Newborn spills as soon as laid flat

[EllenMM]

Hello! My 3 weeks old simply won’t lay/sleep flat.. she only wants to be held and as soon as we lay her down she starts fidgeting and eventually crying. My biggest worry is that she spills milk every time she lays flat, and a lot of it! We have tried Infacol, raising her crib, keeping her upright 1-2 hours after food but nothing helps. My husband will soon go back to work and I don’t know can I manage this on my own 😵‍💫 apart from her wanting to be close to me, does anyone know why laying flat would make her bring her food up? And isn’t it bad for her health/development if she doesn’t get any time on a hard/flat surface? I am loosing my mind here.. 😞

At 3 weeks, she has no idea what life is without you. Babies need to be held! Look up fourth trimester and consider a baby carrier?

As with the spit up, potentially could be silent reflux, worth mentioning to HV.

She's only 3 weeks old, she wants to be held. If she's liking when flat I

Ooops when flat it's likely silent reflux.

My little girl was like this. She was quite unsettled when being laid down and the sheets on her crib were always soaked through every night with watery spit up, which really worried me.
I mentioned it to the health visitor and they suggested getting a prescription for baby gaviscon from the GP to treat reflux.

Another possibility could be cows milk allergy, especially if baby is also quite gassy.

Some babies are just a bit spitty though!

In the end the gaviscon didn’t really do much to help and we stopped using it after a week. She gradually started spitting up less over the next few weeks and we started using a white noise app on our phone which was a massive game changer in settling her down!

Best of luck :)

We had to burp our DC a lot before putting him down otherwise he'd vom.

It could be reflux. We tilted the basket slightly at one end so ds was at a slight angle which helped. But let midwife know

This sounds very much like a baby struggling with reflux. Might be a good idea to speak to your GP and get her some gaviscon, as this is meant to thicken the milk in her tummy making it less likely to come back up. They also have something you can add to your milk to thicken it so it sits in her stomach better.

Thanks all! Not sure there is anything I could do if it’s reflux other than giving medicine and riding the storm!

There isn't really, other than tilting his cot/crib a little and a few other little tips online but generally it will get a lot better when he starts weaning!

Get her in a sling, one of those stretchy ones. Life will become 100% easier for you as she'll be happier.

I will do!!🤞

My baby was like that. Couldn't put him down for the best part of 3 months. It's been getting better in the last few weeks 🤞Get a sling, it helped me massively, at least I had my hands free and could eat a meal and go to the bathroom!

good to know I am not alone.. got a sling yesterday, will give it a shot! 🤞

Our eldest loved being swaddled when very young. I'm not sure whether it's a thing now though.

Osteopathy helped our DS with silent reflux. It took a couple of weeks to take effect but he's like a different baby now.

Hopefully the sling will make things easier for you too. I have one of the wrap ones and am just used to DS being attached to me now while I do things around the house.

The reflux is due to the valve to the stomach. It’s not so much under-developed when they are born but moreso usually needs to strengthen up a bit to ensure the one-way flow. Babies are variable so for some it’s not too bad and you just get smallish possets, through to one’s replicating the girl from the exorcist on a bad day. Some require medication and others not so much and the valve strengthens at a different rate for different individuals. However, a combination of age, becoming more upright for more of the time, and solids seems to knock it over for those where the problem continues for longer than others. Of course, there will always be outliers, those that need assistance into childhood but it’s rare.

What kind of cot do you have? If you have a next to me type thing they're usually very easy to adjust so they're tilted (you need to keep the sides up for safety) honestly this does sound like fairly standard newborn stuff possibly a bit of reflux but most if not all babies bring up milk if laid flat. The wanting to be held is also completely normal - that is why snuzpods and the like exist...they comfort the baby like they're being cuddled and help them to sleep.