Is this normal? Really upset and fussy 4 Month Old

[LiGlitterBug]

My daughter is almost 4 months old and, for the last couple of weeks, has been increasingly fussy. Lots of crying and clinginess and fighting naps. I feel awful as nothing seems to cheer her up, and she just doesn’t really seem happy. She even wakes up from her naps crying. I’m currently living with my parents (husband is an ICU doctor so staying away to protect me and the baby) and they have commented how upset she seems (they do try to help but nothing really works). We get the occasional smile and happy time, mostly in the bath or first thing in the morning, but for the majority of time, it feels like she’s a really unhappy baby. I’m also finding it really hard, and I’m dreading her waking up as I know I won’t have long before she’s howling again.

I’ve spoken to the health visitor, who said not to worry as long as she’s eating and making the usual amount of dirty nappies. I also checked with the nurse when she had her jabs the other day, and she said the same and that it could just be a phase.

What makes me feel terrible is that she’s sometimes crying herself to sleep. I’ve tried holding her, but that seems to make her worse, so I pat her back/side while she’s in the cot until she drops off- but she sounds so upset and I’m really worried that she’s falling to sleep all stressed and hurting and it’s going to impact her like Cry It Out.

Her sleep is fine once she’s down, so it doesn’t feel like the 4 month regression yet.

I’ve heard that it could be a Leap, but not sure how much I believe in that whole thing.
Anyone else been through it? Please tell me it gets better!

Read a little about leaps as you might find it really helps you navigate this behaviour.

The wonder weeks app is really good.

Oh poor you 🙁 have you tried maybe some calpol for teething? My daughter was exactly the same (I always said I had a very grumpy baby!) And it started around 16 weeks.. do you mind me asking if she is breast fed or formula? I also started using co lactase when feeding her (breastfed) yo try and help her digestion etc which helped massively..but its soo difficult (and I found mentally draining). I found getting out to really supportive baby groups helped (I know that doesnt help at the moment!). Have you tried a dummy or white noise also?

What is her routine and how is she feeding?

It could be linked to the 4 month sleep regression as there’s a big developmental leap at that age

@jlr1986
We’ve given her a bit of Calpol as she was drooly so thought potential teething, and she’s also recently had her jabs so she had some then. It sometimes helps but not always. She’s EBF but getting quite fussy when on the boob, lots of crying and pulling off after only a few sucks.
She has white noise on for naps and nighttime and will sometimes take a dummy but also sometimes cries and spits it out!
Her night sleep is (touch wood) pretty good. Still waking for a couple of feeds but generally goes down straight away after them even if not asleep at the boob.
If things had been normal I’d be at the breastfeeding clinic to check it wasn’t a feeding issue, as that was my first thought.
How is your daughter now? I don’t know how I’ll cope if she stays this upset- it’s so draining!

@GenevaMaybe She usually wakes at 7, then 45 mins nap around 8.30/9; nappy off time and play until a longer nap at 12ish; then afternoon nap around 4-5, bath book and bed from 6 and in bed for around 7. Unfortunately she is starting to resist naps and very often drops the afternoon one, despite us trying to get her down.
I feed on demand but she’s starting to cry and pull off after only a few sucks.

My DS was like this, but started at 9 weeks. Tried everything, nothing worked. My mum suggested he might be hungry all the time, but I was aghast at this suggestion, as I was EBF from birth and was very proud of myself! But one evening, after another hard day (he was sleeping ok during the night), I couldn't take it no more and gave him formula. Instantly, I had happy and content little boy!
He just might be hungry.
During the day he didn't want to be carried, but would be crying all the time. He would only be happy in a moving buggy, if you stopped, he would cry again! But would never fall asleep in a buggy. It was hard!

I wondered about hungry too. I was breastfeeding and had a very fussy baby. It was only when the health visitor suggested I pumped to see how much she was getting - and I got 5ml only - that we started to suspect it was hunger. A top up bottle helped a lot. I was on the lookout for this with my second - she breastfed much longer, but by 4 months needed more than I was giving her. My experience isn’t necessarily yours, obviously, but for what it’s worth, that was mine!

@NataliaOsipova that’s really bad advice you were given. How much you can pump has nothing do with how much milk a baby gets when suckling, they extract milk in different ways. A baby taking a bottle after a breastfeed also doesn’t mean they were hungry, it means a teat with almost free flowing milk is going down their throat, hitting their suck reflex and they don’t have much choice but to swallow. It’s very unlikely there was anything wrong with your supply. HVs have very little proper breastfeeding training.

OP fussing at the breast can often to be up your supply because a growth spurt is coming, which would make sense with her other behaviour. Babies are very good at getting what they need from the breast, even if we don’t recognise it. She’s at an age for a developmental leap so that could be the issue.

I could have written this post! My DS is 17 weeks and for the last 3 weeks he has fought every nap with tears, but if I let him stay up he is one cranky overtired baba 😑. I hate seeing him cry so have been trying to catch him about 10 mins before overtiredness hits. I pick him up, cradle him and shh and rock him. He cried for a day or so at every nap but now settles really fast with little to no protests if I catch him in time. I make sure to put him down for naps awake, sometimes I need to keep sshhhing quietly while rubbing his cheek for a minute then within 5 mins he nods off. Like your LO he fights most against his evening nap 😔. I dont push him on that one. Sometimes he'll go down for an hour, other times he wont. I just let him have some time to himself on the floor if not. He seems to like that, he'll lie there and babble to himself for ages.

Im pretty sure he has a couple of bottom teeth coming through as the gums are white there and he chews his hand and slevers constantly. I only give him calpol if he seems in pain, which is mostly at night.

I'm hoping this is just a phase too. His night time sleep is still ok but perhaps because he spends so much time fussing about naps he wears himself out 🤷‍♀️.

Oh and he breast feeds constantly now. It used to only be for an hour every 4 hours but now it feels like he's on my boob all the time. I give him bottles too just as he wont take gaviscon without it being in milk, and he's also draining a lot of those. Last night he skipped his nap but had about 2 hours on boob and 400ml in bottles 🙄. Hungry baba.

DS was like this. Unfortunately it lasted until he could walk which was thankfully at 10 months! He then transformed overnight into a happy, easy going boy who causes me no trouble at all and he remains so now at 4yo. Those first 10 months almost broke me but since then it has been a breeze so hang in there. I think DS was frustrated at the limitations of his body. Once he was mobile he was content.

Baby’s are more efficient at drawing milk from the breast than a pump, so please don’t follow that advice. Some women can’t pump at all but still breastfeed without issue.

Sounds like it could be silent reflux tbh, we had the same issue with DD, the GP prescribed infant gaviscon and 3 days later she was a different baby.

Discuss silent reflux with your GP - does your baby prefer to be upright? Mine has this and standing him up makes him sooo happy and smiley. Hates laying down.

Also mine is 4.5 months and miserable atm!! Im putting it down to development. They are learning so much and some babies are just overwhelmed.

I do feel for you though. Just remember - this WILL pass X

I had the same thing at four months and it was over tiredness. I did slow retreat sleep training and within a week he was napping 4 hours a day across three naps and sleeping for 12 hours at night with just two night feeds dropping to one at six months. Has been disturbed by teething a couple of times which was very hard but we are 9 months in now and he is down to just a half hour nap in the morning, 2 hours at lunchtime and 11 hours at night with no night feeds finally!xxx

Two things might help -

1. the wonder weeks app to understand timings of developmental leaps and what they entail
2. Huckleberry app to help with nap timings.

Once I'd followed the instructions on Huckleberry I realised I wasn't reading her tiredness cues and just wasn't putting her down to sleep at the right time.

That being said - she is now 19 weeks and a little fusspot too. Sleeps well overnight (although recently moved into big cot in my room which means lots more space for wiggling and practising rolling over which is great at 2.56am), fights every single nap even though I can tell she's tired, then naps for 40 mins on the nose every time. She's also gone from feeding every 3-4 hours to feeding every 1.5-2, maybe only for 10-15 minutes a time though. Putting this down to growth and energy being used for her rolling... all day 😅

Baby will know you're there when she's going to sleep - don't worry about it affecting them. You're still a caring oxytocin-filled influence even if she's crying.

Make sure you stay calm and relaxed, she can read your emotion. Don't start to fret when it's coming up to a time that she usually kicks off. Stay calm. Skin to skin might be nice too. Boost those endorphins and oxytocin production.

Just remember those first two weeks when you felt like you were CONSTANTLY BREASTFEEDING and getting no sleep and no break and all crying... those weeks passed, didn't they? This will too 😊

@LiGlitterBug

Any update on what happened here? Going through it now 😫

I found 4 months to be like ‘the witching month!’, she’s 6 months now and absolutely gorgeous but at 4 months she was like a different child - so much crying and every sleep was a fight!

How long did that torment last? 😝

@Mheath

Hi!
I'm afraid that the thing that worked best for us was switching to combi feeding with formula. It was like a switch flicked and she was a different child. At 6 months she was formula only. I can only assume she just wasn't getting enough from the breast.
Now she sleeps through the night (started doing that reliably at 6 months) and is a LOT better.

Great to see this update, OP, so glad things are easier for you. No need to be "afraid" to share this - there's nothing at all wrong with formula, sometimes on balance breastfeeding isn't the "best" thing, and it's good to see a post reflecting that.