Constantly crying/feeding baby

[MrsCeecee]

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced/felt the same. I’m struggling with my 12-week-old as he seems to cry almost constantly when not feeding or sleeping (and only sleeps during the day during/after a feed). Could be wind or reflux. I do wind him and we’ve tried Gaviscon and going dairy-free but it’s the same. But the only way I can soothe him is breastfeeding, which means I’m basically breastfeeding all the time - sometimes hourly, even during the night. This has been going on for a while so I don’t think it’s a growth spurt.

I know they say you can’t overfeed a breastfed baby but I do wonder, as he’s leaped up percentiles in the last few weeks. I never thought I’d be worried about him putting on too much weight or feeding too much after all the trouble it’s taken to get breastfeeding established. But I worry it’s making digestive issues worse by feeding all the time.

Can you contact your health visitor or GP? In the meantime I wouldn’t worry about over feeding, but you must be exhausted do you have help?

Do they have a dummy? I know some people don't like them but I found it super helpful particularly from around this age. I was still breastfeeding DC2 at that age and I found he started getting super fussy once he'd fed enough and was clearly done with milk but exhausted and wanted to sleep. So he'd have his dummy instead and Id rock or pat him and that would do it.

@MrsCeecee although you're feeding constantly, even given his weight gain, could he still be hungry?

@WeightoftheWorld He used to have a dummy but has started to refuse it outright now!

@ru53 Thank you, yes my OH is off work with me for a few months, thank god.

@beetr00 honestly I just don’t know. Maybe he’s not getting enough milk and has to feed constantly, though I get the impression it’s more for comfort as most of the time he’s just doing gentle suckling.

You could try some different types of dummies? As there's so many different ones.

I would try not to worry too much though. Babies do cry and some of them cry A LOT unfortunately and there's usually not a medical reason why. I think from your description it really does sound that tiredness/comfort is a likely cause especially when you say about waking hourly. I think my babies probably did wake that often too, but they had their dummy to suck back to sleep so then usually only woke properly after a few hours when they needed feeding, if that makes sense.

In the daytime do you have a sling or baby carrier, and can you go for walks in the pram? Mine both would nap when on the go and it was good for my health to get out too.

It will pass, even though I know the hours drag by when you're in the thick of it.

I should say his feeds last an age as well - sometimes 90 mins long. Then he’ll want to do it all over again an hour or so later… he’s usually quicker in the night, but still frequent.

Is he definitely feeding for the full 90 minutes? I used to think this about DC1 for ages until I realised that often she was actually just fast asleep on the breast and sucking in her sleep. Then I started feeding for 23 minutes, and then try to unlatch baby. If they wriggle and are awake and actually were feeding I would swap sides and continue. And then do the same again. A lot of the time they were actually fast asleep when I unlatched them and not feeding at all, just sucking as a sleep reflex.

No advice just my sympathies as know how hard it is x

My baby was kind of similar to this with the breastfeeding, not so much the crying but just wanting to feed constantly and for ages. It was up to 12 hours on the boob each day. I think basically she/we didn’t have a great technique and she would fall asleep so wasn’t actually taking much milk in with each feed. It might be worth getting some breastfeeding support although sounds like you’ve already done that. We also struggled to get going with breastfeeding - it took a few months before she really got the hang of it properly and she still doesn’t actually latch in the way the books say. I went to a local breastfeeding support charity for help who were miles better than the infant feeding team. They had in person sessions with proper one to one support, even if you’ve had help before they were just really supportive and had so much useful info. It probably will improve over time but it’s tough when you’re in it.

I also wonder with my baby if the fact she struggled to latch at first meant she is extra reliant on boob now for comfort. I’m currently (10 months in) trying to reduce the reliance for sleep!

And this

@WeightoftheWorld Definitely not feeding that whole time, mostly just sleep suckling! If I unlatch him he’ll sometimes stay asleep, sometimes he’ll be effing fuming…

@ru53 Yes it’s been such a struggle for us too to get breastfeeding going, he was actually mostly formula fed from birth and we’ve spent weeks getting back to just breast milk. I know he’s getting enough from me now (judging by nappies and weight gain) but his latch is still pretty bad.

He actually accepted dummies fine and seemed far more settled when he was formula fed! Though that might just be because he was younger and was very sleepy for a good while - he’s only really been “awake” for the last few weeks.

I have had advice on his latch/positioning but we’re still struggling so I do need to get to a breastfeeding group to see if that might be the cause. Thank you!

My daughter was like this. She had severe silent reflux which required the highest dose of omperazole with gaviscon and domperidone to bring under control. She has cmpa and soya allergies as well as 18 others. I did lots of food diaries and when I go back over the early ones I was having 2-3 of her allergens every meal so it was no surprise she was always miserable.

When you removed dairy did you also remove soya? What did you replace dairy with. The biggest problem we had was whenever I took out a food I increased the amount of another food and she always reacted to that too - tomatoes and coconut for example! Food diaries were my best friend.

She's 3 and managing her reflux is still a struggle.

Good luck OP! You will get there and it will get easier.