High needs baby

[M1ssF]

My LO is 7 months and I am exhausted. She moans all day, Doesn't eat much solids, breast feeds little and often, screams when she's out and hates people as she will just scream and cry when she sees them. She is very hyperactive and needs constant entertainment oh and the worst is ...her sleep. It takes over an hour to put her to sleep and sometimes even after that she doesn't fall asleep and stays awake for 4/5 or even 6 hours- she is clearly overtired . We follow wake windows but they don't seem to work with her. She wakes up hourly in the night too. I am so sleep deprived and literally withering away .
We thought she had colic, silent reflux,cmpa. She had a tongue tie but things got worse after it was divided. Anyway is anyone else's baby this difficult??
If anyone has any tips or been through anything similar then please let me know. Seriously need some reassurance that this will pass.

Hi OP.

My DD was like this at that age. It was almost harder than the newborn stage. By 9 months I'd noticed a massive improvement and since 10 months things have been much better. It will get easier.

My advice would be radical acceptance - its shit but sometimes fighting against it take so much more effort than just accepting. Some things you may be able to improve slightly - e.g looking at if she needs less daytime sleep/making easy meals rather than cooking elaborate things etc.

Maybe have some sort of routine, get out of the house a bit - if she's going to complain regardless of what you're doing - at least do something you enjoy. Do you have someone who can give you short breaks at a time?

OP my first was exactly like this. SOUL DESTROYING. He's now a wonderful gentle clever little 5 year old who for the most part is relatively easy and fun. So just reassurance that it's not necessarily a reflection of the child your baby will become, some babies just seem to hate being babies!!! Sending strength

Our new DGC was like this for the first 3 months. Thankfully we live 5 mins walk away - this is the first GC of ours that took it out of their parents and almost us.
We are lucky as there were 5 adults to look after our new GC and gave a chance for his parents to sleep during the day time and our son was able to afford to take 5 weeks off.

As our GC gt agitated, the piercing screams, we all dreaded them, they went right through the house

A lot more settled now - babies settle at different times and yours soon will.

Do you have family/OH that can help give you some rest?

My daughter was like this we went down the reflux and cmpa route and it turned out it was a lot of allergies and reflux that is very resistant to medication. She has 3 medications for her reflux and that keeps it partially stable and has 20 food allergies. We didn't reach symptom free for allergies until she was 15 months. Her reflux goes in and out of control twice a year she's 3.

Completely unrelated but she didn't engage with weaning until she was 13 months. She became a much happier baby around the same time.

Thank you for your reply.

We took her to the supermarket on the weekend. The girl just screamed I was so embarrassed! I should take her out on walks but it sometimes feels like so much effort getting us both ready for her to moan outside . She doesn't moan in the carrier but my back is already fried from constantly trying to put her to sleep in there.

I do have mil to help but she just constantly picks her up at every moan so doesn't always help situations.

I feel like she's getting worse as the months go by but really praying she gets better!

Thank you for your reply. Did you experience sleep issues? Just so worried that the lack of sleep is going to impact development and may result in behaviour issues as she gets older. So stressful to even think about but your post has given me some hope so thank you!

Wow bless her. Where did you get tested. Did you do it privately? I was told allergy tests arnt always accurate but I'm convinced she has allergies.
Weaning stresses me out so much as she only eats like a crumb while other babies are eating 2/3 full meals! Glad things got better for your LO

OH is very busy and tired from work but does try and help when he gets home. She doesn't go to anyone so that really isn't helpful for me. Glad he's settled now. Praying for the day mine is more calm!!

Mine was like this until I cut out all dairy and we got medication for silent reflux.
It took 6 months as the GP was less than useless. It was absolutely horrendous and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
You need to keep going back to the GP. Also join the CMPA support Facebook group. Top allergens are cows milk, soya, egg. If you're weaning it's worth doing fodmap diet until symptoms improve and then slowly adding things.
And yes for non-ige allergies you can't test, and even for ige allergies blood and skin prock tests are notoriously unreliable for babies.

You are right OP. We too are guilty of "picking up" our GC and our children/son tell us off, rightly so. I'm a bit of hypocrite as when ours were babies, we relayed to our families' Please don't pick them up as it will make it difficult for us.' But we get it.

We never gave our children a dummy and TBH, they were angels, unless unwell. Even the first 5 of our GC were like their parents, but with the most recent addition, we got to learn first-hand what its like with a very active/vocal baby.

Trsut me, in a few weeks it will get a lot better

Good luck

Fortunately/unfortunately my daughter has delayed or nonIGE allergies. Whilst better as there's no scary symptoms to be manage it meant that to identify the allergies I had to take foods out of our diets and then test them on a good day to see if symptoms returned. It involved a lot of food diaries and looking at her as a whole all of the time. I learnt from the food diaries that her early symptoms of a reaction were being hard to keep occupied and feeding aversions these occured within a few hours where are the loose stools and rashes took 24-48h. Narrowing the window down made it a lot easier to work through options

Learning about food groups helped too. My daughter is allergic to most nightshades so tomatoes, peppers, aubergine etc but is fine with potatoes. She can't have any alliums (onions and garlic) but with legumes there are only 2 or of the family she can't have.

It did break me and at 10 months I went into a mother and baby unit to start medication I couldn't breastfeed on and to try to either switch my daughter to formula and get her over her bottle aversion or get her to eat enough to not need formula or breastmilk. At the time it took us 2 days to have a sachet of puree and we still threw away half of the packet! She would have 1-3 spoons of Weetabix in the morning and a handful of peas for lunch or dinner and that was it. We did manage to get her to accept the formula but that involved going cold turkey and sending her home to dad to look after for a few days. She ate her first meal at 13 months which was around the time we identified the allium reaction and we got to symptom free. She's still not a great eater she's 3 and at the moment she is eating cereal for breakfast, fruit for lunch and half a sandwich for tea and that's it and the same at nursery too! Beautiful weight gain though! She definitely eats a lot less when her reflux is troubling her.

The FB cmpa pages were very helpful and there's a local group of mums and they are amazing lifesavers. The group is based in south Manchester if that's near you at all.

Wow that seems like so much work but well done for identifying the allergies . I may have to do the same at some point. What formula did you try? My Lo refused all of them and we tried about 10 including the prescribed ones from the GP
What were LOs food allergy symptoms?
Yes I have joined the fb cmpa page and it is useful

There's a general, a breastfeeding, weaning and a reflux page. I've not been on the weaning one but the general and bfing were very helpful. The reflux one is quite quiet.
She has a coconut allergy and the only formula that didn't have coconut at the time was alfamino. It's one of the amino acid formulas. We used it in her food from 8 months as we tried to get combifeeding to work after a reaction to alimemtum caused her intermittent bottle aversion to come back full force and she couldn't look at a bottle without trying to escape. She accepted the taste quite well it was the bottle that we had bigger issues but once she accepted the bottle she guzzled it down and she stayed on it until 2 as it took this long for her to eat enough to sustain normal activity.

My heart goes out to you. My little boy had bad reflux and his sleep was AWFUL. Naps v sporadic in the day. I felt so low and out of it. Try to focus on your own health as well, do you need a full check out from GP? Can you pop baby in a sling to get out and around with them? You mention your MIL picking her up when she’s crying, maybe if she’s in a sling she’ll be more settled? My little one got better the older he got- when he was on solids and able to sit up on his own he had less reflux. His sleep is still not amazinggg but great comparatively ! My main piece of advice to you would be that it does get easier, honestly! Look after yourself as much as possible in the meantime xxx

I dont mind the sling but she is getting heavy and I barely weigh much myself and everything hurts so it can get abit much carrying her for long periods
Thank you I do hope it gets easier xx

Solidarity, my son was like this, terrible sleeper and needed constant input to be content. It was relentless. I agree with PP- radical acceptance helped, I accepted the house was a mess and I would have to cuddle him for his naps or else he wouldn't sleep. The first year was so tough. He's now a bright gorgeous 3 year old who seems a lot easier than many of his peers. It does get easier!!!

My eldest was like this. Only difference was he moaned and cried constantly in the house and was just about better out and about (although still extremely difficult as he hated the pram and the car seat 🤦‍♀️). Wanted so much stimulation and entertainment. Extremely hyperactive. Wake windows didn’t work for him either and he was really slow to wean. Woke hourly until we night weaned him from breastfeeding. Total nightmare.

He got better with every developmental milestone. By the time he could walk and talk he was fab and sleeping! Still intense, demanding and high needs, he never became chill. But he’s funny, gregarious and bright. I wouldn’t swap him at all.

Another vote for radical acceptance. There is literally nothing else you can do. It’s so terrible when you are living it but it won’t be like this forever.

Aww thank you for this. How old was he when you night weaned? How old is he now? I'm just worried about lack of sleep and development. I initially thought she had ADHD but then read about high needs baby and she meets all the criteria . I'm glad to hear there is light at the end of the tunnel x

Aw solidarity, it's bloody hard. Another CMPA mum here, cutting dairy from my diet (I EBF) and his drastically changed him. He was able to sleep lying on his back which meant we could safely cosleep which saved my sleep deprived brain! I will also vote for radical acceptance and lean into it as best you can while looking after yourself ❣️ Temperament can also play a huge role, my DS is a joy but gets overwhelmed very easily and is a nightmare if we deviate from our routine. There's an Instagram account called highlysensitivefamily that was useful for me. It won't be forever, hang in there!

When did sleep get better? And how often was he waking up?
Thank you for your post,gives me hope x

He was really bad, he would frequently wale every 45-90mins during the night, but would go back to sleep fairly quickly with bfing (we co-slept). To be honest his sleep didnt really get better until he was 2.5 or so. I never did any sleep training or night weaned (personal choice) though, but very slowly he stopped feeding at night and ultimately self-weaned. No tears or distress involved. Now he goes to sleep in his own big boy bed in his own room- I do lie next to him though for about 20mins until he drops off. He does have a habit of getting into my bed like a ninja in the middle of the night but he doesn't disturb me so doesn't bother me as my sleep not affected.

Wow 2.5years! I'm due to start work in July and I'm really worried I won't be able to hack it with the hourly wakes. I am going back part time but Still doesn't seem doable. Part of me thinks i need to hand my resignation as I don't think she'll be able to handle nursery. She can't deal with anyone other than me and my OH

I think my son was quite extreme though- someone has to have the worst sleeping child- I think on this occasion it was us! Yours may settle far earlier! I went back part-time, 2.5days, WFH mostly and only in work 1 day a week and we opted for a nanny- I appreciate not possible for everyone but I just couldn't see my son getting on at nursery at that age. This worked really well for us and I found I could cope. He started pre-school in Jan for 3 half days and is doing well and sleeps better at night than he ever has, I think due to the extra stimulation!

My Lo is a very bad sleeper. She doesn't sleep . I spend all day trying to get her down for a nap. Sometimes she just has 1 nap. She ends up with 4/5 even 6 hour window at times and she's only 7m. It's so draining. She's clearly tired but just fights it.
Glad your Lo is getting on well at pre school and sleeps better.

The only way my son would nap at that age was to contact nap- there was no putting him down anywhere but my lap! So you have my sympathies! It's so tough. He only stopped contact napping at around 16 months! I was very relieved when he stopped napping totally at 2 and 3/4's! Other Mum's are gutted when their child's nap stop, I was so relieved I didnt have to help him get to sleep anymore during the day!