Advice please - restless night

[Winnifred]

Hi everyone- im so sorry that I've totally fallen off the planet. The first two days were so so hard, and yesterday was actually amazing. We're certainly making progress.

However, she was awake and screaming from 1:30 to 5:30 am this morning. It felt like we tried everything on earth to relieve any gas, make her more comfortable, bounce her, tried multiple sleeping options, attempted to breast and supplement feed and she was too amped up for either of those.

We gave her gas drops around maybe 5, and I'm not sure if it was those or the fact that she had completely exhausted herself, but I was able to bounce her to sleep and she went down for 2.5 hours. I woke her up because it had been so long since she ate...

Also, she is breastfed but we started supplementing in the hospital due to her smaller size. Dr said yesterday we could stop supplementing, but my pumping hasn't been going great and she's eating between 10-30mls after nursing so we wanted to keep going a little longer.

Before bed, we bf, supplemented, I pumped.... and she was also not content unless sucking on something. I gave her a paci in hopes that we could sleep, but she woke up a few times from midnight to 1:30, which is when I picked her up and attempted bf... and all hell broke loose

I know I'm seriously missing some details here, but I would so appreciate even just hearing that this is normal. ANY advice would be appreciated.

[lastnamewithheld]

I'm in the same boat. It's getting a bit better I think (or maybe I'm getting used to it, lol) but all you can do is go through the check-list over again and try to find something to calm her down. Fed? Dry? Shooshed? rocked? Is she too warm? too cold?

Usually DS just wants to be held or in motion. Thankfully a couple laps around the house or a couple minutes in the mamaroo is enough to calm him after all other things have been exhausted.. and if all else fails, I'm trapped under a napping baby until he's ready to start the eat/poop/sleep cycle again. (which, I mean, is that SO bad?)

This is so frustrating and tiring-- you know what to do though! Follow your instincts! Remember, this is all new to her, too! She's learning how to be a baby just like you're learning how to be her mom! You're doing a great job! Hang in there!

[mrswillie]

Oh no Winnifred! Sorry it was a rough night. DS totally has a cranky period almost every night so far. He can be fed, changed, burped, etc and take a while to find something that makes him stop. Usually he'll calm down after being held or laying on our bed. Clearly, that's not a good long term solution, but this kid just likes to be held to sleep. I find he has his best sleep early am between 6 and 8. Little stinker.

[Winnifred]

Thanks for your replies! I think seeing her in that heightened angry state for so many hours was just too much for me. Seemed like nothing calmed her for more than a minute or two.

I'm wondering if maybe we should ditch the formula. Maybe I'd be able to nurse her more often if we cut it out. Thoughts on whether or not that might help?

Also, she was born Tuesday night and her first 3 nights went as expected. This was the first scary one for sure.

[WineNChocolate]

Okay..so new mom issues...hell 2nd and third time as well. Remember that they are on a Weird schedule. She is learning that there is a night and day and mom and dad do not work at the ae times she is used too. Just try and nit stress and remember to sleep during the day when she does. I would suggest gripe water. And next you have a rock n play? Or we did this we have old feather pillows. We would swaddle her and position her in the pillow that kind of kept her upward. Are you swaddling?

[babycowbell]

My baby is two weeks today and most nights or evenings we have a few hours when she's in "maniac mode" as I call it, and nothing will soothe her except BF even if she just fed for a long time. I've read a little on cluster feeding and that seems to describe our situation well, where the baby is extra fussy and wants to eat almost constantly. We're trying a few things to try to make sure she has enough food, since her latch isn't awesome, and we try to have dimmer lights and calmer sounds at night, but I'm not sure if it makes any difference. It seems maybe for our situation it's a matter of time and her getting older.

It's always hard when she's in that mode but the first few nights like that were the worst since I wanted to be able to fix it all. Now I've read to the depths of the Internet and found lots of people with similar stories and can at least feel a little better about that.

Good luck!!!

[littlelion]

I have the up all night baby too...up to eat. I'm just lucky he's not an all night crier, a couple of screams here and there. I almost cried when at his 2 wk appt the pedi said it was natural and to expect another 2 wks of it before he got big enough to change up his schedule.

Winnifred good luck and just keep trying to rest as much as possible. You'll get to know what works for your baby before you know it...

[requiressnacks]

Sorry, lady....that is rough.

Do you think there's any chance the supplement formula is giving reflux? DS has it and was a beast before we got Zantac.

Are naps going OK during the day? In my 6 weeks as a mom I've found that the babies sleep much better when they've napped well during the day.

Pacifier?

Good luck mama!

ETA...also, we switched DD to Similac sensitive, which has helped with gassiness

[lbonga1]

Have you tried white noise? All of my babies have loved it. I know it sounds strange, but it has worked the best when I download a white noise app on my phone and turn the volume all the way up.
Since we've been home from the hospital, I've been having to sleep holding DS1 in a big chair + ottoman that we have in the living room. If I put him anywhere else, even at an incline, he has problems with reflux that wake him back up. For some reason it doesn't bother him when I'm holding him though, and he doesn't have issues during the day for naps. It'd be so much easier if babies could just tell us what they need!

[mrsp121308]

First, hang in there momma. The first few weeks are seriously the hardest while you figure out this new person and what they like.

I would try different formula, it may be hurting her tummy. She also may be over eating, if you are nursing and then bottle feeding more immediately after. Maybe have her wait awhile before giving more if she still seems hungry. She also may not be able to tolerate something you are eating, so maybe keep track of what you are eating for awhile and see what coincides with rough nights.

[lola]

So sorry you're dealing with this. We had a rough night last night too. I kept going down the list and nothing was helping. Like some mentioned above, I think I was overfeeding her, which caused her to spit up and have air in her stomach. I should've waited a bit between feeds or tried the pacifier to soothe. Hoping today goes better.

Hang in there. You're not alone. If only they could tell us what they want. It breaks my heart to see her sad.

[Winnifred]

Thank you, everyone!! I think we've decided to get rid of the formula and just focus on breastfeeding as often as possible. I don't think I was doing it enough at all, but she was so happy with the extra formula and was sleeping great, until all hell broke loose.

I think the next few days are going to be terrible, since she was up screaming so long, then slept several hours and wouldn't wake to feed. She's since woken up and bf several times, we can't get her to chill out between feedings though right now.

I think the holiday is making all of this so much harder, we can't take her anywhere to get checked out. I was really concerned yesterday because she still hadn't pooped aside from the mec at delivery and another one on day 3. The dr wasn't concerned but it seems like she should have some poop by now on day 4...

Ok I'm rambling. Thanks again for your advice. I'll read through everything again and try a few tips out.

Ps I feel terrible about how many times I've told dh that we're NEVER doing this again.

[mrsp121308]

Winnifred, it's normal for BF babies to go up to 7-10 days without pooping, so don't stress. Hazel was about every 4 days until recently and now she's going every other day. My pedi said her son was every 10 days like clockwork. Seems insane, but perfectly normal, so don't stress.

[Winnifred]

Dec 24, 2016 20:19:09 GMT -5 mrsp121308 said:

Winnifred, it's normal for BF babies to go up to 7-10 days without pooping, so don't stress. Hazel was about every 4 days until recently and now she's going every other day. My pedi said her son was every 10 days like clockwork. Seems insane, but perfectly normal, so don't stress.

How is it possible that so many credible resources give SUCH completely different information? I talked to a friend of a friend last night, a pediatric nurse, who encouraged us to call our ped's on call dr about the poop.

[Winnifred]

MOTN update from me - baby was so hard to deal with yesterday after we decided to focus specifically on bf'ing her as often as possible and ditching the formula.

She kept falling asleep at my breast and was mostly inconsolable if not there. No sleep for several hours. Dh and I reevaluated and talked to a few friends about it.

We decided to give her more formula and I saw my sweet baby girl return to us. She's since been sleeping/eating/acting like a normal newborn. I don't want to give up bfing so I'm over here pumping to establish my supply and hope to have her to exclusively bfing once my milk is established.

[lola]

Winnifred Yay for the return of your sweet baby girl! Whatever works, and fingers crossed you can figure out the bf issue.

[requiressnacks]

Winnifred, I'm so glad your sweet baby is back!

[littlelion]

So happy you figured out what the issue was Winnifred!