Help - don't know what to do?

[sweetkitty]

DD is 14 weeks and is terrible to try and get to sleep. Our day is as follows:

7am DD wakes has bf falls back asleep until 9-10am another bf then we have about 2 good hours playing etc when she gets tired she screams and only walking/standing will calm her

she then will fall asleep on you but if we try and put her down she wakes and cries

the day is an endless cycle of this she will sometimes fall asleep on the breast and can stay asleep for a few hours but not very often

I've tried getting her into a routine of bath, massage, feed but this doesn't work either she's usually up with us until 12 when she'll have a final bf then sleep until 7 am which is good I know.

I hate this crying because she's tired but I can't comfort her putting her down awake is a complete no no. Also she hates her crib and sleeps with us. She's a great feeder and a good baby apart from this. I know I have started all wrong, anyone got any ideas?

well, when dd was born 3 yrs ago the advice was to start solids at 4 months. and i have to say that was when she started to sleep through.

But sadly it's not a general view in the uk. In the 20's the advise was dont wean until 8 or 9 months. There is a danger for some babies that later in life ie adults there may be problems because of early weaning. That's not a general view but medical research.

Perhaps it's a coincidence. Why should a few teaspoons of babyrice make a baby sleep through the night? If its a growth spurt then the baby naturally gets over it fine without solids.

hercules - since then, I have found out more and do agree with you.

I do wonder though, where many of us (and there is quite a lot) got the 4 month info from. Well, we know where it was from, but why was that advice given to so many?

wasn't just a few teaspoons of baby rice (apart from right at the beginnin). they took to solids very quickly and would have had a bowl of rice or cereal and puree mixed with bmilk or fmilk.

There is a really good message from mears about this. I'll try to find it.
Our health service said 3 months and then 4 months. This was supposedly because they knew if they said 6 months straight after saying 3 months no one would take it up.
My health authority told me they still recommend 4 months solely because most mums dont bf for long here and it will take a long time to reeducate people.

it is confusing though, esp if you've had a child comparatively recently and now find out the HV will be giving you different advice this time around. suspect there's a fashion element to it as well -- the benchmarks shift so often. ie, in the 60s, babies were on solids at a few months. dh was on ground up stews and rhubarb/custard at about 6 wks! (he's fine by the way)

it wasn't the "few teaspoons of babyrice" that got them sleeping through the night. They were sleeping through at 8 weeks and then started waking again around the 14-16 week mark.

It was a combination of enough food/milk and good routines that made them sleep through.

My dd started miraculously to sleep through at 5-5.5 months, if I'd been introducing solids then I would have sworn the two things were connected. But she didn't get anything other than breastmilk till 6 months. Just saying it's easy to be convinced that you've done something which impacts your babies sleep when in fact it's unrelated. Generally research has failed to find evidence that introduction of solids helps with sleeping longer.

My dd was a pain at going to sleep too - fine once she was off. At about 3 months we did leave her to whimper at night, because I knew she was tired and she was getting too big to rock to sleep. We had a couple of nights where she cried for 10 mins, then we went up to her comforted her, she cried a bit more then went off to sleep. And after that she was pretty good. Not really controlled crying in my view - just giving her long enough to settle herself. But it was a long process over many months before you could guarantee that she would go down without a murmur!

Good luck!

I hope mears doesnt mind
Egypt - what makes you think she is ravenous? Is it because she is chewing her hands and watching you eat? Babies put things in their mouths to feel them - it is called the oral phase. It does not mean they are hungry. They also start to watch intently everything that you do.
If you think she is hungry, breastfeed her.
The WHO guidelines apply to ALL babies. One of the main reasons to delay solids is to allow the gut to mature which helps prevent illness in later life such as Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis etc.

I really think that it will take a long time until women are able to believe that babies can survive on breastmilk alone until 6 months.

It would be so good if women had the confidence to not question whether they are 'starving' their babies. They certainly would starve their babies if they did not increase the frequency of feeds. That really is where the issue lies.

The only baby of mine who was fed exclusivelt till 6 months was my fourth DD1. That was because I decided to do that come hell or high water. Yes she woke frequently for a few nights, I fed her and my milk supply increased and she settled again. With my boys, I started solids when they were up for more feeds at night. The youngest I started solids was 20 weeks. By my fourth baby my confidence was really high. My HV was horrified at what I was doing - this was 10 years ago and the recommendation for exclusively B/F was well known then.

Until mums are able to separate feeding and sleeping as 2 distict things, then there will always be the pressure to get babies onto solids. Until HV's stop saying that WHO recommendations only pertain to the third worls then mums needing their confidence boosted will continue to have their feeding undermined.

Having said all that Egypt - I think 16 weeks is too young to start solids and would advise you to try and hold out till 20 weeks. Go with extra feeds and see what happens. If at 20 weeks you find that feeding is too frequents for you, you could start then. I think though you may well be pleasantly surprised and find that things have improved.

It's certain not the "fashion" to bf exclusively to 6 months as so few people do it in the uk. In some other countries that's just the norm.

Very interesting debate, I don't think DD 15 weeks is ready for solids although loads of the mums at mother and baby club have started on them. She was born 3 weeks early as well and I'm going to hold off until she is at least 24 weeks if I can.

I read somewhere recently that a few spoonfuls of baby rice will not help a baby sleep through the night it has far less calories than b or f milk and it's just coincidence that around 4-6 months load of babies start sleeping through.

DD went 12 hours the night before last I couldn't believe has to express as I was engorged, she had a dreamfeed at 1 and 7 though but went from 9-9.

Our problem still is that she gets over tired during the day and cries because she can't get herself off to sleep. I've tried putting her down herself bfore she's tired etc everything they tell you to do and she can cry for 2 hours!! She's coming up on 4 months now another 2 and we can start sleep training of some sort so I'm just going to go with it for now.

I'm going to re-awaken this becuse I'm interested. Sweetkitty, it seems as though the problem is when you physically put her down, or am I wrong? I thought with my DS that maybe he had just got too used to being in my arms, falling asleep on the breast. Every time he fell asleep on the breast and I tried lying him down he would awake, and I spent over 6 months sleeping upright with him in my arms. I then went to a cranial osteopath, recommended by a friend and the change was instant on the first night. Definitely something to think about. I just wish I had done it sooner. You can actually get cranial osteopathy on the NHS now as it is an "accepted" form of "medicine". I always knew there had to be something wrong but conventional GP's said not. The Osteopath said that as my DS's head plates had sprung back after the birth, the membrane around his ears had got trapped, something which made sense as I could never cradle him in my arms, only hold him over my shoulder. He was apparently in pain when I put his head ona surface. It made SUCH a difference!

interesting but she sleeps from 11.30-7am most nights next to me in bed, she will sleep in bed if you put her down when shes totally gone.

I do think she would spend all her time cuddled up to my boobs if I let her.