Help! I feel like such a crap mum

[PrincessJenga]

LO is two weeks old. He's my first and I'm terrified I'm doing everything wrong. Can you wonderful MNers help?

He seemed really calm and placid when we first bought him home: took to breastfeeding straight away; happy to be held by nana, grandad and other visitors; loved cuddles with mum and dad... basically just adorable!

Over the last few days he's got really grumpy. He literally SCREAMED for about two hours before he'd sleep last night, and has SCREAMED for two two-hour periods today. Nothing seems to calm him (fed, winded, clean nappy, warm enough, cuddles, rocking...) and it makes me feel dreadful.

He also only sleeps if rocked or fed to sleep & all the books / health visitor / well-meaning friends seem to think this is A Bad Idea.

At night he is waking at least every two hours and won't settle until he's been fed (sometimes for 20 mins or so, but sometimes just for 5 minutes - more of a 'comfort' than a 'feed')

So, what am I doing wrong? How can i stop the screaming? How can I get him out of the habit of falling asleep at the breast or needing to be rocked? Do I need to cut down the night feeds? (If so, how? I just can't bear to hear him scream any more)

Thank you.

With reference to dummies I know some people are dead against but remember you can wean them off them (dummy fairy if they get that old), if your LO starts sucking fingers/thumb for comfort it's a lot harder to get them out of this habit later down the line. That was my argument to those that tried to argue my use of a dummy.

Hope things are better. Just take it one day at a time.

Oh yes, another vote for feeding lying down at night. You can doze right through! Lie on your side, lay DS next to you, plonk a boob into his mouth. Much less faff than trying to get comfy sitting up & trying to stay wide awake at 1am, 3am, 4:30am, etc etc

We had a dummy for DD - it was a mixed blessing, TBH. Great for getting her off to sleep, but a pain when she lost it at night. Having said that, it definitely served its purpose and she self-weaned at about 7 months....(but mainly because she decided it was far better to be latched on to the real thing - so that was the weaning I had to do.) Worth a try, anyway!

Yep, feeding lying down is a useful skill - I wish DD and I had got the hang of it earlier than we did!

And if you haven't checked out the link I posted upthread, definitely try Dr Karp's 5S technique for calming a crying baby. I used to be able to transform DD from a screaming melt-down monster into a sleeping angel within about three minutes using it. Like magic

I would agree that swaddling helped DD relax and calm down with a lot less rocking, was also advised by midwife that if a dummy would help her (me), to take it off her when she was 12 weeks as this was when her sucking reflex would naturally diminish.

Took dummy away at 12 weeks and there was barely a day of grumbling.

PJ he is so tiny and you are probably still a bit shell shocked and recovering from your cs. If cuddling, rocking and feeding to sleep works then I would go with it. My experience was that it was entirely normal to fed at least every two hours overnight, even after a four hour cluster feeding marathon in the evening. If bf calms him and stops him crying then I would bf at every peep from him!

I still feed G to sleep both for bedtime and naps, and feed on demand overnight, it's what works for us. It is not a problem for me, or him, or DP therefore it is not a problem for anyone else, nor is it a matter for them to comment on. He is a rubbish sleeper but the best thing I ever did was accept that he was a rubbish sleeper and work around it. Co-sleeping and learning to feed lying down saved me. Definitely try feeding lying down this weekend and see if both of you can have a nap. Get DP to keep an eye on you if you are worried about co-sleeping.

If he likes being held then try a sling? We have a sling meet where you can try out different ones, is there anything like that near you? Your local NCT might help.

I would have loved G to take a dummy but he refused, I would definitely give it a go.

I did express at ten days, against advice, but it was that or give up bf. It worked for us although expressing was such a bloody faff that I stopped shortly afterwards and went back to bf on demand.

Trust your instinct, you are not doing anything wrong! FB me if you want to chat. xx

Thank you ladies. We had a much better night last night. I tried the suggestion of just reaching out and putting my hand on LO's chest when he got restless and that worked out really well, he settled himself back down about half of the times he woke up and the other times he needed a change or had a good feed so i felt less like a 'dummy' and more like a 'mum'.

The midwife came to discharge us earlier, saw the screaming (sounds awful, but I was so pleased he did it while she was here so I didn't just sound like a panicky/pfb mum) and asked what I've been eating. She's advised me to cut out grapes and broccoli (so much for my five a day!) I'd never even considered that what I was eating would be causing him such problems, but the screaming definitely started after a broccoli heavy meal so it seems worth a try. Having a range of strategies is making me feel more in control.

I do lying down feeding last thing at night and for the first 'daylight' feeds in the morning, but tbh, I find it easier to sit up overnight as I tend to drift off when I do it (which I know is the point, but it makes me all groggy and confused!)

The sling doesn't work for me (possibly because of the cs?) but he loves being in it with DP (blatantly just a daddy's boy!)

I've put the dummy suggestion out there with DP in the hope that he will research it, decide it's a brilliant idea and convince himself he was never against it in the first place

Immaculada, I've just clicked the link and will watch it as soon as I've posted this. Thank you.

Thank you all again. You've made me feel so much more confident.

Wow, immaculada, that looks amazing. I'm almost hoping LO starts screaming so I can try it Thank you.

Let's hope it works, Princess! You may find you have to modify the technique a bit to find what works best for your DS, so don't be disheartened if you don't get instant results, sometimes you need to experiment a little with the position/rocking style etc.

Out of interest, what sling do you have? I had a cs too, but found using a wrap sling within two days of the operation was no problem - you have to make sure it's tight enough that the baby sits quite high up on your front - that way it shouldn't aggravate your wound.
Good news that your DP is happy to do some baby wearing! I found a wrap sling an absolute godsend for DD as a newborn. She would happily sleep in it leaving me with hands free to do what I wanted, within reason. Eventually I was able to BF her hands free too using the sling. Awesome things!

Good luck!

It worked! But... what do you do afterwards? As in, the swaddle, side, shhhh worked, but when I tried to put him down a few minutes later he started screaming again.

The sling is a close baby carrier Perhaps I'm just not doing it right. I'll get DP to check it (I tried it a few times while he was out so maybe it wasn't high enough)

It's all gone wrong again tonight though... we've had almost three hours of screaming so far. We're just taking it in turns and passing him between us when we can't cope any longer [wry smile] DP has started softly singing 'shut the fuck up, oh shut the fuck up' in a lovely nursery rhyme voice.

I'm 90% sure the screaming is wind-related. When I'm feeding he draws his knees in and goes rigid before the screaming starts. So, if anyone has any specific thoughts about alleviating wind i would really appreciate them!

Sounds like classic "colic"! Poor you.

You can help with wind by doing a gentle tummy massage at nappy changes. I used to do gentle but firmish circles on DD's tummy, cycle her legs, then bend her knees up to her chest and gently push. She would let out some incredibly satisfying farts. I would keep doing this until no more gas was being passed.
BF babies don't strictly need winding as bottle-fed babies do, but there's no harm in doing so in case he's taken in some air during the feed.

As for putting him down after the 5S, have you tried putting an unwashed smelly t-shirt or top of yours in the Moses basket (or whatever your using for him to sleep in) so it smells of you? That often works to keep them calm.
TBH I - like many other parents - resigned myself to having DD sleep on my chest for the first few weeks. I propped myself up with pillows and made sure everything was as safe and supported as possible. Not ideal, but it was the only way.

You may be interested in this - my own account of what I did when in a similar situation to yourself......

The Close is an ideal type of sling! Maybe try again with it when you're less sore and it's worth trying out the newborn hammock position or the face-to-chest position and seeing whether one is more comfortable for both of you than the other. Someone upthread mentioned a sling-meet and that's a great idea if you want to persevere.

But yes, the main thing that will ease the situation for you is time. It does feel like a long dark tunnel with no light at the end sometimes, but when I look back I can't believe how quickly that time has passed.

Had to smile at your DP's lullaby!

swaddling, walks under trees, slings.

have you tried cosleeping?

I used to lay my daughter tummy down on my arm and use the other hand to gently rub her tummy. She used to suffer terrible from rear end wind and it used to help.

Also, maybe it has to do with your milk supply. I had tons of milk, so at first the milk would come out so fast DD would choke and swallow LOTS of air. I started to manually express just a small amount of milk before feeding so that the milk came out slower while she was feeding. This helped too but I wish I'd figured it out earlier!

Have you looked into cranial osteopathy? My son woke every 1.5hrs for weeks on end, and cried non-stop most evenings. After one session he slept for seven hours straight and started taking longer naps. It's definitely worth a try and can't hurt.

You've had so much good advice from the posters above that the only thing I would reiterate is that it is perfectly normal for babies to become quite angelic when daddy walks through the door. Leaving daddy to think we have no mothering skills - until they find themselves in sole charge of baby + bottle of expressed milk for an hour. Then the screaming really starts. There are a couple of theories about this. Is half the crying about boredom, with daddy being a change of scene? Or is it that your baby is more bonded with you, so feels safer to express his true emotions in your company?

Enjoy the fact that your DP's techniques work so well, and, dare I say, flatter him that he must be an exceptional dad to work such miracles. Whatever it takes to get him to keep up the good work while you take a bath/get addicted to mumsnet/whatever.

Your baby sounds like a typical newborn.

Just a quick update (and another thank you!) I'm feeling much calmer and have stopped worrying about the night feeds / being used as a 'comforter' (because I'm his mum and I'm surely supposed to comfort him!) LO is back to his usual lovely, charming self during the night and day, but the evening screaming is continuing. Perhaps he just doesn't like X Factor?

We've bought some infacol (he hated being given that! Perhaps the orange taste after EBF was a bit surprising?!) and DP and I have got into a good system of 10-15 minutes each of trying to comfort him, then eventually putting him down to cry it out, but staying close and reassuring him by stroking him or talking to him, when we've checked he's clean/fed/winded etc. (DP did indeed think he was a genius, but now he's witnessed two nights of the screaming he believes me that I've tried everything! Tbf though, he is a brilliant dad so I can't complain at all about what he's been doing... just look out for my 'AIBU' thread in a year or so if LO's first word is 'fuck' after hearing all these 'lullabies')

We're going to give it another few days (until the bank hol is over) then take him to the docs early next week to see what advice she can offer. One of our NCT friends took her daughter to a cranial osteopath a few weeks ago, so we're getting contact details from her for that.

Thank you all again