Help :( Crying 3 week old- what shall I do?!

[GemmaReeto]

Hi,

After some advice on how you would deal with my situation. My little girl is 3 weeks old. Each night around 11ish after her feed she will be wide awake for about half an hour and she will just be nosing about in her bouncer chair or lying on one of us but then she will start crying and no matter whether we pick her up, put her down, sit her on her bouncer or put her down in her moses basket and rock her she will continue to cry on and off every few minutes for around an hour/hour and a half. She's fed, winded, clean but nothing we do stops her.
Is this just over tiredness? Usually by 1am she will be hungry again and we will give her another feed and she'll drop off shortly after that, its just I hate seeing her crying and not knowing what to do??? Really stressing me out :(

What would you do and is this normal for babies to do this? Im a first time Mum x

Are you breast or bottle feeding?

Do you get her up at 11 or could you cuddle up in bed with her?

Im bottle feeding. 11pm is usually the time she wakes up for a feed, in an ideal world we would give her this feed and then settle her and get off to bed. We keep the room dark and try to keep our voices low to try to learn her the difference between day and night eventually. Most other times of the day she will fall asleep straight after her feed or even if she doesnt she will just sit in her chair looking around or with us and fall asleep quite happily after so long. Its just these couple of hours between 11 and 1 that are a problem and she crys. I've tried just letting her cry it out to see if she will tire herself out but she goes on for ages x

Have you got a sling? Try a really close sling (Moby wrap, wilkinet, Close sling or similar) - Godsend at these times.

Thanks for the advice ladies. I havent got a sling no, could probably do with one because shes been crying on and off all afternoon, again shes been fed, winded etc, havent got a thing done all day...suppose Im just finding this whole newborn stage harder than I ever imagined. The constant crying when Im not holding her or even when I am sometimes is just draining me :( Does it really get better in the next few weeks, will it sort itself out?

It will get better I promise. I'm doing it again - on day 2 of DD (have a DS).

I found that DS needed more help getting back you sleep - so would turn lights off completely and have soothing white noise or whale noises on and hold him and rock. Could take a while but he'd go back to sleep. On occasion we'd take him in the sling for a walk.

I found holding DS most of the day (and night) for the first 6 weeks kept crying to a min - I didn't bother to tryand do too much just learn to read him.

Yes, it really will. My DD could never be settled at night but then around 6 to 8 weeks it all got a bit better day by day.

Keep her close and cuddle her lots and you'll be fine. Sometimes you have to just leave her to cry while you go to the loo or have a shower. It's difficult but she'll be fine and you need to do these things for your own sanity! I remember crazy days when I'd be getting dressed at 5pm.

If you have family close by, ask them to help because it is hard work at first but I promise it will get better soon.

Close sling and a dummy were brilliant for DS at this stage (for about the first 8 months actually!).

You need a sling. Honestly. Get one tomorrow. :)

Don't don't don't worry - they do cry quite a bit in the early days. As long as its not persistent and it's lowish grizzle crying (as opposed to screaming), it's nothing to worry about...just a combo of them being small, new to the world, usually a bit sleepy most of the time and confused. Carrying her next to you (and with the soft slings you can lie back/lie on your side and just loosen her away from you), dummy, a gentle swaddle, rubbing her back, getting DH to walk her up and down on his shoulder, white noise, give her your finger to suck. Good luck.

Sounds like mine when colic kicked in I'm afraid. He would be fine then inconsoliable crying that is so hard to hear. It was hard to get his attention and stop. Had to cuddle, walk around, sing to quiet music. Once he calmed he would want food and after couple of mouthfuls it started again. The only things we found to help after much experimenting are a warm bath and gripe water. Tried Coleif and Infacol with no results as needs doing with EVERY feed and that is really hard at night. Gripe water is 6x in 24 hours and he farts like a trooper after it which helps him (awful for me while feeding him though) Sometimes he wanted cuddling but other times laying him on his back and playing with his legs helped better. If your LO has a dummy that will help (my LO hates them) Really hope it passes quickly for you. We are nearly at 3 month mark and it is easing off now. Good Luck and don't feel bad if you end up in tears too as it is hreatbreaking to hear when you are really tired to.

It does get better. Ds is 10 weeks and generally sleeps well at night (block of 4 to 5 hours sleep) although he does need to have slept enough during the day, otherwise in the evening he is really grumpy and can't go to sleep even if he has been awake for hours.

I clock watch a try to make sure he is never awake more than 2 hours. Sometimes he is yawning after an hour of being awake so I try to get him to sleep.

A sling is invaluable - one of the material ones so the baby is really comfy and close to you. DS usuallly relaxes within a minute of being put in the sling, and often dozes off, or at least stops crying!

Babies need to be held - they like being close to you. Although it is very demoralising when you're holding them and they don't stop screaming. You will get through this - good luck.

My daughter was the same. All I can say is it is normal and it will get better I remember thinking "gosh, its a miracle that more babies aren't thrown out of windows!"

My daughter is now 8 months old and the cheeriest little thing around. But she screamed every night for about a month, when she was little.

I agree that a sling is probably a lifesaver. Also, we used Infacol which might have helped - hard to know if it helped or if she grew out of it.

If you have a partner, make sure that you take turns. If you're feeling really frazzled, give your baby to your partner while you take a quick walk around the block to clear your head. It is hard not to argue with your partner when your baby is going mental but try your hardest to be nice to each other. Once the baby has settled, apologise for all the snappy remarks you made :)

Good luck. You'll get there!! And it'll be worth it x

Congratulations on your new baby. Another one saying 'this is so normal'. The first months were so much harder than I'd ever anticipated and it's a miracle we didn't try to sell ds on the ebay (we'd obviously have had to lie to shift him) but somewhere we held onto the vague hope things would get better. And they did, eventually. I honestly think it's too early to expect any degree of predictability in your baby's behaviour and there may be no reason for the crying.

Ds seemed to have tummy pain almost from the outset. By a process of elimination, we found that rubbing his tummy gently in circles helped (can't remember if it was clockwise or anticlockwise). I always used to get indigestion and I have subsequently tried this on myself and it works for me too. Ds also almost never burped, but putting him to my shoulder and walking down stairs briskly sometimes shifted a bit of wind which helped.

And I agree with PipX3. Dh and I spent most of our first year competing in the tiredness olympics. Our mutual resentment could have powered the National Grid and we actually quite like each other normally. Difficult times but this is a good place to come for a boost when needed.

Totally normal. We found 'white noise' helped - you can get CDs of it if you are truly desperate . We were even driven to taking our first baby out for late night drives (totally sent him off to la la land). I would also check your baby is definitely full of milk (sorry if that sounds patronising, you probably have ).

It will settle down. My first child stopped the witching hour madness at about 7/8 weeks.

Thanks so much ladies for all your experiences and advice. Im just so glad to know its normal and that it will get better. You are right, its just so unpredictable. Im one of those people in life who requires instructions for everything and likes organisation. I suppose with a baby there is no instruction booklet, they are all different and its trial and error and thats what gets to me! I just never realised how hard it would be...I knew it would be hard but no-one tells you exactly what newborns are like. Infact most people told me its easy, they just sleep, eat and poo! I would love to slap those people right now!

I do think she struggles with wind sometimes, often we really struggle to get any wind up from her, even with the infacol, it doesnt seem to make much difference.

Pip, your comment made me laugh as me and my OH have said numerous times we are ready to throw her out of the window! (obviously joking!)

Luckily me and OH have managed to keep our cool with each other up to yet!

Thanks again for taking the time to reassure me :)

Nothing to add, except that all of this is great advice and I really wish I'd known about Mumsnet when I had my first 5 years ago.

Best of luck OP, and Mumsnetters, you are wonderful and wise!

As everyone else says but you could also try tummy massagae. Up and around the way the intestine goes and doing little bicycling motions with their feet whilst singing I want to ride my bicylce and also gently pushing to knees up to the tummy. A bit of that usually helps them get their wind out! Out rather than up IYKWIM!