Not coping - please help

[testy1997]

Toddler and 3 month old. I'm not coping. Three month is colic, miserable, doesn't sleep, won't go to anyone and just difficult. Toddler constantly needs me. She's in childcare but even with that it's unbearable.
Dr has prescribed anti-ds but I don't want to take them. I just don't.
Please someone tel me it gets better or offer some coping mechanisms because I fear I'll just run away and not look back. I feel on the edge and having dark dark thoughts.

It’s so hard OP. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say 90+% of how you are feeling is likely due to how difficult your 3 month old is. DS1 (now 3) was an exceptionally miserable, colicky, none sleeping newborn and it was utter hell. I too ended up on antidepressants (lifesaver). DS2 (also 3 months) has his moments but generally is settled. The difference is like night and day. The good news is your baby will calm down. Likely will always be high needs compared to your first child but it does get easier.

Practically, the baby isn’t far off being able to forward face in the sling, DS1 absolutely loved this and it hopefully might be a good way for you to get both kids out the house if your DC2 likes it too. Likewise, DS1 became a lot happier in the buggy when he was out of the bassinet and able to sit up more and look. DS1 also got exponentially easier the less day sleep he needed. 3 months was a definite hellish period for permanently overtired baby - they still need as much sleep as newborns but it’s so much harder to achieve it. 5-6 months was a real turning point for him basically and generally seems to be for colicy babies.

Having said all of the above I still find having both DC on my own very very tricky. My top tip is to just get out of the house. It likely wont reduce the crying but it is easier to be distracted if you just get up and go. I regularly just ride around our town on the local circular bus service as it keeps the 3 yo happy and I can sit and feed the baby. My second top tip is to get up in the morning and insist on your DH having both kids for 20 minutes so you can wash your face, get dressed and collect your thoughts. I hate the days where I am chasing my tail from the off.

OP depending on where you live you might be able to access a post natal support group so you can talk mums in a similar situation and counselling.

Three months is also still in that utterly draining tired phase, you say baby doesn't sleep? so presumably you're not getting any decent amounts of unbroken sleep? would it help if you had a routine of set times for baby sleep, toddler 1-1 time and downtime for you? I know its not for everyone but I found roughly sticking to supernanny / gina ford schedules helpful.

@VivaVivaa this is really really really helpful. Thank you

@mamma65432 I tried a routine but my baby can't connect her sleep cycles so it's just screaming

If you haven't googled how to get your child adopted at least once in parenthood then you're some kind of super alien 😂 please do not feel bad! We've all been there!

Another one is pop her in the pram in your house, and rock it with your foot. I used to do this a fair bit when ds2 would play up and ds1 wanted my attention. Rocking motion helps soothe them.
Or some messy play for the toddler, you could set it up in the morning or evening and I promise you it'll keep your toddler entertained.

Tale the medication op.
Another vote for getting out if the house whenever you can.
You might do this already but dress the baby in baby grows. Ones you can throw in the washing machine and tumble dryer if you have one.
Is your dh helping? Does he take over child card giving you a break?
Can you meet up with other parents?
It is really difficult and sometimes parent and toddler groups are hell on earth.
Have you spoken to your dh and told him you are finding it difficult? Sometimes the working parent has no idea how draining looking after babies and toddlers can be.

Take your baby to be assessed and treated by a specially trained cranio-osteopath who is qualified to work with newborns.

I was exactly like you OP and after 4 months of dealing with a screaming, colicky, refluxy baby who cried ALL the time I took him to a cranio-osteopath out of desperation after it was recommended to me.

I was sceptical but I knew that I was at breaking point and was on the brink of wanting to run away (I also had a 3 year old) and oh my god, it was life changing!!!

I had three appointments over the course of 3-4 weeks and there was an improvement each time I went. The woman was amazing and she totally fixed my baby! My life did a complete 180 and I could finally enjoy being a new mother.

It can’t hurt to try it if you’re feeling at breaking point, especially if you had a traumatic birth or you needed any interventions as those are the babies who are most likely to display behaviours like yours and most likely to benefit from the therapy.

@Daffodilwoman my husband helps a lot. Gets up for every night feedand takes over the minute he finishes work. I have other mum friends but they have perfectly chilled out babies and so I just sit at home because it's easier to contain a screaming baby at home on my own than in public

@HeadAgainstWall0923 I took her to a cranial osteopath four times since she has been born and whilst it worked with my first this time around it seems to have had no affect - probably because she's just miserable!

Take the drugs and take more off your plate. Change your attitude to your husband , he doesn't 'help' you- he does his fair and equal share.

And have you had her tongue checked?

Babies shouldn’t be this upset for Jo reason and if there is no physical cause that can be found by a cranio-osteopath or tongue-tie practitioner then perhaps a trip back to the GP is necessary. Something is obviously wrong with her and it’s not fair for you to have to cope with this, it’s no wonder you are feeling as trapped as you are and having dark thoughts.

I remember with my first baby he screamed and he screamed and he screamed and after numerous times of being brushed off by the GP, one day he had an absolute breakdown in the GP surgery, you’ve never heard screaming like it, and in response I just dropped to the floor and started sobbing. I think that’s when my GP first realised how much I was really struggling and actually started taking me seriously.

Ultimately it transpired that he had a dairy allergy and his constant crying was due to the pain. Is this something you have considered??

@HeadAgainstWall0923 she has had a tongue tie cut. I just don't think there's a medical cause - I think she's just unhappy. She won't cry if I hold her and walk her around or if give her my undivided attention but with a toddler it's just not possible so she just cries... also I think the lack of sleep doesn't help as she can only sleep in 30 min increments.

Are you already using a sling?

I feel like I'm reading my own posts from about 8 years ago!
My second child was so unhappy all the time! In hindsight I think she had reflux but we just didn't pick up on it. I thought she hated me, genuinely. She would cry in the pram, the car seat, the moses basket.. everywhere. I didn't leave the house much because she'd be screaming and I wanted to dissappear. I didn't like her very much for a long while and I felt like a monster because I was very bonded to my toddler.
I promise it got better. I did start taking antidepressants which helped. I didnt have the horrendous lows and bad thoughts anymore and I felt like I could see through the fog a bit better. Maybe she was feeding off of my vibe? I dont know. She slowly chilled out and now she's the most easygoing of all my children. I went on to have 2 more as well so I must have been mental!
You're really in the thick of it at the moment. Around the 3 month mark is really really hard in my opinion, even with "easy" babies.

This was exactly how my daughter was. Severe reflux and many food allergies were the cause.
Once things settled down and with the help of food diaries I found that wanting to be held was her first symptom of an allergic reaction and occurred 12-24h before the explosive diarrhea. Without recognising this symptom would have struggled so much more when trying to figure out what was going on.

Also have a read about being touched out. I really struggled with the constant touching that came with a high needs baby and needed a prolonged time at least once a week when I'm not touching anyone

Also, learning the phrase high needs baby helped me to stop comparing my experience to my friends

@SlashBeef this makes me feel better - like it will get better.

@Superscientist I deffo think zhe is high needs. My first was high needs but did perk up at 3 months. I guess I thought she would be the same but no signs of happiness just yet.

She was assessed for reflux and we tried omeprazole but it made no difference, nor did gaviscon.

Apart from the constant pain and distress, does she have any other signs of a possible dairy allergy?

Slow weight gain?
Bottle / breast aversion
Difficult to feed?
Diarrhoea or constipation?
Eczema, rashes, bad cradle cap?

Doctors are so quick to assume that digestive discomfort and pain is just reflux and so go down that route, so if the medication doesn’t work then it implies there may be another gastrointestinal issue.

My little one would scream and scream for hours and had various feeding issues and the only way he could be calmed was by me holding him and rocking him for hours and hours and hours. I saw five doctors in total before one of them suggested a possible dairy allergy….and that’s what it turned out to be.

If absolutely nothing else is working then it won’t harm you or your baby to go down this route and see if it helps.

What dose of omperazole were you on? It makes the reflux worse for the first 3 weeks due to the acid battle as the body tries to fight it.
We had no success with omperazole until we saw a paediatrician. He doubled her dose to 3mg/kg and said her GP should have done that weeks ago. It took this high dose to come close to touching her reflux with 9 sachets of gaviscon a day and even then she was still really refluxy so we saw a private paediatrician to prescribe domperidone which was a life changer. After 6 weeks we were able to stop the domperidone and gaviscon. Unfortunately at 13 months she went back into reflux hell and it's been a battle every since to keep it under control.

If you haven't tried omperazole at 3 mg/kg I wouldn't dismiss it as not working - a 5 kg baby would require 15mg at this dose if that helps work out whether you were on the high dose or not. Also GPs are notoriously bad with reflux and it was only speaking to other GPs later on just how poor she was with infant health. For example she didn't know the difference between lactose intolerance and a dairy allergy so categorically told me my daughter wasn't reacting to my milk. She was and badly!

Reflux typically peaks around 4 months things might get better soon

It really will and I don't want that to sound patronising or anything. Right now it's so overwhelming and it feels like this is your life now but it will be okay. Do look into some of the things advised here. I wish I'd been more pushy about the reflux. It's interesting to me that now my daughter is older she naturally avoids dairy. Once she weaned off of breastmilk she wouldn't drink any kind of milk again and still doesn't.

We saw the infant feeding team for feeding refusals 3 times. The last woman said "I just needed to be a tough mumma and force her to stay on the breast". GP said she's gaining weight she's fine - she was a 9th percentile baby at the time and went up to the 35th after I cut out dairy. They never asked what her poos were like and just if they were normal. They were the same as they had always been as we did cloth nappies so never once had a "poonami". It was lockdown I didn't know 20 liquid poos as a newborn then 5-8 a day once a little bit bigger weren't normal.

My GP used to laugh and say "ah reflux, that just a washing issue". The only good GP I have seen ended every sentence with "sorry thats my personal not professional opinion, I have a cmpa child"

They have such a lack of knowledge and apply it dangerously. I have a large friendship group of allergy mum's and they all have had battles with GPS to be listened to wrt allergies and reflux. It's shameful.

OP sorry for the rant!

Shocking treatment for you and your baby 😢

Ironically, the fifth doctor I saw who suggested the allergy actually had a young infant with a dairy allergy which is why he was so sympathetic and quick to acknowledge that something was going on rather than just push me out the door with mutterings about reflux and colic.

I honestly don’t understand why doctors seem to not believe that babies can have dairy allergies?! It doesn’t make sense.

My son never lost weight but was always very slow to gain but we saw a massive improvement a few weeks after I cut out dairy.

His nappies were completely fine, no diarrhoea or constipation and he had no vomiting either.

The doctor made the suggestion based on my son’s crying and constant pain alongside him having some patches of eczema and really persistent cradle cap.

He couldn’t tolerate dairy until he was about 2.5 years old in the end.

Like you say, GP’s have awful knowledge around allergies in newborns and sadly the baby and the parents pay the price 😢

@HeadAgainstWall0923 @Superscientist she had a tongue tie and was difficult to feed before that and has never really been interested in bottles. I did think she had bottle aversion but she doesn't cry when she sees the bottle just doesn't drink v much but she is tracking her percentile so no one is worried. Where do I even start with a dairy allergy? She has no other symptoms

Reflux she was on 2mg but just didn't do anything for her

Just go to the GP and tell them you want to trial dairy feee formula (if she’s formula fed) because of how distressed she is and the fact that nothing else has worked.

Babies do not cry and scream for no reason - even if GPs and other professionals like to try and make out that they do.

If they refuse to prescribe you the milk then just suck up the cost and buy some tins yourself and trial it for 5 days to see if there is any improvement in your babies behaviour.

If there is an improvement then you go back to the GP and tell him what you’ve done and the progress you’ve had and say that you want the milk on prescription and a referral to a dietician.

If you are breast feeding then it’s as simple as cutting out dairy from your diet.

Unless she was under 5lb that dose was never going to do anything. The omperazole doses are 0.7mg/kg to start then increasing to 3 mg/kg. Most babies are ok with something in between but a few won't see a benefit until the top dose.

Have you had the tongue tie rechecked? My friends sons tongue tie reattached.

Breastfeeding you remove dairy from your diet but do not replace the dairy with soya as there is a strong link between the two. Once you have reached a good place you can try soya alternatives.

Formula feeding you want a hypoallergenic formula. You start with an extensively hydrolysed formula which contain dairy but it's broken down. These include pepti, alimentum and nutramigen plus others. For more severe or sensitive allergies you need an amino acid formula which doesn't contain dairy at all but contains all of the necessary components of milk as individual ingredients. The ingredients list look like my lab inventory! These are neocate, alfamino and puramino

I start on an allergy free diet but ended up having to switch to formula so went on alfamino at 10 months due to my health.

The hypoallergenic formulas are expensive £20-40 a tin! You get them on prescription but if you get pushed back from the GP buying a tin through a pharmacy or Amazon and then going back to your GP going look they are so much better please prescribe it!