Parents of Criers Support Thread - Respite from the Screaming!

[MeadowHay]

Hi! I've noticed there are frequently threads on here from new parents of babies who cry A LOT and who are feeling stressed/frustrated/depressed/lonely etc. So I thought I'd make this thread and maybe we can chat and help support one another? Before I had my baby, I knew babies cried, but I didn't know they could cry quite this much, for no apparent reason a lot of the time. And I don't think other people who haven't had a crier, understand what it is like to have a crier!

To introduce myself, my name is MeadowHay, I'm in my mid-twenties, I have one baby girl who is 4 months old. She is a delight...when she's not crying. But she is crying most of the time really. She is a pretty good night-time sleeper which is a Godsend as I need all the energy to cope with her constant day-time crying and she only has like 30 minute naps in the day.

I have just scoffed some wraps down my throat for lunch and can hear her waking up from her 30 minute nap so I better get over there asap before she starts to...you guessed it...cry!

Hi meadow!!

I’ve been meaning to post on this as I left Mumsnet but came back.

DD is 9 months now. Things are ‘easier’ in some ways for us too but still very very hard work. DD cries a lot but now in a way it is worse as she has tantrums a lot rather than crying for a physical reason.

If she doesn’t get her naps in she will still get hysterical and she can still basically do a newborn colic type cry!

The car seat is still a no go unless she’s tired so that’s very stressful. Although we have ordered a new one so maybe that will make a difference.

She is very hyperactive. She’s been crawling and pulling herself up since around 7 months and I mean it when I say she never stays still EVER. Not for a second. She won’t sit and relax like other babies seem to. Which is what I think causes the overtiredness. Getting her nappy changed or changing her clothes is so stressful it often reduces me to tears- not even giving her my car keys works anymore! She’ll often crawl off with poo all over her bum!

We have a settling session at nursery soon. I’m still on mat leave but will be putting her in a few mornings a week as I can’t cope with her and need a break!

Oh and she wakes up every 2-3 hours at night- yay! Luckily she is very cute sometimes and has a lovely smile now with 4 teeth.

How are you meadow?? And everyone else?? I hope you really have got some respite!

Also- how did your DD get on at nursery?? Did your return to work go well? My main worry is how nursery will get DD to nap as it’s mainly pram or car or feed to sleep ( I’m trying to avoid that where possible now though)

What kind of weaning are you doing? We do BLW (mainly because I can’t be bothered to feed her lol)- so DD just shared our meals which is going is well. Her favourites are roasted veg, pasta and stir fry noodles!

Hi Peony!

Nappy changing and clothes changing are major battles here too, we still change her on the changing table which limits her ability to escape but she has a dummy in her mouth for about 75% of the changes because as soon as you start to lay her down she gets hysterical and wriggles about everywhere/tries to sit up over and over again etc. We have a toy box next to the changing table so my routine atm is lay her down as quick as possible, give her her dummy which she puts in her mouth, then I get her a toy and if it distracts her then I take the dummy out, although sometimes she gets upset again and needs it back. Sigh.

We have tantrums too. But I find them easier to deal with than the old screaming because I can usually understand why she's having the tantrum and it's not so earsplittingly painful from an auditory perspective and neither is it really distressing to watch her as she doesn't seem super distressed just annoyed or whatever, iyswim.

Nursery is going ok, this is her fourth week. She is in Monday-Wednesday and I went back to work Monday-Thursday last week. DM has her on Thursdays. She is settling in well and bonding well with her keyworker. The main problem is that she got ill as soon as she started nursery and has been ill ever since! It was a cold that got a bit better but then got worse again and then turned into a chest infection which she's just finished antibiotics for, then got bacterial conjunctivitis in one eye which she's been on eye drops and now ointment for and just as she's finished the ointment course, she now has it in her other eye so has just started the ointment for that one!

Weaning we do a mixture of spoon-feeding purees and letting her self-feed. She's only just started to be able to actually eat proper solid food herself over the last few weeks and it's all still very hit and miss. She hardly ate anything all day at nursery today (but that's not like her, usually she eats much better there than at home, it's probably cos she's unwell), but then she had a big bowl of carrot and coriander soup for dinner and a bit of petit pain with marge that she fed herself. Also she hardly sleeps at nursery, even less than what she does at home. Often she only has two 30 minute naps in the whole day so when we collect her from nursery she is EXHAUSTED and a couple of times has refused to eat dinner or drink her milk before bed as she's been too tired so then woke in the night for a bottle which was grim. But they're making progress, today she had a nap for 1hr 10 after lunch and then a 30 minute late afternoon nap, the 1hr 10 is by far the longest nap she's had at nursery yet so she's making progress on that front! The nursery nurses have to rock and cuddle her to sleep with her dummy then transfer her to the cot but sometimes she does wake up on transfer.

Hello! Glad to read there has been some improvements, Peony and Meadow. Fingers crossed the new car seat makes a difference to your DD, Peony. My fella is ok for the most part in the car now, but I’ll never forget the horror and despair of the car journeys for the first five months, and I never take any journey for granted now. Meadow, glad your little one is settling in well at nursery. It’s so stressful getting them settled, but it’s good to get a little space for yourself as well.

We are doing ok here. I’m back to work at the end of the month so we’ve started our settling in too, only half days so far. It’s going better than expected, and he’s even napping there, which is great. He hasn’t been crying on drop off, but is usually crying or has been crying when I collect him. I feel the usual guilt at leaving him, and I do hate that he probably is scared and missing me. But at the same time, I need some space from him and I think it’s better for everyone.

He is eight months now, and still very unhappy most of the time. He’s stilll not crawling which I think is frustrating him but he just moans every time he is on the floor and doesn’t try to crawl so I don’t know how he’s going to learn. He’s basically not happy unless he’s being carried around and shown things, preferably outside. I literally cannot wait till he is mobile.

Weaning - he’s ok with solids now after a shaky start. We are doing traditional weaning, so some purées and some finger foods. But I do think the solids have upset his system a bit, especially at night. He sometimes seems to get terrible wind, writhing and screaming and going rigid until he farts, and then he settles down again. I’ve been back and forth to the gp with him, and we’ve a referral to a paed. gastro consultant but the appointment isn’t till July. So it’ll either resolve before then or it’ll be hell till then. Who knows.

Sleep - awful, awful. Wakes every hour at night, usually. Will only settle if he latches on and still prefers to sleep on top of me rather than beside me. My back is in bits from holding him upright at night. The only improvement is that I can usually manoeuvre away from him on the bed when he first goes down, so I have an hour in the evenings to eat dinner and watch tv with my husband. But I haven’t (and he hasn’t) had more than 3 hours sleep in a row since Christmas.

I’ve decided that I’m probably going to stop breastfeeding in May, after our holiday. And get a sleep consultant in. Either way, I cannot have him attached to me every 1.5 hours at night for much longer. It is soul destroying and makes me resent him.

Yikes, what an essay!! Hopefully I’ll be back in a few months with better news.

Hey bad. Sorry sleep isn''t going better! Sounds like you have some good ideas to try in the future though, I hope some of it helps.

DD is nearly 10 months and can't crawl or bum shuffle at all. I think she's more likely to bum shuffle than crawl at this point as she doesn't go on her tummy at all (if you put her on it she just rolls straight over onto her back). But I didn't crawl or bum shuffle at all so wouldn't be surprised if she skips it and just walks eventually. I don't think there's any signs of her becoming mobile any time soon at all, think we'll be waiting a good while yet! She has started eating better over the last two months it's been a gradual upwards trend with ups and downs. Last night she actually ate some small-ish pieces of pizza crust and a couple of bits of chips and a few peas. Like properly put them in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed it all. We were ! I know that lots of babies have been doing this for months now but she has only just started getting to grips with eating actual solid pieces so we are chuffed!

DD only has 1 tooth and it's not all the way through yet, when did you start teethbrushing? She also has the worst nappy rash she's ever had atm, she's had it for almost a week now and it's not getting any better, may need to take her to the GP on Monday as I'm concerned she might have an infection as it's just not clearing at all and it looks awful.

Although a hilarious thing happened today - we went to visit one of DH's family friends who had a baby 4 months ago but we never got around to going sooner for one reason or another, and DD fell asleep in her high chair after lunch, without her dummy, WTF?!?!? We were in shock! Took a photo as it will never happen again!

Is anyone from this thread still about on MN? How are you all getting on? I am feeling low today. DD has started tantrumming on top of her regular screaming. She has been particularly screamy today and DM had her yesterday and said she was awful as well. I think it might be teething and/or her being a bit unwell as her chest sounds quite bad (she may have asthma the GP & paed said, but too little to tell). I was just on a thread somewhere else with people calling parents of screamers "lazy parents", moaning about being able to hear screaming babies of their neighbours, and saying you should "train" them out of it and that it's the "fault" of their parents. This is what I was always terrified about when she was tiny and didn't want to take her anywhere. At now at 1 I feel like the judgement sounds like it will actually be worse, as people now say she is naughty, spoilt, etc - some of my family are already starting to say things like that about her.

@badb

@PerfectPeony2

@jinglet

Hi @MeadowHay. I'm so sorry you're still having such a difficult time and are feeling down. How is your daughter now?

As for me, well we still have good and bad days. He definitely screams less now but he seems to get angry and tantrum very quickly! I worry he's going to grow up to ge a bad tempered child :(

When I look back to how he used to be, I can see a huge improvement. However, I still feel like he is such a difficult baby compared to my friends who all seem to have such chilled out babies.

I'm still stuck in a feed to sleep cycle so I'm worried about how he will sleep once I am back at work.

I hope things improve for you soon xxx

Hi Meadow,

How are things going? Hopefully you've had good days and people are keeping their negative and inaccurate thoughts to themselves! I dread negative comments about my DD, she's now 9 months and I've already had things said but I'm managing to brush them off as she's still young. The crying is much less now, it was mainly caused by a milk allergy and she is on prescription formula. I can now take her places and good days are amazing but she can be very whiny and her crying is a high pitched scream which makes people stop and stare when we're out. She also seems to have a quick temper. My friends' babies seem so very laid back in comparison!

I wouldn't change her for the world but it can definitely be tough!

@MeadowHay, how are you? I'm sorry, I'm only seeing this now. Please don't take those comments to heart, though I know it's hard. People are such judgey arses, with no understanding of what it is like to have a highly strung child. I understand the reluctance to go anywhere with them - I've avoided most things myself, honestly. This weekend, I took my two to a friend's house for a brunch, and even though everyone there had kids I didn't really get to speak to anyone, because I had to hold DS in my arms and walk him around the room or he started kicking off. So what even is the point? But my three year old played beautifully with a few other little kids almost the whole time, so honestly, there is hope.

How is your little girl doing? Is she walking yet? DS is crawling and cruising, and can stand for thirty seconds or so, so I think (hope!) will walk in the next few weeks. He's definitely got happier since crawling, but he still prefers to be carried around and spends a good proportion of his time crawling after any adult and holding his hands up to be picked up, or actually climbing up our legs.

In terms of sleep, he is doing MUCH better, but we paid for a sleep consultant two months ago and night weaned and moved him into his own room. Expensive, but the best money we ever spent. Naps are still tricky, but he mostly sleeps all night now. There was a lot of crying, but there was a lot of crying anyway, so I actually didn't feel as guilty as I expected I would.

Please come back and let us know how you are doing?

Meadowhay I’m sorry I didn’t see your update last month! I know we’ve spoken a bit of that thread I did about DD tantrumming. I hope the last few weeks have been good for you.

I can’t stand judgy people but I think now DD is 13 months I honestly just don’t care. She had a tantrum today- a really bad one in public as she didn’t want to go back in her trike (silly me didn’t pack any dummies or emergency snacks to keep her quiet). I had to carry her kicking and screaming but I felt really calm. I feel like those early days have made me quite resilient. DH and I joke about other people’s ‘potato babies’- I know that’s mean/ stupid but it makes us feel better. Some people don’t understand the stress if they’ve had a calm baby that literally just sits in a pram content doing nothing.

DD is generally very good when we are out but is incredibly strong willed- to be honest I have no idea what you do with a tantrumming 13 month old! She actually runs away from me laughing now so clearly doesn’t take me seriously. 😂Any tips on what’s working for you?

Badb how old is your little one now? I remember you were struggling with your two. Would you say it has settled down a lot now? I have said to DH that I’d like another one but he just says no- I think he is still pretty traumatised but I seem to have amnesia (maybe I should re-read this thread!).

Great reading updates from everyone. I have found the baby toddling stage to be loads loads easier, I love DD and enjoy her being a little person. There are challenges but honestly nothing compares. I hope anyone reading this with a young baby will see that ‘it really does get easier!!’.

Peony, he’s just turned one now. Yes, I would say it’s got a lot easier since he started crawling at eight months, and easier still when we nightweaned a while ago. It’s still hard, and I find it overwhelming at times, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. I am 100% done but I’m glad we had a second. It’s a very hard decision though. Give yourselves a bit more time, maybe.

I didn't get round to posting on this thread before but followed it attentively and have since seen other posts from some of you. I wondered how everyone is getting on.

My DS is 17m and still a very whiny child. He is fine outside and for the most part at activities but around the house he will cry when bored or frustrated every 5 minutes. I find it much easier than the newborn crying all the time though...