Can't put 2 week old down... delirious

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My 2 week old beautiful baby won't settle and I'm worried I'm going to end up with depression or something... I feel like a zombie. Last night I got one 40 minute stretch of sleep and one 30 minute stretch before DH had to give baby back, being mostly bottle fed now but just won't settle with him properly.
Also she seems to have painful gas (strains and cries before passing it, even though I wind loads) and sicks up little bits of milk a lot with lots of hiccups.
Could this be reflux? Is there anything I can do?
I'm so so beyond tired it's unreal and I am at my limit so any advice appreciated

Hi OP. I really feel for you, the first few weeks are so hard. The tiny amounts of sick are normal for a newborn. The unsettledness is also fairly normal for a newborn, but the constipation might be contributing to it. Am I right that shes bottle (formula) fed? Is it the powdered stuff? Sometimes this causes constipation. Maybe try and buy some of the ready made formula and see how she goes on that.

The newborn phase does pass!

I wouldn't rush to assume any specific problems - she's a baby, and what you're describing doesn't necessarily sound unusual. And, when you're this tired, it's easy to become desperate for a solution and start jumping to all sorts of diagnoses.

For right now, the goal is that you get some sleep. I'm gently raising an eyebrow, Spock-fashion, at your husband 'having to' give the baby back after 30-40 minutes and I think maybe you guys need to reframe the immediate priority away from 'settle the baby' and towards 'ensure greystars is able to get a couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep'. And, I'm sure in your turn you'll do the same for him. Designate a chunk of time when he can take the baby, and have a decent bit of sleep yourself. You'll feel much better for it.

Best of luck!

The newborn stage is so hard! She's so young though OP and it will pass soon.

Re trapped wind, both mine suffered terribly is was so difficult/sad. Do you bicycle her legs to help? I found this did help, and very regular nappy changes.

What's it like in the day? Can you have a nap when she sleeps in the day? Has DH tried taking her down the street in the buggy/sling? He should be able to keep her. Going for 30/40 mins for you to rest?

It sounds so similar to my first. It does get easier and you do adjust to the tiredness xx

Are you co sleeping? If you aren't then it's definitely worth considering and can be done safely it's a real life saver

Yes and absolutely what @Persipan said. Just read again that baby is formula fed, your DH should be able to take her so you can have a decent chunk of sleep.
It's so hard to let go but it will benefit you all if he learns his own ways of settling her and he will when left to it. Unless you're at all worried about how he cares for her?

Also YY to what @Persipan said, DH needs to learn to settle her and give you say 7pm-11pm to get a good chunk of sleep

I agree that your DH just needs to learn how to settle her himself. You can't exist on that little sleep, and he will never learn and get more confident if he doesn't get the chance. My DD was fed expressed milk mainly as a newborn as we had BFing issues to start, but DH would take her every day for at least a couple of hours so I could catch up on sleep. He just had to learn his own methods for soothing her.

Thanks. - she's bottle fed so I can't cosleep I assume, even if it would probably work!
He has never been around babies before and is all fingers and thumbs with her, we are really working on it. Even during the day she is hard to settle and impossible to put down, sometimes she will do an hour with DH when I've got her into a deep sleep. He also is about to go back to work and has a long drive so I don't feel it's fair for him to be up too much of the night. No clue how I will manage without him to hold her thenodd hour in the day

And my DH had never even held a baby before! He had zero clue, but he managed.

I know he needs to learn to settle her but god it's hard when she ends up screaming in 5 minutes after I've taken 20 settling her down

Earplugs, white noise, leave them to it. She's safe and being comforted by a parent. You can't run on empty.

Your dh needs to figure it out to give you a break. There is no magic thing you know about settling a baby that your dh can't also do, especially if you are bottle feeding. He can take baby for a long 1-2 hour walk in the pram. He can get a sling. He can walk around in circles in the garden. Just so you can get 2-3 hours of sleep in a stretch.

With both of ours, I would do a feed around 8pm, hand them to dh and he would either hold them or put them in a sling, and I would sleep til 10-11pm, whenever they needed a feed again, then I'd take them, feed them (was bf, but if bottle feeding, your dh can do this), then I'd hand them back and he'd repeat until 1am. Then we'd switch and dh would sleep until 6am when he had to get up for work (often he'd then let me have another hour of sleep or so before he had to leave). He spent several weeks walking in circles around the lounge watching Game of Thrones for 2 hours at a time with our eldest so I could get sleep, or at his desk with them in a sling so he could return emails in the evening.

He needs to figure it out just like you've had to. Get yourself some ear plugs if you need it to sleep and let him get on with it. A grumpy baby for a few hours is sometimes necessary so you can take care of yourself. But it's also great bonding for them.

And just to add, dh and I had never been around a baby before we had one! You both have to figure it out as you go, but the best way is alone time and him learning what works.

DD was a very high maintenance baby like this and after a few weeks of only 30 min breaks we agreed he would take her for 2 hours between feeds once a day. And not bring her back up under any circumstances. Took a few days but it becomes so much easier when you can share the load with someone.

It's difficult, but if your DH never gets a chance then he'll never find his own ways of settling and things aren't going to improve for you until baby is old enough to self settle.

Recommend a sling so that when you’re in your own, at the least you can walk around and get something to eat/ go to toilet without baby screaming. I’ve had two like that and couldn’t have managed without a sling, would have been permanently sat on the sofa starving, needing a wee etc.
A stretchy type one probably best for tiny babies, I had a close caboo, lifesaver.
Doesn’t get you more sleep I’m afraid but might make awake times more manageable
Keep going

I am very single, so literally nobody is there to take my (un-put-downable) baby overnight and I do have to get on with it on my own.

You are married, to an adult human being who can learn to do new things and who has as much responsibility towards caring for your baby as you do. You do not have to get in with it on your own. I get that you're thinking about your husband's job, but you also have responsibilities for which you need and deserve some rest. It is emphatically not your job to settle the baby before handing her over to him. He and she will jointly learn their own ways of settling her - which may look nothing like the ways you use, but that's fine. He can take the early shift, and still get to sleep at a reasonable time to be well-rested for his drive. Seriously, tonight he's on baby duty for the first bit of the night and you can and should leave him to it and sleep.

Get a soother, she'll take it eventually and it will be a great sleep aid. A note about formula - Don't mix them around too much. If you need to try her on a new formula do it over a couple of days by blending them together. If you try her on a new one just in one bottle she will get an upset tum. I found even going from a powered one to a pre-mixed one to take out for the day they didn't really tolerate until they were a few months old.
Things will get better. Have you tried moving her in the pram up and down. That might get her to sleep. Or just walking up and down.
Try to have a routine to signal nighttime even if she is not paying heed to it. As in going to 'bed' at a certain time, lights dim. At night only keep as low a light to signal nighttime. You could get a wind up toys that plays a little tune (not too loud). We found that great to signal 'sleep time'. Eventually we could put the baby down, then put the 'tune' on and leave the room.
She's as much as sea as you are, but you will both settle down in the next couple of weeks xx.

Have you googled the 4th trimester? What techniques have you used to try and settle her?
I had trouble putting my boy in his moses basket as he had reflux and he would also writhe around as if he had trapped wind. We raised his basket at one end and I do baby massage for wind/colic as part of his bedtime routine which has improved things massively.

Look up safe co-sleeping, it still has a slight risk, but far less then the risk of you falling asleep with her from exhaustion. I'd also recommend a sling for when you are awake, baby still feels like there been held, but you can get on or go for a walk or something.

Time for your dh to learn the daddy-jiggle! Famed among my friends, it's the superpower dads have in the newborn phase where they can stand and jiggle/bounce the baby near on endlessly and it always helps to settle the baby. Most mums struggle with this at first because they are recovering from birth and pregnancy hence why it's a daddy superpower! Walks in the buggy can also help settle and give you peace and quiet to sleep at home
He needs to do whatever it takes to let you get a few hours rest. Just because you're not going to work doesn't mean you can miraculously survive on no sleep. DH often used to help settle ds1 at night and let me have both lie-ins at weekends because he was such a terrible sleeper and dh was working FT. It is perfectly do-able and only temporary. As pp have said, your sleep needs to be a priority. Congratulations on your little one!

For trapped wind try infacol or gripe water, and hold baby upright for at least 30 minutes after a feed. With dd we used to walk and pat and gently bounce for ages after a feed, dh was the king of getting wind out of her, when I never could. Your dh will only get better at this by doing. As others have said, get him to take her for a walk, wander the house with a sling, pop her in a baby seat and rock/bounce her gently. Whatever he does, he mustn't bring her back for at least 2 hours. If you end up seriously unwell due to sleep deprivation he will have to cope with her for a lot longer than a couple of hours.

My little boy suffered terribly with trapped wind from around 3 or 4 weeks old, particularly bottom wind with horrific night grunting and when he was around 14 weeks old after trying many things including changing formula, dentinox, gripe water, infacol I started him on optibac probiotics for babies one sachet a day in his bottle and after a few days this turned him into a totally different boy, we are getting much longer stretches of sleep at night, he is going to the toilet much easier and has a lot less wind, he's now 18 weeks, wish I found it earlier :) we also gave in after around 5 weeks and gave him a dummy which helped with soothing, he wouldn't accept it to start with but after persevering he soon learnt to like it, he now only has this for naps and night sleep and more often than not spits it out when he goes to sleep xx

Thank you for the advice - I wind her loads, we do her bottle feeds slowly/responsively so she's not guzzling and she has a slow flow teat bottle.

She is on the ready made formula still but will switch to powder soon, just has been easier since we had to get it in a hurry.

Her poos are yellow/normal looking and very soft so can she still be constipated? She does maybe 2 a day.

She is finally sleeping exhausted on my chest after a horrendous episode of straining, screaming, passing gas, crying, curling her little legs in and then pushing them out again so hard. It went on for about an hour and a half and we tried bathing her, rocking/walking her, feeding her, nothing seemed to even give her much pause for breath. She was hungry so did pause to have her bottle but then started 5 minutes later again and was sick twice.

At one point she seemed to settle but then was sick quite a lot. She has the most terrible hiccups that really seem to distress her and putting her down on her back is almost impossible as the hiccups/sick usually come on immediately.

I hold her upright for half an hour after each feed. I'm just at the end of my tether and want to help my beautiful baby feel better

I'm waiting on a call from the midwife but really feel spent and like a crap mum.

Honestly you are about as far from a crap mum as you could get. You clearly care deeply for your baby's well being and you are doing everything in your power to make her happy and comfortable. You just need a bit of support and a bit of sleep! Hopefully the midwife can help, but just to reassure you, my dd went through the same sort of thing, for a week or two, but eventually seemed to just grow out of it. I spent hours walking up and down our living room or our bedroom because every time I even sat down she screamed. The only thing that made her happy was me being up and moving. Given that she wasn't sleeping, and I have a toddler too, I was on my knees exhausted, and if not for DH, I don't know how I would have coped. But it passed, she settled down, and now sleeps through the night, and even lets me sit down occasionally.

Look at it this way, if she won't settle for you, and she won't settle for DH, then it makes little difference if you're the one sleeping while he's doing laps of the living room, and you really need the sleep. You still have a birth to recover from. Let DH take her for a little while and get your head down if you can. It will make the world of difference.

It's so hard at this stage but it does get easier I promise, their little digestive systems are so immature and time does help.

Can highly recommend a stretchy wrap sling for day time for you and your dh. It was my life saver.

She may hate it at first and fight against it but persevere and walk up and down stairs, or do the hoovering. Suddenly she will relax (probably do a huge burp) and sleep. It's a perfect position for them.