when your baby is crying but you've covered everything...

[mogwai]

A question about letting your baby cry....sorry, long post

my dd is just coming up to 4 weeks old. We've been loosely using the "Baby Whisperer" techniques, ie Eat, Activity, Sleep. She's a good feeder, takes 4oz every three hours (formula)

It works well all day, though when we go on a trip out, she tends to sleep throughout, so sometimes gets more sleep during the day than she probably needs.

She has no problem being in her moses basket during the night. Strangely, so won't nap in it during the day. She doesn't seem to want the activity after night feeds. We dream feed her about 11pm and we go to her as soon as she stirs during the night (about 3am). She tends to feed very well and go straight back to sleep. We are up for about 30 mins on average.

We have a bit of a problem getting her down in the evening however. Our routine is generally food, activity, bath every other night, cuddle, bedtime. We put her down sometime around 7pm. She simply cries and cries when we put her down for this particular sleep. We know she's fed, clean, cuddled, not too warm or hot. She doesn't want the dummy, doesn't want more cuddles, will take more bottle (which we give as a last resort - she's putting on good amounts of weight) but immediately falls asleep on it. We've tried a musical mobile, we've tried a bit of lavender oil on a comforter at the foot of her basket.We've tried winding her more, but wind doesn't seem to be the problem (has wind at other times - obvious tummy discomfort - we are using infacol and colief). She looks knackered but can't be placated. I really don't think it's colic. DH is a doctor, he agrees.

We have concluded that she wants to go to sleep but doesn't know how to. We don't want to get into rocking her to sleep (and anyway, I tried it, it doesn't stop her on-off crying). We have started coming downstairs and sitting down, with the monitor on. The first night she cried for 15 mins on and off, nothing frantic, then she slept.

Last night, however, she cried for 30 mins. The crying escalated, unlike the previous night. She kicked off all her covers, I replaced them. My dh thinks we are doing the right thing. After all, if you try everything and nothing works, what else can you do? However, as her mum, I find the crying hard to ignore. I don't want to get her into bad habits, I don't want her to rely on us to get her to sleep every night (doesn't need it at other times). I'm concerned I won't have the will power not to pick her up when dh is working nights, he'll be gone when she goes to bed.

Would you let her cry and hope she learns how to get to sleep? 4 weeks seems very early, I know they don't really learn at this stage, so I'm not suggesting controlled crying, just at a loss what else to do.

By the way ds hated being swaddled at first, loved it in the end and was just what he needed to calm himself down.

I use capital letters sometimes for emphasis - does it really matter - after all there's often a thin line between saying something emphatically and shouting

my babies hear the hoover and seem to realise they have no chance - so they just lay there looking peed off!
Do swaddle very tightly too.

DD was a perfect baby during the day, fed every 3-4 hours, then gurgled and went to sleep. She was an angel. But at 6pm every night it was "witching hour" - she just screamed, often until 10 or 11 at night before finally falling asleep, we rocked her, walked her, soothed her, fed her, cuddled her, left her to cry a bit, and this went on for 3 or 4 months. And then just when we thought we couldn't go on.... it stopped.
She has always found it difficult to go to sleep and we had a "bath, story, bed" routine from about 6 months, which we still do now she is 5 .
Agree with Rummum though - when DS was born, often his crying just coincided with DD's storytime, and although I did my best I was often alone and had to leave him for 5 minutes to cry while sorting out DD. And he learnt to settle himself.
When expecting DS I said the only thing I would do differently was to put my baby down in his cot awake, and not rock my baby to sleep all the time - it's an automatic thing, you just start swaying! Great thing hindsight.
But then again, all babies are different...
Conclusion: don't worry, it's normal. Just get by the best you can. You're doing a great job!

Hey Mogwai... how did it go tonight... did anything work for you?
Let us know how you got on.

How'd it go?

DH spent evenings for the first 2 months of ds's life, pacing up and down the living room with swaddled baby in one arm, and a novel in the other hand. Ds is now 5mo. At about 7pm every day he decides it is bedtime, and screams his head off until we park him in his cot, turn the light off, shut the door - and he gratefully takes himself off to sleep. Fab. I would definitely recommend going with the flow and doing what is easy and feels right. Later, if you have a problem, you can fix it then.

We tried so hard to do everything "right" with dd, and she is still rubbish at sleeping. Like many things I think it is about 95% to do with the personality of the child and only a bit to do with our parenting skills.

I agree with most of the postings. I used to rock/cuddle dd to sleep til she was about 10 weeks old. She started waking up every time I put her down asleep so I decided to leave her until she cried and then go back up and give her the dummy. She's now 18 weeks and more often than not she will go to sleep on her own. Some nights I have to go up with the dummy once or twice.

Rocking or cuddling her to sleep now won't necessarily mean you will have to do it forever. I would continue doing this for a while and rethink it in a month or so.

mogwai, i always cuddled dd1 to sleep and THB she did grow to get used to that and now at 4 she'll have a story and twiddle my hair for 5 minutes and go off. I see that as fine as i like being there when she goes off.

With dd2 i would say i just totally went with the flow for the first weeks.
She was only a few weeks old though when she started getting alot more tired at 7.30-8, same as dd1 and they go to bed at the same time. With dd2 it's being held tight and not letting her pull out her hair!! Putting my head on hers usually gets her off.
This is all totally irrelevant to you i'm just rambling!

Just wanted to say, i really beleive you won't spoil her at this age. She'll get into her own pattern soon enough.
If anything, i think she'll grow less clingy by knowing you're always around when she needs you. (i'm sure research would back me up there as i think i've read it!)
I definately think 4 weeks old is far too young to leave her to cry, i jsut think she won't get what's going on at all, she'll just know she's alone.

I also think you'll feel much bettre if you make a concious decision just to go with the flow for a while and get routines set later.

Best of luck!

Had the same with dd and according to What to Expect in the First Year book (reading it at 2am) young babies cannot shut out background noise heard during the day, hence crying in the evening is the only way to alleve the 'stress' built up by TV, radio, just general noise. Next day followed 'quiet' routine as recommended - no TV etc within her earshot - worked a treat - no early evening crying happened again.

Also have heard that Lavender can be actually a stimulant to certain people so might be worth withdrawing that to see if there is a difference? Also mobile prob too stimulating at this stage anyway

Cranial Osteopathy if all else fails - worked for us when dd had terrible probs with waking in the night and was still doing it at 5! Started sleeping through for the first time ever after 3rd treatment

Good luck - hope things improve for all of you

For the first 7 weeks our DS slept on my chest every night as he would never sleep in his mosses basket. From 12 weeks he went into his cot in his own room. We now use a simliar routine to the baby whisperer, he has his last bottle around 9pm, bath for his activity then bed. He's now 22 weeks old. we have been doing this for the last 6 weeks and have found it works reasonably well. we still have to cuddle him to sleep (takes up to half an hr), but he no longer wakes up as soon as we put him down in his cot and will sleep for 7 - 10 hours a night. If he does wake up in the night, I go and cuddle him back to sleep again which can take up to 15 mins, he hasn't had any nightfeeds since 15 weeks old since I stopped BF. For the last 4 weeks he has slept straight through apart from 2 nights - but he is teething now.
I also found that baby massage helped.

Oh,and he has his night light on in his cot (on his monitor) and radio 4 on all night in his room at normal volume. One of my HV's said it might help to have a talking radio station on.

so last night we did it all differently!

Fed at about 5pm, was ok for a while. We had radio 4 on, so not too noisy. Went on baby gym for 5 mins (usually will enjoy it for up to 30 mins, didn't want to stimulate her too much) as activity. She became restless at 6pm, nothing helped. In the end we took her for a walk in the pram. She slept as soon as we left the house but woke up the minute we returned (we'd been gone about 30 mins).

Gave her a bath when we got back. This stopped her crying but she started up again on the changing mat.

Tried more food - grazed at the bottle. Put the hoover on - quietened her down (and house got hoovered! ) but she started fussing on the bottle and returned to crying.

Then - joy - dh had been "shusshing" her. It quietened her a bit but she was still fussing and crying on-off. SO I tuned the radio out and turned up the white noise and we sat right in front of it. She rested on my shoulder, wide awake, puked a bit, but totally calmed down. Stayed there for 30 mins.

So dh brought a radio in from the garage and put it in her room, set up the white noise and we put her down. She was ok for 15 mins but started fussing then crying.

I went up to her, cuddled her. This didn't work. The only way I could calm her was to sit on the floor, in front of the radio, with her in the "burping" position on my knee, rocking back and forth, holding a dummy so it wouldn't fall out. And then I remembered that I am a human being and cannot do this every night, so gave up and took her downstairs.

Brought her down, cuddled her, gave her the bottle. She grazed on it again. Eventually went floppy at about 9pm so we put her down. She'd been awake for about five hours, looked very tired and upset before we put her down. She did fuss a bit in the cot afterwards but stayed asleep.

SO we didn't leave her to cry. That made me feel much better. We did, however, have three hours of total misery for all three of us. Today she has been very unsettled, grumpy, hard to placate. She has always been fine in the day until now.

I'm putting her on e-bay.....any idea what section?

By the way....this recent unsettledness coincides with us using Colief. Could this be the problem? We decided to give it until tomorrow but perhaps we should discontinue it. She's been as farty as ever, the colief doesn't seem to help?

Don't give up! You can't expect to change a routine overnight - will take time for all of you to adjust. Even the best sleeping babies have nights when they are suddenly awake loads for seemingly no reason.
Just keep trying.
I'm not a doctor, but can't think the Colief would have such a bad effect.

Mogwai I think it is a mistake to think that crying at this age = something wrong that can be fixed.

It really is just what some babies DO and all you can do is get through it. It won't be "every night" although I KNOW that it feels like it when you are going through it. Aloha is right in that when you have had one newborn you eventually learn that Next Week Everything Will Be Different. It doesn't matter what you think 'works' now or she has 'learnt' now - next week will be a whole different kettle of crap!

I wasted SO much time with my dd looking for problems/solutions and absolutely nothing worked, everyone just got upset.

Around 3 months they chirp up a lot and you will start to feel more human. Until then for lots of mums and babies it is just a matter of enduring, comforting and trying not to smother them with a pillow.

Why not discontinue the colief for a few days and see if it makes a difference? Perhaps using infacol and colief together is not working?

The only thing that worked for DS's colic was Woodward's gripewater.

Whatever anyone else says, you are the mum and you need to follow your instincts. If you don't want to leave her to cry, then don't.

I never left my DS to cry (but did get DH to take a short walk around the house with him, to give me a break - somehow DS seemed to be able to sooth him better, and by the time I got him back, I was calmer, which really helped). When he outgrew his colic, he stopped being fussy at night and has always been a good sleeper since then (now is 2.3yo)

haven't time to read the whole thread... but please don't leave her to cry herself to sleep! she's far too little
she cries because she wants you, she wants to feel secure and loved and to know that someone is there to look after her... what's wrong with that?
if she falls asleep on the bottle then give her a small bottle and let her do that
breastfed babies often use the breast as a comforter so there's no real reason she shouldn't do that if it makes her feel good. if you think it's too much milk then just give her an ounce or so,

also would highly recommend seeing an osteopath (cranial or normal) who wil be able to see if there are any little niggles that might be making her uncomfy

just read your last post... fwiw ds was also very farty! i think babies just are sometimes. if they don't get all their wind up it just comes out the other end.
if you feel that the unsettled behaviour coincides with the colief then give it up!

groan...I KNOW not to leave her crying Starlover. I KNOW she wants me. I KNOW there's nothing wrong with that. Thanks for posting your advice though. It's just that, as you said, you didn't have time to read it properly - you really don't need to persuade me not to leave her crying, I'm not happy leaving her crying

The stuff about constantly looking for what's wrong strikes a chord! I just bought anti-colic bottles and gripe water, so that's what I'm trying next. If it doesn't work, and I get no offers on e-bay, then yeah, we are sitting it out and hoping it improves soon.

And the local off licence will see a rise in profits....

turn a hair drier on...
now gonna read the rest of thread to see if that gem has been offered before x

Extractor fan on the oven hood worked sometimes...

mogwai..you said about the hoover!
no joke,that white noise can be just the ticket for these early weeks ,when they need a hand to drop off and whats more they grow out of it [pretty quick]

teehee beansy (and nice to see you on passive parenting.....I'm not being remotely passive am I???) - a hairdryer has not been suggested, but, added to the hoover, would ensure nice coiffure AND clean house at all times.

Can you get hair straighteners that make a noise?? What about Chanel nail polish that hums when you paint it on?? A cleaning lady that makes a white noise when she cleans the extractor fan?

At least we still have our sense of humour

SERIOUSLY
just turn it on,leave it on the floor and roll over/leave the room
zzzzzzzzzzz

Can I just say this in respect to Colief - NO!

It made my DS soooooo very farty, he spent all night awake farting, and all day waking up to fart. If I'd have lit a match DS would have gone BANG!!

My GP said colief is specifically for lactose intolerance, and that very few babies have actual lactose intolerance. She was aware that it seemed to be a current recommendation by Health Visitors and was at a loss as to why.

My experience obviously - I know there has been positive testimony for it.

i'm trying the tommee tipee bottles now. going to kick the colief to the kerb. I was kind of wondering why a treatment for lactose intolerance was being suggested by health visitors willy nilly??

the recent windy farty discomfort definitely co-incides with colief.