4 month old, very squirmy at night

[baddyfreckleface]

My 4 month old dd sleeps with us mostly as I have never been able to get her to settle for much more than an hour without being held.

She squirms loads, especially at night. Often ending up with a forced out trump. Not sure if that's a cause or a product of the squirming though!

It's almost manic squirming, she cries out, it wakes her up, her arms flail all over. We have worked out that if you can manage to get a dummy in her mouth (not easy as she shakes her head about a lot too) and stand up and rock her, then she MIGHT stop and sleep. Not always though. And not ideal with an easily disturbed 3 year old sleeping in next room.

I know with a baby you shouldn't expect sleep. That's fine.
I get cramp in my arm from having to hold her all night. I also think that she is often very tired. I feel like she needs more peaceful sleep. Some days she can have naps of no longer than half an hour at a time. She wakes up tired.

We have tried swaddling. Sometimes she settles for longer on her tummy, which I don't mind doing in the day when I can keep checking her, but dont fancy at night.

I would love any ideas on why she is squirming. Also how do other people get their babies to just sleep in a cot? Neither of mine have, what am I doing wrong?

I swaddled from birth so to prevent the jerkiness and my DD slept like that til 4mo when she started kicking her covers off. Switching to a grobag might contain legs a little. I also switched to rummy sleeping at about 5mo when she had a bad cold. I know it's not advised but she sleeps much better that way and it certainly stopped the jerking. My friend got one of those breathing sensor mays when she switched to tummy sleeps but I never did.
Also, bot having long enough day time naps can make them more restless at night, or so I found. Can you work on the nap times? I found if my DD got overtired she'd be jerky. Maybe get them down a little sooner for naps?
Good luck my lovely...

Sorry! Just re-read my post. Atrocious spelling!!! Not on the vino just yet...honest ;-)

Something dietary maybe? Is she on formula or breastmilk.

DS was a squirmer extraordinaire and he had a cow's milk allergy.

Thanks for your replies.
Button - dd never took to swaddling despite the best efforts of the midwives in hospital. It's more of a squirming due to pain/discomfort than anything else i think.
I agree that I need to sort nap times. Today she had three naps of no more than 20 mins each until tea time when she had almost two hours. The two hour nap though was because my lovely mum stood and rocked her for most of that time.

Narmada - I mostly breast feed. She has maybe one formula bottle every couple of days. At first we thought that may be linked but I did 2 weeks of no formula and she was just the same. Also she is often more settled after a bottle.

I have just spoken to a breast feeding lady who said that she appears to be nipple feeding. Maybe this means she is taking in air when she feeds and this is causing her discomfort? During the night she lies next to me and I feed her when she stiirs. She is worse for fussing from around 3 am so am now wondering if this is all linked to how she feeds.

How's her weight gain? Is it OK? Do you get the sense she is overly hungry at all? I know all babies seem permanently like this but, well, you know what I mean!

I think it is really common for babies to be fussier in the wee small hours after 3-4 am as they are typically in quite a light sleep then. That doesn't help you much I know :(

The reason I mentioned the weight gain thing is that nipple feeding is sometimes associated with poor milk transfer and inadequate milk intake.

Another thing to consider which may be completely off the wall - are there any signs at all of tongue-tie? Can your DD stick her tongue out over her lower gum/ lip?

Sorry, this is a bit train-of-thought, none of it may be relevant to you.

Do you have a BF cafe that you could drop into maybe, so someone could watch how she feeds?

Thanks Narmada,

Her weight gain is ok. She was 25th centile, now 9th but no one has said it's a problem. She doesn't seem overly hungry to me. She goes around 3 hours between feeds. She doesn't seem to feed for long and she does faff about a lot, latching on and off a lot and squirming. This is why she now has formula sometimes as she gets into such a mess latching on and off. She drinks from her bottle much calmer. She also feeds much calmer at night while she us mostly asleep. It's just that the squirming wakes her up after.

I will look at her Tongue tomorrow. This is all new to me as dd1 was bottle fed. I will have a look for a breast feeding cafe. I hate feeding her in front of others but if it helps I will.

Can you speak to your HV? 25th down to 9th sounds quite a drop. Or do as Narmada suggested and see a BF clinic or lactation consultant. HV can help find one for you. They might suggest expressing so you can see how much you're producing and ways to increase supply if you're not producing enough. Poss even top up each BF with formula if necc.
They always say sleep problems are often either lack of routine or not enough food.
Worth a try...

25th to 9th is only one centile band, right? If so, not necessarily anything to be worried about at all. Coupled with the other things tho - e.g., discomfort, and I would say no harm at all in seeing someone in real life.

The best way of increasing weight gain would be to feed more frequently than every 3 hours in the day. You may, just may, get a more contented baby at night this way. Has she always fed every 3 hours or is this a recent pattern?

Expressing is not a reliable indicator of how much milk you're producing. The best indication of adequate milk production is plenty of wees and poos and a contented baby. Some women can feed whopper babies adequately and not be able to express a drop.

That's right, she has only dropped one centile and I am not worried about her weight. Also she is a very content baby in the day.

Just to prove me wrong she actually went 5 hours this morning between feeds, sleeping for the last 2 hours of that! (a car journey and I left her in the car seat as she was sleeping).

Last night though she fed around every two hours. Only feeding for around five minutes and then falling asleep again. It's the squirming that wakes her in the night. It really does seem like she feeds too
'little and often' in the night and that gives her wind and tummy ache. Does that sound likely though?

I can try to feed her more often in the day definatley. I have just fed on demand and it seems to have been every three hours. I will try that tomorrow and see what happens.

Thanks for your replies. It helps to think things through like this.

This sounds alot like my dd who is 11 weeks she's exbf she seems to feed off the nipple and also feeds for no time at all . She wakes up trumping about 3 am and is hard to settle she usually feeds every 2 to 3 hours day and night she seems to feed frequently at night but doesn't seem to take much? she's followed the 25 th since birth so weight is also fine and is a happy baby for most of the day. I don't think she's tongue tied as I asked them to check when she was born as dd1 has tt i exbf dd1 who was a model feeder and didn't need tt fixed I know none of this helps but I thought I would share! If you get any answers please update!

ohhh.. DS had this, i think. it started after 5-week growth spurt (when he started to take in a lot more milk - who knows, it could've been milk allergy/intolerance). He'd normally wake up around 1-2am with a lot of gas, and also would be generally very trumpy all throughout the day. i think at around 4-5 months his desire/ability to sleep started to outweigh the gas, so he'd sleep through it. And now that he's on more solids (at 7 months), he's much better. But for a while he was really farting up a storm.

Hi law and little.
Yes they sound very similar! Nothing to report to be honest. Except it's got worse. Have started another thread but basically I had three hours sleep last night, and that was split into two hours and one hour!
She was really squirming and not feeding properly. Screaming and crying. She wants to be asleep, it wakes her up so she is even more angry.

I eventually gave her a bottle of formula at 3 am as I was worrying she was only getting the thinner milk to start with and maybe that was giving her wind. She took 5oz and then slept for two hours. No idea if that's anything to do with solving the problem or just was good timing. Can't really think at all today! I almost put the dirty washing in the bin today.

Hopefully she will grow out of it like yours did little.

Law, it helps just to know it happens to others thanks

My DS has been very squirmy at night too & started waking earlier & earlier in pain. Last weekend I was up from 2.45am & he just wouldn't/couldn't go back to sleep but was farting, punching himself in the face, screaming out, poor thing. I was totally wrecked by Monday.

This week I started a new campaign which involves a tummy massage before bed, bit of tummy time, bicycling legs. I then swaddle tightly (which he hates initially) with a velcro swaddle so he can't escape.

Im drinking camomile tea. I was dairy/soy free anyway for his reflux. I have also reduce my rather large chocolate intake , as I suspect was causing problems.

I'm not sure which of these have helped but he's been more comfortable & slept six hours every night this week - thank god.

Suckeddry - how old is your dc? Am wondering about swaddling again but not sure if dd is too old really?

Had another terrible night, but have realised the bottle of formula had nothing to do with her being settled for a couple of hours as it didn't work tonight. Also as soon as she wakes for the morning the squirming/wind etc stops. So maybe it's not pain?

I just don't know what to do!

Sorry you had another rubbish night.

DS is nine weeks...I didn't realise age was a factor in swaddling. Shame as I think it's really helping him stay asleep. He's still squirming a bit but not waking himself up with it.

Hope you have a better night

Apologies its a few years on, but your post read like I'd written it about my 3 month old now. How did you get on and did you find and solutions?