3.5 month old - won't stay asleep

[rabbit83]

Hi, after thoughts please on underlying cause of my little ones sleep issues. And how I can help improve them.

From about 3 weeks her sleep has been poor - she'd wake every 2-3 hours grunting and moving her arms and legs, fussing her hands around her mouth.

For the past 3+ weeks she's hardly settling. Waking after 5, 15 or 45 minutes generally speaking. When she wakes she's fussing with her arms / hands in partially and can touch her ears and face a lot. She wakes herself and if let just gets upset.

Quite often when I left her up she releases a little burp and instantly falls asleep. Sometimes she's a lot fussier and needs to release some farts (very smelly).

If I let her sleep on her tummy I think she'd sleep a long time. I can't however relax if I lie her down like this knowing it is against guidance for safe sleep. Towards the end of the night I often give up and prop myself up so she can sleep on my chest (I'm awake).

In the day she'll sleep for ages in the carrier or car seat or being held. 20 or 40 minutes of she's in her Moses basket or crib.

I've restarted m giving her infacol with every feed about 2 weeks ago as I felt wind underlies it. She's still hard to wind though. And always seems to have gas to release from one end when she wakes.

Also seeing an oesteopath once a week. It's had no impact so far (2 sessions done).

I'm desperate!

Any thoughts on whether you also think it's wind? And what else I can try?

Thanks

My baby is exactly the same. He is 18 weeks. He also wakes up with his hands all over his face. Does your baby seem congested? I'm convinced my baby Is and this is why he has his hands all over his face but I've been told not

His sleep is truly awful. Do you dream feed? The reason why I ask is because my baby always struggled with wind but once last month or so hes got better. The last week hes started again grunting in bed and lifting his legs up straining then trumping and this seems to be since we started dream feeding so debating wether to stop x

Sorry the last sentence makes no sense. It should say

The last month or so his wind has improved until this week where its returned. Not sure if its because we have introduced dream feed x

It's good to know we're not alone - though don't wish this on anyone! I've not dream fed her - don't have a chance as she's waking so frequently!! When she wakes she's not really looking for milk either, more often than not she's awww in my arms in seconds. Sometimes she pops one end or the other but that doesn't mean she then does a longer sleep stint. I'm wondering if I should explore cows milk protein allergy / intolerance. My little boy has the allergy and nephew the intolerance. Not sure if it's hereditary but could be a cause. Neither me or my sister had to give up dairy (both breastfeeding) but perhaps it is affecting her. How will I live without chocolate, cake and cheese though!!

Meant to say I dont think she's congested, seems like trapped wind to me..

My baby does this, nearly 4months old. However if I cosleep, he'll sleep much longer (or doesn't wake me up at least). But put him down asleep on his own and he'll be awake after 15-20nins, bringing legs up, wriggling etc. In our case, I think it's because he can tell I'm not there, nothing to do with gas etc. Not sure what the solution is...

I was actually going to suggest cows milk protein allergy. My eldest had it and had to be prescribed a specialist formula so I knew the signs to look for with my youngest. Unfortunately she was really difficult to settle at night because of wind and had similar symtpoms to what you're describing. As I'm exclusively breastfeeding, I gave up dairy at 6 weeks old (shes now 5months) which I was gutted about but the effects were seen within 2 weeks and she went from being unsettled to a lovely little content thing, often giving me 6-7hr stretches of sleep. I always know when I've had a slip up because her sleep goes Pete tong. It's maybe worth trialing?

Which formula? My baby was on neocate quite early on. I didnt see any improvement but my husband did. Anyway the health visitor told us to trial cow and gate again so we did and he was fine on it. I've always been sure he has some form of allergy x

@Jellyonaplate20 - she was put on nutramigen which initially helped then after a week or so, all her symptoms came back, which happens on that if their allergy is a true milk protein one, so she was started on neocate. It was horrible and watery so we needed carobel to thicken it and stop her projectile vomiting. It was a really tough time and a battle with a lot of doctors to get a proper diagnosis, so I definitely empathise with others going through it.

My DD was similar. I breastfed until about 6 weeks. I was under the impression that bf babies didn’t really need winding, by my DD really did, or she would end up with bad trapped wind at the lower end.

Things that helped:

• tight swaddle - disliked it at first but stopped all the wriggling and waking herself up. Feels like a cuddle I think. She was actually swaddled and then in a sleepyhead in her next to me crib. She really needed the feeling of being ‘enclosed’ I think.
• Dummy - sucking is very soothing. Didn’t affect breastfeeding negatively either
• really decent winding after every feed, not stopping until I got up a good burp. Looked up various techniques on YouTube, as it took ages!
• white noise

Hope things settle a bit for you soon.