My baby is completely different to other babies....

[Pennybrown86]

I have posted about my LG once before so apologies. I'm not really looking for advice, just support and maybe hope....

She is 10.5 weeks old, delivered by forceps and formula fed. We had a traumatic time with breastfeeding and despite a significant level of support, she just wouldn't do it. Since she was about 10 days old she has been very different to other babies.

She is incredibly alert and active but extremely unsettled. Even when she was 10 days old there would be hours and hours where she would be awake and crying and just wouldn't settle to sleep (worse in the day). She used to settle in the pram but not any more so i don't really go out with her as she is so incredibly loud, she screams instead of crying and it is ear piercing.

I now have longer stretches where she is happy, kicking around on her playmat but she will go from smiling to screaming within seconds and she often becomes inconsolable. I can now get her to take naps in the day but it involves either holding her or with her in the sling and walking up and down the hallway for about 20mins and she will only ever nap for 40mins at a time and I can't put her down. She often takes over an hour to get to sleep at night, she used to sleep for long stretches but she now wakes frequently and I often end up putting her in the bed next to me to get her to sleep.

She is incredibly sensitive, she screamed the house down at 5am when my husband sneezed this morning!

I have lots of friends with babies and my LG is so utterly different to theirs. I wouldn't wish for a different baby, but people keep telling me that things will get easier but they haven't at all.

Apologies for the long post - does this sound ANYTHING like anyone's baby? Did anyone have a baby like this and things actually did get easier?

I struggled to get out of the house even to the local shops because I was worried what people would think of all the crying. It wasn't helped by the lady working the till in Tesco Express who asked whether I'd "tried feeding her?" 😬 Wow, what a revelation. No, I hadn't tried that. Thanks very much...

Most babies are not like this, ds2 was a dream compared to ds1.

It really is finding a way of coping until they can independently move in my experience. Lots long walks in the buggy, mine were not laid flat, and were in the car seat of a travel system, which I know is not recommended these days, luckily I didn't know any better.

Nights are hell, an hour of sleep and then an hour trying to get him back to sleep. I was young when I had him and luckily for me I didn't know how easy some babies were!

You might have a high needs baby or a 'hates being a baby' baby OR you might have a totally standard baby who has got horribly overtired. You won't know which till you sort out the overtiredness (which sounds like it is 90% of what's wrong here).

I diagnosed DD as 'high needs' or 'reflux baby' at about this age (and got very depressed about it) but as I said before, it turned out she just had tt and was chronically overtired. Once those were sorted she was like all those happy nct babies (though always prone to overtiredness/sleep resistance but never as bad as in the first 3 months)

I have to agree with PP, to my mind it isn't 'normal' (sorry I don't mean it's abnormal, just that every baby isn't like this). But I'd have felt soooooo much better to read comments like these when my DS was doing this.

In all honesty it took until he was about a year before he got 'easy' (for him), but by that stage I had so many coping strategies that my friends whose easy babies were 'playing up' we're having a comparative nightmare (so you will be able to gloat in a few more months).

But yes i definitely think address the daytime sleeping asap by whatever means it takes. Then hopefully nights should slightly improve (along with your mood!)

Hang in their, they're little shits at times but the good days are ahead!!

Totally agree with luckystar - the benefit of a hard work newborn is that you will find an older baby who a breeze by comparison - whereas your 'easy newborn' friends will be bewailing how difficult it is now they are dropping naps/mobile etc

Just by way of an example... One of my friends who has literally the most placid DC ever, was moaning one day about how cross she had been that her DC had thrown some of her lunch in the floor for the first time ever... They were 16 months old at this stage!!! DS had been throwing food for 10 months by that stage (although actually had largely stopped and had fairly decent table manners), I mean, if she thought that was hard work, she's absolutely fucked in the long run!!

I really hope believe that difficult babies and toddlers become easy teenagers. Tis only fair.

Sounds like my DS, he was allergic to dairy, eggs, nuts and legumes.

I am afraid I have no solution to offer but can only send my thoughts and sympathy to you. My 12-week-old baby is exactly the same. I have found she has got marginally better recently so there may be hope... She's still very very demanding and I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like if not for my husband's help and support (not sure if that's your case. It's just a generic comment really). I have however found it helpful to just 'accept' that my baby was high needs and that there was no point fighting it and training her to be like other babies - this is simply not going to happen, and I (we?)'ll just have to be patient. Best of luck to you x

Massive sympathies.

DS1(13) was like this - we still went on to have 3 more

Apart from everything else suggested here, I recommend The Fussy Baby Book by Dr Sears - save my sanity.

Fwiw a HV said to me that the unsettled ones are often the clever ones and OMG DS1 is. Should he not become a brain surgeon or rocket scientist I want my money back though!

It does get better.
Do whatever you have to do to survive.
Accept help or, even better, actively seek it out.
Give people specific jobs to do.
It does get better.

I subscribe to the unsettled= clever But they seem to know their own minds as well. DS just doesn't care what anyone else thinks or what everyone else is doing. He has got miles and miles of capacity, but singular, self determined, motivations... He lives in DS land.

DS1 was like this too. He was completely draining. I went back to work at 13 weeks for a break!
Now 13 he's a very bright lad and doing well. Still very vocal though!

Many people have suggested over tiredness. I LITERALLY spend my whole life either feeding her, changing her and getting her to sleep, the latter being 90% of the time - THIS IS NO EXAGERATION. If I could get her to sleep more I would. We got 2 hours sleep last night, she was awake the rest of the night, mega grumpy today as a result but naps are still a HUGE battle. I am at a complete loss.

Unfortunately just because she won't sleep doesn't mean she isn't overtired. Sometimes the buggers just refuse it.

Been there OP.

Sounds exactly like my DS who had silent reflux, and allergies to dairy, egg and wheat.

Is it definitely worth trying reflux medication.

Just as a thought and I may be completely wrong on this one... Lots of mums sound like they already have a good routine (for eg., wake up at 7am, naps at 9am, etc...) but having a high needs baby I find it impossible to have any routine as such (our routine is pretty much - day/night). I basically try and fit in a nap here and there but I don't worry too much about when and how it happens. So for example, a couple of hours ago I thought she should have a nap or would get overtirred but couldn't get her to sleep whatsoever (tried rocking her, white noise,etc) so I gave up and ended up playing with her on the playmat for a short while until I could tell she'd been entertained enough to 'accept' falling asleep. She is now fast asleep on my lap. Now 'good' parents reading this post will tell you this is all wrong: you shouldn't delay naps as overtirred babies are harder to settle, they shouldn't dictate when they should sleep, they shouldn't nap that late in the day and they shouldn't fall asleep, let alone sleep on your lap. I agree with all of those- unfortunately I haven't been able to do differently today and I reasoned that it'd be better to do that rather than her getting no sleep at all. I may live to regret it but this felt like the lesser of two evils to me, and I knew that in my case, insisting and trying to force her to sleep would only wind her up even more. Sometimes I find that it's pretty much a lot of trial and error until you work out what works for you. This is not something I plan to do forever but her being high needs, I find there are other more important things I need to sort out with her before having a perfect routine with a perfectly trained baby.

Completely agree with above, I also have a 12 week old who struggles to nap and nap times are all over the place - but we have enough on our hands to get too obsessed about routines. I get stressed when I know DS has missed his nap but sometimes you just need to go with the flow. You can try but you can't force a baby to sleep if he refuses. Also, if baby wakes, feeds then falls asleep again right away, do people really wake them up because the routine says baby should be awake and playing instead?

The single most useful thing I've learned is that babies don't tend to be able to happily stay awake for more than 2 hours or so. So I watch the clock like a hawk and try to help DS drop off at the right time. It's tricky because there aren't always cues. Sometimes he's not tired enough and fights, and sometimes he's too tired (and fights). A lot of the time he wakes up angry because he only had 15 minutes of sleep.

I just do whatever I can to give him his naps, including giving the boob all the time, using the sling, swaddle, walking him around on my shoulder etc. I know these are bad habits but I can't worry about that now. Sympathies to you it is bloody hard.

Thank you for your messages. We have moved her to her bigger cot now as I'm convinced she was waking herself up at night in the Moses basket. We are still up a lot in the night though. She is so incredibly challenging, getting her to nap is my main aim every day and I can do it but it takes ages and she only sleep for 40mins so isn't properly rested.

Featherstep and Ohlalala, it would be good to stay in touch and see if things develope with your little ones. It's sometimes worse knowing people with babies as you constantly compare yours to theirs (even when you try not to!).

It might make you feel a bit better to know that 30-40 minutes a nap is t too bad. It's the length of her sleep cycle so you can now start to try and prompt her to sleep through 2 sleep cycles.

You might like to try putting the white noise/womb noise on then. Don't make ANY noise around then that could rouse her (like sudden sounds etc). And perhaps a bit of gentle rocking or shush patting to tip her over.

Good luck, I have been there (and some days, like today, still am there!) but it does get easier and better. Although with children like ours I can't say it's ever going to be 'easy'!

My LO was pretty much the same. She is so alert and active! She hated being a helpless newborn.

Life improved 100% once she rolled over (at 4 months!) and got more mobile. She's also so much happier now she can sleep on her front.

Oh and don't worry she never napped longer than 30 mins! Like pp said most babies can only do 2 hours but mine was going for 3 happily at 3 months. Once I accepted that it was so much easier to get her to sleep. I also paid really close attention to the signs of her getting tired. Turns out she would rub her eyes if she was bored as well as sleepy so I was mistaking boredom for tiredness a lot at first and trying to put her down for naps when she just wanted to play!

OP yes, it'd be nice to know how you're getting on and update each other. I feel exactly the same, getting DS to nap is my task everyday... it is so incredibly tedious and I feel others will never know how hard a task it can be!

I don't think your baby is abnormal or that she has to have reflux, allergies etc to behave like that. (Not ruling them out of course.) I'm pretty sure my DS doesn't have those issues but he has been demanding and a right screamer from Day 1. He was the loudest in the postnatal ward and tortured us every day till about 8 weeks or so when the crying and fussiness decreased. I think it was mainly the trapped wind and now he has outgrown that issue. Everyone also says how alert he always is. I want to cry when I see all the other babies sleeping soundly in their prams in parks and shops - DS hates the pram, and even in the sling often takes the better part of an hour to fall asleep. He much prefers looking around.

I think we have babies that just hate missing out! I do agree, 30-40 mins isn't so bad... DS has about 2 of these a day, and if I'm lucky I get 1.5 -2 hours. That only ever happens in the sling. White noise does shit all, he prefers silence! I am sure you will come to learn your baby's preferences and what works. You know her best and both of you are still learning.

One thing I'd like to share is that I noticed how unsettled DS becomes every time we go out and mess with his home routine. He definitely prefers predictability and the safety of home and can't handle much stimulation and unknown situations, like going in a car or a restaurant. Which is really terrible for me and I feel a prisoner to his needs, hopefully gradually he will get used to me taking him out more. I guess they are still so young and everything outside the home is so alien and hard to handle. Is your little one like this?

Yep. DS 1 was exactly the same. Didn't enjoy mat leave at all til about 4 mths. Nothing worked until he was on Neocate. Nutramigen, ranitidine, gaviscon etc - zero effect. Took a consultant gastroenterologist to prescribe it though. 6 month he starting sleeping through 7-7 snd 11 months he was hoovering up dairy. No problem. Now nearly 2 and still highly strung but lovely and such fun. DS2 is the polar opposite thank the Lord! It will get easier. I'd see if Neocate helps though. Be insistent.

Oh, forgot to add - have you tried using a baby feed and sleep log? I am obsessed with my Baby Feed app and I find looking at the charts over a few days incredibly helpful to figure out DS's patterns. I confess I am a bit OCD but I time every feed and log the naps as well, so for example I have found that he consistently likes to nap around 10am and 4pm everyday. You may already know this in your head but seeing all the data on a screen really makes patterns clear.

Feather my DS was exactly like that. I honestly, didn't leave the house any day before 1pm for about 9 months (it was absolutely imperative that he had at least his final at home). It was awful and so, so demoralising.

That, thankfully has improved but we are still (and he's nearly 20 months) a slave to his naps and we have to be I. The house by 12.30 every day. It makes it impossible to do anything much.

What I find hardest now, is that on bad days (like today - he was up from 2-4am last night then up for the day at 5.45am and only napped for 1.5 hours) I can't but remember the hours and hours of screaming and torture to get him to a 'good' place and it really, really colours my thinking, and reactions which I hate myself for.

Sadly I think he's never going to be a great sleeper, with him it's always a matter of time before he slips back into either waking at night or really, really early in the morning after he has lured us into thinking (after a week of decent sleep) that we've finally nailed it.