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7 week old, awake for 7 hours and screaming for 5!!!

My poor boy was awake from half one this afternoon , tried to settle him to sleep at around three ish, he would not settle and as the day has gone on he has got more and more worked up, to the point where he was sobbing, arching his back and i could do nothing for him, tried EVERYTHING!!!he eventually went to sleep about an hour ago, he does not seem ill apart from a wee snuffle at night, taking his feeds ok, he has been trying to fight sleep for the last week or so and each day it is getting worse, tried putting him in a routine and putting him down to sleep before he gets too tired, but like i say it seems to get worse each day,

Please give me some sdvice, any at all, i really need some help with this, its breaking my heart to see him so worked up.I have so far managed to stay calm though

Replies

  • Is he pulling his knees up to his chest? He sounds like he has colic. Infacol or gripe water, my dd had colic for the first 10-12 weeks and it was horrific we had a day of 12 hours straight screaming. If it is colic it will go away around 12 weeks but it is difficult, try and wind him more often and when he needs it a bit of infacol, colief or gripe water will ease the symptoms.
  • My little girl's 7 weeks old too. Luckily, we haven't had too much in the way of hysterics recently, but here are a few techniques that've worked on the occasions she's really lost it. I feel so inexperienced as a mummy, but just in case, here are things that have worked here:

    - Cradle LO horizontally across you, but tummy down i.e. on his front, with one arm between the legs with your palm on his tummy and your arm at the other end between their head and shoulder, again, with your palm on his tummy. Hard to explain, but a sort of 'superman' pose. Maya loves it and it instantly soothes her (she looks a bit rigid at first but I let her 'wriggle in').

    - Giving LO the end of you little finger to suck. It seems to distract Maya from the fact she's worked up even when I remove it after a minute or two. Given I'm mixed feeding, I'm reluctant to rely on demand feeding too much as she's a greedy little beggar and I don't want to overfeed her (I know this isn't really possible with babies who are exclusively breastfed). She likes the comfort of sucking, especially if she's overtired.

    - Burping technique as follows: go to sit the baby on your lap but instead put their legs through your thighs and clamp them at thigh height. Hold baby gently by the jaw with your right hand and pull gently up to get the baby's back as straight as poss then with your left hand stroke upwards while also helping to get the back really straight........the bubble seem to just pop out without you having to do the hours of pacing and slapping the poor baby's back image

    - Not sure about your feeding methods, but if bottle feeding, I've heard very good things about MAM bottles for colicky babies.... Also, dummies are supposed to be good for colic in that they produce saliva which aids digestion???? Maybe an old wives' tale....

    - Controversial, but have you tried settling LO to sleep on his side? We did this with Maya once or twice in the early days. We put her in a sort of recovery position, and wedged a rolled up blanket behind her back to keep her from lolling back into a face-up position. It's obviously a sensitive issue, and 100% oersonal choice to shun the NHS guidelines, but when it was the only way to get her to sleep in the early days, we soon threw caution to the wind!

    - My big mistake with settling Maya to bed was timing-related. I've found I'm best to put her down when she's happy and awake. I'd previously felt she was too alert at these times, but it's when she gets overtired that she kicks off when left to self-settle. I can see from your post that you've tried this though... is your little boy more likely to settle when out and about? If you can, get him to sleep by going for a walk with the pushchair then if and when he does drop off, stop and have a coffee/go home so he doesn't get hooked on the continuous movement to stay resting... Like I said before, Maya often is ready for sleep before I realise she's tired...

    Sounds like you're being extremely patient. It will get better; I'm sure colicky babies are said to get over it by 12 weeks if not before - already over half way there!


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