep going and trust that she knows what she's doing.

If she stops crying when you pick her up, then you just need to time showers etc for when she's asleep. I'm not one for slings to do the housework etc, I like to get the timing right and be baby free when they're asleep. Saying that I always held my babies a lot and would only allow crying to settle to sleep. If she's tired, let her sleep, but if she's not asleep after 10 mins of crying, don't let her cry any more.

I see stevie got there first, but my first thought was

"put her in the brig until she's sober"

Sorry. Not helpful at all.

My DS loves me to sing to him while he's strapped to me in his sling - vibrations seem to calm him down.

If you've got a smart phone you can get a white noise app which works amazingly with my 8 week old. It just calms her down while I cuddle her when she's got herself into a state. There's a good free one on Android which has a whole range of sounds which you can mix. My DD seems partial to a mixture of white noise and a heart beat.