3 week old head butting, frustrated and upset

[Ahorsecalledseptember]

Hi, can anyone help poor little DS?

He sometimes gets into such a state his arms windmill around desperately and he headbutts me (this is intended to be descriptive, I am not ascribing intent to it.)

I think it’s wind. I try to keep him upright and put him over my shoulder and rub his back / bottom, but it takes ages! Any tips?

Try lying him over your knees and then upright, and make sure you're patting firmly enough, he's much more sturdy than you think!

Also, try doing bicycle legs and knees to chest, farts can be just as good as burps!

Could he be rooting? It's usually a hungry sign. They basically smash their face into you and if you don't respond, I can see it causing a lot of upset. What happens if you feed him?

He will do it just after a big feed mind, he is a little bit of a con artist and appears hungry when he definitely isn’t! God help me when he’s 15!

Are you sure he's not hungry? Is this FF or BF?

Its a way of stimulating supply for BF

And a 3 wo cannot be a con artist.

This is always a hunger sign with my baby. He can be hungry even after a big feed, and he went through a lot of cluster feeding phases at 3 weeks. I would try feeding him again when it happens. Is he breastfed? You can’t over feed a breastfed baby!

I put my baby back on the boob when she does this.
If she doesn't take, after a little encouragement I'll do some straight back burping. Or walk around burping her. No joy, bicycle legs.

Yeah, sounds like rooting. Why do you think he's not hungry?

One of my twins does this when he is hungry, but he also does it after a particularly big feed (and if I feed him again he is sick). On those occasions, it seems to coincide with him needing a big burp - I’m sort of guessing that he can’t tell the difference between hungry tummy pains and trapped wind pains, so wants to feed more even when it’s the wrong this. If I get a decent burp out of him he usually stops and relaxes and will then go to sleep. Some do take aaaaaaages to burp, but it’s worth sticking at it.

He can have just had 90 ml of milk and be head butting, I really don’t think he’s hungry.

It was a joke harry.

@crazychemist

One of my twins does this when he is hungry, but he also does it after a particularly big feed (and if I feed him again he is sick). On those occasions, it seems to coincide with him needing a big burp - I’m sort of guessing that he can’t tell the difference between hungry tummy pains and trapped wind pains, so wants to feed more even when it’s the wrong this. If I get a decent burp out of him he usually stops and relaxes and will then go to sleep. Some do take aaaaaaages to burp, but it’s worth sticking at it.

Yes, this sounds like Ds. He is fed with expressed breast milk and formula top ups and he was thrashing about head butting me earlier when he’d just gulped down nearly 100 mls of expressed breast milk, I promise I don’t starve him!

@Ahorsecalledseptember did you find out the reason?