13 week old hates laying flat - resorted to sleeping in baby chair

[EllieJade95]

Needing advice as I am seriously exhausted. My 13 week old has never liked being flat, but previously we were waking more regularly for feeds in the night so the being awake was more expected. She can now easily sleep from 6pm-1am/2am but she will only do this if she’s in her baby chair/swing (it’s not a swing but they call them that) - how we have been doing it is that my partner stays downstairs with her whilst she’s in there, I sleep in that time whilst he stays awake and then he does the feed around 2am and either brings her upstairs in the cot or I come downstairs whilst she’s in the pram/on me. He can sleep through the noise a bit better so sometimes once she’s in the pram he won’t wake me.

Anyway, he’s started to fall asleep whilst she’s in the chair so I know we have to stop leaving her in there now. I’ve bought her up to the cot for the past 2 nights and she is still incredibly loud. She’s improved from before as she used to constantly grunt, she now doesn’t do that but she’s always tossing and turning. The other night I literally had 0 hours sleep. Tonight I’ve put her in and within 10 minutes she’s tossing turning/waking herself up.

it’s so frustrating as in the chair she will sleep for 6 hours without a peep but in her cot she will is constantly moving and is likely going to wake herself up soon. I’ve got the cot boosted as well with some books underneath but no change. Does anyone have any advice on what helped them? Or had a baby that was the same and grew out of it by a certain point?

I’m so tired it’s making the days unbareable too, so I’m hoping someone can tell me it gets better :(

Oh no it sounds so tough! I’m no expert and baby days are long gone for me but have you tried one of those reflux wedge pillow things? Is she uncomfortable being flat maybe because of reflux?

Agree - I’d look into reflux. It’s very common and sometimes silent but can stop baby being comfy at night.

Yes put a book under the front two cot legs and see if that helps. Also look into silent reflux.

@User364837 We have looked into silent reflux (as she’s not being sick) and that’s why we keep the cot propped up as it’s basically the same as the pillow without having to get the pillow (just as they aren’t breathable) but makes no difference unfortunately. We’ve tried anti reflux milk before as well but it gives her an upset stomach. Our doctor said you can get baby gaviscon but he doesn’t recommend it as it can cause bad constipation and there’s not a great deal of evidence that it actually works 😭 I feel like I’m stuck with this until she grows out of it.. I wish it was safe for them to sleep in the chairs!

Definitely look into reflux. My 15 week old was similar until about 8 weeks when we got her on infant gaviscon. It's made such a difference to her and us! She would sleep so well on us but when we put her in her crib she would grunt and wriggle and we'd be lucky to get an hour's sleep at the time. She's now been sleeping through the night for about the last month.

@Justsomethoughts Yeah we have done and followed different tips but nothing has changed :( we actually think a lot of it is to do with her wind, for example now she’s quiet and not moving and I can see that’s because her breathing is normal however when her breathing is faster (e.g with the wind) that’s when the thrashing starts. So we think it is wind rather than reflux but we aren’t 100% sure

@Mrburnshound Yeah we’ve got the books underneath but unfortunately doesn’t make a difference. That’s why it’s hard to work out exactly what it is. I just wish it was safe for them to sleep in chairs!

The Gaviscon does cause constipation, but you can ask the GP to prescribe lactulose to use with it, so the constipation isn’t an issue.

Cross posted ... any chance there's a cow's milk protein intolerance? We have that too and it can cause a lot of the same symptoms as reflux. For what it's worth, we don't give the full dose of gaviscon and haven't found it causes bad constipation at all. Just slows things down a bit.

@lemondropsandchimneytops We did speak to the doctor about gaviscon but he was hesitant as it can cause bad constipation and to be honest I really wouldn’t want to deal with the constipation cries and discomfort, that’s why i’m too scared to try!
We actuall think it’s wind because a lot of the time it’s followed by farting or as if she’s trying to, or we’ll pick her up and a burp will come out. Right now she’s silent but her breathing is slow and calm, it seems to be when she starts breathing fast the thrashing comes & when I looked into it the fast breathing is wind which seems to be the case during the day too!

@EllieJade95 when she's moving is she doing anything like bringing her legs up? And is she very windy? Are there any potential signs of a milk allergy as this can stop them from lying flat

@lemondropsandchimneytops We looked into CMPA too because our health visitor said it could be that but she had no symptoms other than having wind which is pretty generic. What was your little one’s symptoms?

@Overlyanxious Not really moving her legs up too much, sometimes she doesn’t mostly just moving head and arms around. She used to grunt a lot but doesn’t do that now. My mum had her last night and she actually started doing the same in her chair so she picked her up and walked around a bit and then she was fine again, I’m pretty sure it’s the wind but I feel it’s so hard to tell with them as so many things have the same symptoms!

What pointed us to CMPI - very watery nappies, which is what the health visitor put us onto the CMPI path for. Pulling her knees up to her tummy. Inconsolable in the evenings (although this could have been the witching hour.)
Refluxy symptoms - Gagging and choking, both when feeding and not feeding. Hiccups. Milk would sometimes bounce straight up.
And then the grunting and wriggling. She was very windy too.

Does your chair have the buzz thing?
Mine did and I just put it under moses basket base under her bum and she buzzed off

@lemondropsandchimneytops Nappies have been normal until the last few days but we think that’s a teething thing as she’s had the sleep issues for at least 2 months and never had a problem with the nappies. We do get the hiccups but I wouldn’t say regularly, never inconsolable. We do get a cough occasionally but not often. It’s so hard to tell. I think there’s some symptoms of silent reflux but I don’t think she has the CMPA. Did yours suffer from bad wind at all?

@LondonFox it does move yeah but she sleeps in it without the movement, it’s defo just the shape of it which is why she moves - also I think the fact at the head it’s smaller, in the cot it’s like her head can move around everything and I’m not sure she likes that

@EllieJade95 yes she did, badly. I've added that to my post but you probably didn't see it. You're right though, it is so hard to know. I had been thinking that her symptoms were just due to normal baby rubbish digestive system so felt pretty bad that I hadn't been more on it!

The vast majority of babies just want to be curled up and cocooned close to their mother. It's a fucking nightmare until they're robust enough that you can be less cautious with them.

I did a combination of safe co-sleeping and sleeping in shifts with my husband (one of us awake with baby sleeping on us while we watched box sets) until mine was 4 months old and could safely sleep on his stomach. He could get himself in a snuggly position then and slept happily.

Honestly, no wonder people used to just put them on their stomachs and get on with life- it's the way they naturally want to sleep.

My little one has cmpa and the wind was awful. Have you tried infacol as it really helps with trapped wind, was a major game changer for us

My little boy was very similar. Colief helped as it breaks down the milk and helps them digest it. Also google wonky winding, we did that and it helped. Also when they learn to poop better as in they know the muscles to use it gets better

I'm really sorry but as a mum of many 13 weeks old baby wants mum cuddles,soothing etc bit out in a chair,cot a fair amount by the sound of it. Babies do grunt not all, doesn't sound like she's unhappy at all she wants her mum and to know she's there

Have you tried colief/dentinox drops or similar? Massaging her tummy and moving her legs around to release the wind? Making sure she's properly burped before she goes down?

Is she on the right size teats?

Just throwing ideas out, by the way. The question marks aren't accusatory, just all things we tried for windy DD. The drops and changing bottles for MAM anti colic ones seemed to help the most

@Yourethebeerthief I wish we could co sleep! Thats the problem, even if I put her in the bed she’d be the same because it’s about the lying flat. The only way I can get her to have a good sleep is the chair and I’m told she’s not allowed to do that, even though she never ever flops her head. Ugh!

@Devilsmommy We used to use infacol every feed but it made no difference to the being flat and she started getting better with winding herself so we stopped it as I felt it was pointless her having it if her sleeping was still the same!