Struggling with 3 month old

[TunaJacket]

My little boy is 3 months old and I am really struggling.

When he is awake he needs constant attention otherwise he will whinge and cry. He barely manages 45 mins awake before he gets tired but he cries as fusses whenever I try to get him to sleep and when he finally is asleep he will only sleep on me so I never have time to get any done. He has started only napping for 20/30 mins so I feel like I am constantly trying to get him to sleep and he is constantly tired. At night he was waking every 40 minutes in the next to me so recently he’s started co sleeping and now wakes every 2 hours.

He is EBF but never seems to take a full feed. 5 mins would be a long time! He just constantly snacks all day so I can’t even leave him with my husband for an hour whilst I get out cause by the time I came back he’d be crying.

He whinges in the pram and pushchair, cry’s in the carrier and screams in the car so I can’t even get out of the house with him.
I don’t want people round because they might wake him up and if he is awake he’ll be grumbling and it’s embarrassing.

(I am currently 3 weeks into a dairy and soya free diet to see if that helps but I’m getting disheartened)

Don't really know what I’m asking. Just needed to get it off my chest.

Has anyone else had similar and has any advice or can tell me things get better?

Oh I feel for you we went through it.

My little girl 8m next week is super clingy, in fact she's napping on me right now. She does sleep through the night now though that started about 4 months in. She went through a phase of cluster feeding about 3m and we were feeding her every two hours.

Maybe speak to your HV for reassurance. My lo is cmpa and it took 6 weeks of her being on puramino prescription milk for her to settle down.

It does get easier I promise X

Has he been checked for tongue tie? That could be why he is snacking and always hungry.

No advice really but a virtual hug to you. I'm a FTM and my little one is 10 weeks. He is glued to me but sleeps really well .. bottle fed though so easier for him to take a fuller feed/ his dad to take him for an hour.

Me and my brother have a 15 year age gap and I remember when he was little he was very similar - screamed where ever you put him that wasnt on my mum...and i mean screamed! But it all just kinda got better with time with him

You could be describing my DS as a newborn. You have my sympathy because it’s really tough. I remember being so jealous of mum friends whose potatoes did nothing but eat, sleep and poo!

You should definitely consider all the usual diagnosis…but in my experience, there was nothing medically wrong with DS…it was all just his temperament. He was a ‘high needs baby’. Now he’s a toddler (2.4) I can see all the traits in him that made him such a difficult baby (obviously, I had no idea when he was tiny!) He’s always been extremely alert and need lots of varying stimulation to be happy. He really struggles to switch off - he needs complete darkness and white noise to sleep. No casually dropping off in the pram for us! Nursery report his speech is similar to children at least a year older than him. All these things make for a great toddler…but I see now as a baby he craved so much stimulation, but got easily overstimulated and overtired and regularly ended up as a crying mess. He knew what he wanted but didn’t have the physical or verbal skills to get it. He hates any sort of restraint now so I can see why the carrier troubled him so much.

I’m not going to lie, most of DS’ babyhood was pretty difficult. It got infinitely better when he learnt to walk and, most importantly, when he understood what we were saying and started speaking back. He’s a legend of a toddler now though. Certainly not ‘easygoing’, but he’s interesting, fun to be around and doesn’t really tantrum. And he sleeps!!

All I’d say I’d hang on in there. If your experience is like mine it’ll get better with every milestone.

It's good to check in case there is a problem, but he also sounds like a perfectly normal baby for his age. He sounds similar to my youngest at that age.