When does it get easier? (5 month old)

[StopThisTrain28]

I really hope someone can offer me some hope.
I’m tearing my hair out with just turned 5 month old DS.

It feels like he is never happy and cries most of the time. I feel like a total failure and like I have no idea what I am doing.
Doctor diagnosed reflux over the phone at 10 weeks or so and he has been on infant gaviscon ever since. This seemed to help somewhat at the beginning but now he seems so miserable. I have no idea if this is caused by reflux or if it’s something else. He is formula fed as I had issues breastfeeding.

I’m having huge problems with his naps. He will only nap for 30 minutes on average 4 times per day. Occasionally will manage 45. When he wakes up he is fine for about 15 minutes and then becomes so cranky and upset. It then usually takes him another hour and half or so of being upset before he will nap again and the whole cycle restarts.

So I have no idea if he’s upset due to reflux, lack of sleep or something else entirely.
He sleeps reasonably ok at night although every night seems completely different. He can usually manage 9pm til 7am with 1 wake up although sometimes will wake more.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Is it just one of those things that I have to ride out and will get better with age? He’s my first baby and I love him so much but I just feel like I’m hugely failing him at the moment

Sorry you are feeling this way. I've got a 5 month old and ftm too so I completely sympathise. Lockdown is a killer at the moment for getting any kind of support and or/break. It sounds like he might be overtired. My LO went through a stage of bad napping a few weeks back and whats helped is reducing right down the time between naps. She can only really manage about 2 hours, I think if got ahead of myself thinking she could manage more. I always find if she is really overtired to try and 'reset' her i get a few really early nights in like 5pm, even if that means cuddling her in dark room for a few hours while she sleeps before putting her down. Its a pain but usually does the trick of getting a bit of sleep back in her and then can start fresh with the nap routine again the next morning. If it makes you feel better my LO is still waking at least twice (we try and do 7pm to 7am ) and shes just come out of a period of waking every hour and a half all night so sounds like you are doing good with the overnight sleep.

If I t hasn't happened yet then it's right around the corner....at 4 or 5 months everything gets so much easier. I promise you.

My lb was just like this, I send sympathies and virtual choc!

Naps lengthened all of a sudden at 6 and a half months. He was very grizzly too. He got happier and easier with every new thing he could so- sit up, crawl, walk etc.

Hang in there, it does get easier. You're nearly through the worst.

My DD has always been difficult but it got really bad around the 5 month mark and sorry to say it hasn’t got any easier (she’s 9 months now), she seems to have got worse if anything. She has reflux too and has been on gaviscon since she was 5 weeks old so I’ve always blamed her reflux for everything but I’m starting to doubt it.

Do you think your baby could have CMPA? I think that might be my DD’s issue. Might be worth talking to your HV or GP?

Her naps greatly improved around 6.5/7 months from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours so hang in there, their sleep does get better!

I could have wrote this 2 months ago (apart from ever sleeping though) my son was the same never seemed happy and his naps were terrible. Hes 7 months now and he hardly ever crys and is a very happy little thing. Fingers crossed he gets happier.

My baby was exactly the same, I could have written your post! She’d only manage 30 minute naps, minimum one wake up per night, upset with reflux. In the past few weeks (now 7 months) we feel like we feel like we’ve turned a corner. The reflux got better with weaning, all of a sudden she’s managing to sleep for longer naps and is sleeping through 50% of the time.

It’s made such a big difference but I don’t think it’s anything we did necessarily, I think she’s just developed. It also helps that she smile, giggles and chats away to us now!

Gavisvon can cause terrible constipation - does he struggle having a poo or are they dry and lumpy? If so a little boiled and cooled water with some bicycle movements and gentle massage worked well. I would speak to the GP again because there is other medication that can be prescribed for babies with particularly bad reflux (I'm sorry I can't remember the name of it!). Things start to ease off a bit around the 6 month mark so you aren't far off at all! Mine only used to nap for 30-45 mins at a time too, its just how some babies are. If he's sleeping well at night though, I wouldn't tie yourself up in knots over his naps. He'll eventually get into a rhythm and it'll get much easier. You're doing a great job!

Thank you so much for your replies everyone. I just burst into tears reading them which I think shows how stressed I am today. It’s very comforting to know that things improved eventually for you all and I think it’s given me a bit of strength to keep going.

To the poster who mentioned CMPA I had considered it. I have serious allergies myself although not to dairy and I understand there can be a link. The only other symptom I can connect other than the reflux though is he does sometimes get red patches on skin and I have noticed this week a few dry red patches on his arms. I have no idea if this would be typical though so I may ring GP in the morning to see if it’s worth changing his milk

4-5 months was the hardest! Sleep goes to pot, their hungry all the time (or mine was!), they suddenly want to enjoy the world but can't actually do anything. Got better with weaning at 6 months, better again crawling at 9. Improved our adventures with walking at 12 and so much better now at 18months with talking and being able to play with toys to some extent - oh and he will now watch 20mins of blippi whilst I drink a cup of tea. Bliss.

If you think he's not getting the naps he needs, is there anywhere he naps well? In the buggy, in the car, in a sling, on you? Perhaps consider using his favourite nap spot for a few days or a week, at least for the one nap you think is most likely to become longer. (I would guess nap 2 or 3, but your baby may have different ideas.) That could help you get a bit more sleep into him to help his mood and get him into the habit of a longer sleep.

My daughter had a couple of phases where she just seemed to forget how to nap or decide naps are for the weak, and the buggy sorted it for us. The winter round wasn't much fun, but 15 minutes pushing the buggy in the cold rain was still better than all afternoon with an overtired baby.

Dd cried seemingly solidly for first 6 months. Then stopped I think due to weaning. I dont think milk agrees with her too much. In hindsight I think she had a lot of trapped gas. She barely cried at all after that.

6 months felt like a real turning point with my unsettled reflux baby. She sat up independently, took well to solid food and naps started to lengthen. We also realised she has a mild dairy intolerance when we introduced yoghurt to get diet, which actually explained a lot about the early months.

You will get there - I promise you. It will not be like to this forever, or even very much longer.

My DD was like your DS, very irritable and just generally unhappy all the time, and she never napped longer than 30 minutes which was so incredibly tiring and frustrating. I felt I was spending my whole day trying to get her down to sleep.

Her naps started to lengthen at around 7/8 months, and she was crawling and cruising from 6/7 months and was therefore less frustrated and whingey. She just hated being a baby. IME it gets better very gradually, and it was at around 12 months that I thought ‘actually this isn’t so bad’. There will be challenges with every stage (terrible twos and threenager are no peach) so it doesn’t necessary get easier as such, but for me the first year is absolutely the worst, it’s a slog. Hang in there.

I’m currently still in the thick of it with my DS (8 months) and trying to tell myself it won’t always be this exhausting!

DS1 was SO grumpy! He cried and screamed for the first 6 months. Everyone said it would get easier at 12 weeks. It didn’t.

However, things really did improve around 6 months when two big things happened. He learned to link his sleep cycles and therefore napped and slept better (overtired babies and parents are grumpy!). Plus he was SO much happier once he started to commando crawl around, he was frustrated being stationary and was a different baby once he was mobile. Hang in there!

Thank you everyone. You’ve given me a bit of hope that things will improve after such a difficult week.

I think he’s just getting so frustrated and I worry so much for his development because he hates doing tummy time or even just being on his back on the floor most of the time. I don’t know how he can learn to crawl or sit up etc if I can hardly put him down.

I’ve been letting him sleep on me when he actually will (not all of the time sadly). If I can get him to nap on me we can sometimes get him to sleep for an hour. Fingers crossed he can properly connect sleep cycles soon

Hi OP - just wondering if things improved for you?

Oh wow. I had forgotten I wrote this. I was in such a terrible place.

things absolutely got so much better once he was eating food. I think solely having milk just wasn’t agreeing with him - once he was eating 3 meals the reflux stopped

for a while I just accepted that if he was going to nap then it was on me. We did this for ages. He now sleeps for a good 2 hour nap in his cot everyday.

he can still be quite grumpy and challenging but he is nearly 2 so I think that is to be expected 😊

That’s great!! Nice to know things got better for you! I’m really over being a slave to naps and can’t wait for them to click into place!

So happy to hear this 🙌