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 :(

I have a severe silent refluxer. She would scream if she wasn't in my arms day and night. She needed high dose omperazole, gaviscon, lactulose for the constipation and then domperidone. She also has allergies and at the point of diagnosis her cmpa symptoms were being unable to be put down and perpetual unhappy. It was only when her stools improved on an allergy free diet we realised her poos weren't normal.

I find GPs undertreat silent reflux and we had issues with our GP giving incorrect advice and was only treating her mild-moderate actual reflux and ignoring her silent reflux. The low dose omperazole she had her on was nowhere near sufficient. We ended up seeing a paediatrician for something else and he put her on the highest dose and said the GP should have done that weeks earlier. We had also been told we couldn't give gaviscon and omperazole at the same time which was wrong and the kept repeating that reflux was just a washing issue. As she was mostly a silent refluxer and we were doing cloth nappies and lots of washing anyway it wasn't much comfort.

I would see another gp and look at reflux treatment.

Sending hugs! I know exactly how this feels. I have a 14 week old who had the same issue though it is due to CMPA and silent reflux. The only thing that works for us is a crib wedge. Something like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bassinet-Pillow-Relieves-Reflux-Congestion/dp/B09K5ZFTLP/ref=mp_s_a_1_3_mod_primary_new?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.fcjLm_-PmSKX12CPWNgd0mUspUsuUflnKi442JLQNmgk8iD-XaqerLHON_G8y-eWkq1I8F482oJukhf2Ao5JjN6j9fl-CkM5lYjFbsKfalx-sEA3hTiMeLug2s02ZcnG38ss3UBctHNdWEQZNp0vflpuH1cPIBIC2o81fDamJ0MjfyC03s8kY5TRzYI1Y1cywclw3Gz9Yabj2UC_FgI04Q.DxEqUXs_Z9UQmKG6JdmNhcGQ_duIIky7kxnwnmPzejU&dib_tag=se&keywords=Crib+Wedge&qid=1716290156&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sr=8-3.

FYI, They aren't recommended by the lullaby trust - weigh up the risks/benefits before use.

I had similar issues. A German midwife advised to put the baby on their side and roll them onto their back when they deeply sleep.
It helped a lot! Many babies just can't stand sleeping on their back.

But the risk here isn't SIDS, it's suffocation - the true cause of SIDS is often unknown (but can be reduced by following safe sleeping guidelines, not smoking etc), whereas the risk of sleeping in a chair is that their head drops down and cuts off their airway. The risk of this happening is probably a lot higher than SIDS.

@skkyelark Our pram carrycot is safe for overnight sleep and that’s what we had been doing, chair and then swapping over to pram but she’s still like it in the pram - maybe slightly better than the cot but still the same. I think I’m going to speak to the doctor about the omeprazole - I’m just nervous to try as I can’t work out if it’s wind, reflux or both.

We used to leave the baby in the chair and carry it up and put it in the cot. No harm done. He’ll be 27 soon x

Have you tried Gripe water in her bottle if you think it could be wind?

I got my daughter the wedge pillow, it made a big difference. She will be 6 in July. I had silet reflux for 2 decades before it was diagnosed, so don´t underestimate it.

Assume both treat both. Tummy massage and winding for the wind. Omperazole and potentially gaviscon too for the omperazole

The omperazole is very weight dependent but it also means that they can wean themselves off it with time. The dose is between 0.7 and 3 mg/kg. Say you had a 4kg baby on 1 mg/kg they would take 4mg of omperazole. They grow and they are now 5kg and you might find that the symptoms are still managed dose is now 0.8mg/kg. They grow a bit more and still on 4mg they are now 6 kg and are on 0.66mg/kg. They are still managing. They grow again 8kg now 0.5mg/kg under the therapeutic window for omperazole and it might be worth trying to stop it. Or as they grow the symptoms return and it's clear that the reflux is still a problem and you stay on whatever mg/kg dose your child needs adjusting the dose by weight. By 8kg to keep the 1mg/kg dose they now take 8mg

My daughter has severe silent reflux and has been on omperazole since she was 8 weeks she's nearly 4 years old. She needs 3 mg/kg to be symptom free and really struggles when it goes below 2mg/kg. When she stops having to have the dose increased with weight we can look at stopping it.

Under 4 months 40% of babies have had some experience of reflux. Most outgrown it between 6 and 12 months and only a small percentage have it by 2years. Medication is usually a short term thing but it can be very effective. It's heartbreaking now my daughter can verbalise the pain she is in. She was 17 weeks before it was adequately treated when she was a newborn and it had an impact on her development as she was just too miserable to engage with the world