2week old baby settling problems

dexterwolf

Our baby is two weeks old and normally has a period of 5/7 hours or not settling between about 5 pm and 2 am . We change her, wind her walk round with her. I take her out in the pram for An hour for a walk but still will not go to sleep when you put her down. She is only taking around 50 ml on her feeds which we do on demand. We are struggling as I knew been a parent would be tough but it is really stressing us both out . Anyone got any advice . Also we have tried infacol and a comfort feed in case of wind etc.

pollypenny

You need to seek advice from your health visitor or doctor.

WestonDave

What is her daily pattern of sleep and awake like?


I ask as one of ours ended up with them back to front - he was bolt awake at night when we were trying to get him off to sleep and then would sleep pretty much solidly (apart from feeds etc) during the day. Our solution to that was to take the painful hit and stay awake one night keeping him asleep by walking him round the block in the pram endlessly to keep him asleep. That meant that he'd got enough sleep in a block to then be able to be more awake during the day and played with etc - so that at night time he was in need of more sleep. The key is to "force" sleep so that waking happens elsewhere - you can't force them to be awake if they haven't had extra sleep elsewhere as they then get overtired and it all becomes much worse.

meer53

At 2 weeks old i'd just go with the flow. As she takes more feed she will sleep more.

Speak to your Health Visitor if you're really worried. My daughter didn't sleep through the night until she was 2 years old. Good luck

keza

we had a similar situation with our first and he used to scream the house down betweem 5pm - 1am. we ended up, after various doctors medicine recommendations, taking him to a Chiropractor who gave him some treatment and it worked wonders! over 6 sessions he was a different baby.
This is only my experience but thought id mention it incase it helps. have a look on the internet at some of the research done for colic with a chiropractor. worked wonders for us.

other than that, perhaps take it in turns to get some rest? Is there anyone who can look after baby while you get some sleep for a few hours? I feel for you. it really was tough for us but it does get easier with experience. we are expecting our second in 10 weeks and i will be going straight to a chiropractor this time for an assessment. good luck x

AndyBSG

How much does the baby currently weigh? Is he/she being breast fed or formula fed? is she winding or burping OK(trapped wind really is quite hard to spot and can be a huge cause of restlessness)

As a rule, babies in the first few weeks shouldn't really be staying awake for more than 90 minutes at a time.

Our three month old was feeding every two hours on breast milk for the first couple of weeks and it was only around the 6 week period that it got better.

We did find that switching the evening feeds to formula helped a LOT despite the disapproval from the health workers with their 'breast is best mantra'

Bottom line is that a baby drinking formula will tend to go longer between feeds so we found that giving formula for the evening feeds meant baby slept longer, mum got some time to actually sleep which in turn made her breast milk better.

slowcoachme

It sounds like she might be hungry. She is only taking 50mls at a time on demand feeding, so are you feeding her frequently?
Definitely get expert advice from your local baby clinic, not from a lot of strangers online.

glentoran99

Is she bunged up with mucus? Our wee one was like that, she could hardly breath through her nose so was struggling when taking her bottle so wasn't taking much so was permanently hungry, We got her "sucked out" and was the best thing we did started feeding and sleeping better almost immediately

Kaye1

Must write and run but mine had terrible reflux and had a period of between 6pm-12pm of screaming until it was sorted.


Infacol didn't agree with my youngest.


Will give more detail later

barbiedoll

Most newborn babies are "nocturnal", that is, they feed more and are awake more, during the hours of darkness, they tend to sleep better during the day. No-one really knows why this is, although research shows that breast milk production is better at night and even if your baby is formula fed, they still have the same instincts as a breastfed baby.

Your baby may well be in the middle of a "growth spurt", which will mean that she will have a very strong instinct to suck for much of the time, even if she isn't particularly hungry. Again, this is to do with breastfeeding, the baby needs to feed more to stimulate higher milk production. Formula fed babies will again have the same instincts as a breastfed baby and will want to suck something, it's very hard to get them to settle during this time. Breastfeeding mums will call this "cluster feeding", when the baby will not settle without a feed, even though they don't want any milk, they will latch on, then get off, then cry and latch on again, etc etc.

As others have said, make sure she is gaining enough weight before you do anything else. She may well be hungry, in which case, you could increase the amount of milk at each feed. All babies will get colic at some point or another, Infacol, Dentinox and so on will sometimes work and sometimes not, colic is still poorly understood and it's often just one of those things that you have to put up with until it has gone. Tummy massage can help, but I know that's very hard in the small hours when you just want to shut your eyes for a few minutes!

As long as she's gaining weight and her urine and stools are all "normal", then it's probably just her being a baby, I don't think anyone knows how hard it is to care for a newborn until they actually have one, it is a shock to us all at the time.

Get her checked out, take turns to do the night feeds, and make sure that you get some sleep during the day if necessary. And it will get better......as I'm sure everyone has already told you!

glentoran99

barbiedoll wrote: »

Most newborn babies are "nocturnal", that is, they feed more and are awake more, during the hours of darkness, they tend to sleep better during the day. No-one really knows why this is, although research shows that breast milk production is better at night and even if your baby is formula fed, they still have the same instincts as a breastfed baby.

Your baby may well be in the middle of a "growth spurt", which will mean that she will have a very strong instinct to suck for much of the time, even if she isn't particularly hungry. Again, this is to do with breastfeeding, the baby needs to feed more to stimulate higher milk production. Formula fed babies will again have the same instincts as a breastfed baby and will want to suck something, it's very hard to get them to settle during this time. Breastfeeding mums will call this "cluster feeding", when the baby will not settle without a feed, even though they don't want any milk, they will latch on, then get off, then cry and latch on again, etc etc.

As others have said, make sure she is gaining enough weight before you do anything else. She may well be hungry, in which case, you could increase the amount of milk at each feed. All babies will get colic at some point or another, Infacol, Dentinox and so on will sometimes work and sometimes not, colic is still poorly understood and it's often just one of those things that you have to put up with until it has gone. Tummy massage can help, but I know that's very hard in the small hours when you just want to shut your eyes for a few minutes!

As long as she's gaining weight and her urine and stools are all "normal", then it's probably just her being a baby, I don't think anyone knows how hard it is to care for a newborn until they actually have one, it is a shock to us all at the time.

Get her checked out, take turns to do the night feeds, and make sure that you get some sleep during the day if necessary. And it will get better......as I'm sure everyone has already told you!

You cant force it into the baby, though she is only taking 50ml I doubt mum is stopping her at that point