1 month old won't settle, needs frequent nappy changes. What's going on?

[tenar]

DD is 4 and a half weeks old, and generally she's great. Feeding well, sleeping gradually longer and longer. A perfect baby (well, nearly - I'm allowed to be biased )

It's been a rough afternoon. She's been unsettled or just downright crying all afternoon, for about 9 hours now. We don't know what the problem is (maybe more than one problem?).

The one thing we've noticed is that she's needing lots and lots of nappy changes, because she's doing lots of little poos and little wees and she gets upset each time. So we've changed her nappy maybe 12 times in the last 9 hours. Actually it feels like more, but I lost count a few hours ago...

I fed her (bf) at midday, 3, 5.45, 8.15. This seems a little too frequent to me - she's been feeding 4-hourly in recent days, very regular. I am not sure whether she is partly, or sometimes, crying because she's hungry, or whether she's crying because something is wrong that the more-frequent feeds are only exacerbating. So I don't know whether to feed her more or to try to wait it out for at least 3 or 4 hours since the last feed.

The last 3 nights at this time she's been sleeping for a 5 hour stretch. Tonight, 20 minutes after a feed, she's crying again It's really starting to stress me and DH out, because we don't know how to fix whatever the problem is.

Any idea what might be doing on? Is this a normal variation that we simply hadn't encountered before?

[MrsFabuloso]

It sounds very normal to me. Newborns are still trying to figure out what's going on in the world. Your little lady is still very new to being on the outside! Could she have wind, have you tried burping her, sitting her upright and just patting her back. My DS was often windy and very unsettled and this setttled him after a while of walking and jiggling and patting! If you're bfing have you eaten anything different or in large quantities, I found if I had too much milk/dairy or chocolate, DS was really unsettled too. Maybe she has a tummy ache if she's pooing so much. Maybe she's just overtired now if she's been crying for so long. Do you have a sling to carry her in, or maybe pop her in the pram? That might settle her. Hmmm, what else could it be??? Ummm, maybe she is hungry, maybe she's oign through a growth spurt. My DS was feeding 2-3hrly day and night at this age! It's so hard to know what it is at this young age. Good luck. HTH.

[Olive]

its quiet common for bubs to feed 12+ times in 24 hours so 4 hourly is maybe too long between feeds. it also sounds like she is very overtired.
do you have a sling you could pop her in to help her settle?? maybe hop in the bath with her and feed, or hop into bed for skin on skin.
frequent wee's and poos are also normal and will settle down soon!

ETA at that age DD didnt go more than 3 hours between feeds except overnight, until 12 weeks she now feeds 2-2.5 hourly!

[sneakysparkle]

it can be so frustrating when your bub is crying and you dont know why! hang in there, youre doing a great job
Dont worry about her frequent feeding - its very normal, shes still so young - if shes telling you shes hungry feed her
Try to keep her upright for 10 mins or so after her feeds, just in case she is windy - it may or may not help...
I hope she settles soon

[Liz]

That frequency of feeding is very very normal. A newborn can easily feed 12 times in 24 hrs.. and doing the math - that means they could feed every 2 hrs! She could well be demanding more feeds, in which case, just allow her access to the boobs until they catch up with her demand, and the frequency will settle down after a while. Altho both my babies fed close to 3hrly for many many months hahah.

If it's concerning you though that it's a sudden onset of unsettledness, keep an eye out for illness or fever or something, and maybe even a trip to the dr wouldn't hurt if it persists.

But if she seems generally ok, just unsettled, then it could just be one of those trying periods our babies like to put us through .. be it a growth spurt, developmental milestone.. whatever... and it will pass.

But yeah... that frequency of feeding is very normal and I would be allowing her those feeds. Babies don't generally feed by the clock, just like we don't.. we have snacks and drinks inbetween our meals too At this age you're still perfecting the supply/demand thing, so definitely follow her lead.

I hope she settles for you soon. Some great suggestions re the sling, pram etc.

[tenar]

Thanks for the ideas, everyone. DH has, at least temporarily, calmed her down enough to sleep. Let's hope this sleep lasts for longer than 10 minutes.

I take the point that she might need to feed more often today than yesterday, and I am certainly not trying to make her stick to any sort of a schedule, but to go with what she needs. It's just hard to figure out what she needs when she won't stop being upset..

It seems odd to me, though, because she was so settled with her feeding the last few days. And if she's crying again 20 minutes after a feed, then hunger isn't the problem then, so maybe there is more than one problem, or maybe the problems are changing and she's just sticking with general upset-ness.

We took her for a long walk in the pram earlier. She was sleeping for maybe 40 minutes while walking, then she woke up, hungry (I think), and I fed her and then she was upset again. I might try more walking later tonight if I get desperate, because she does like the pram.

We do burp her and we do keep her upright for 10-15 minutes after feeds, to make sure she doesn't need to burp more or poo more. The upright position seems to generally help, but not tonight.

We gave her a bath, which normally is quite soothing for her. But she was crying by the end of it and screaming by the time we got her dried and dressed again. So that totally didn't work.

She doesn't like the sling (or, more correctly, I can't get the sling right somehow so she's comfy, and I'm not comfy with it either). We have been holding her for hours this evening, not that it seems to help much.

I actually do think that she's certainly overtired by now, even if she wasn't before. So that problem needs to be solved along with whatever she was upset about in the first place. Maybe it was just always going to be bad day for her. It's just hard watching her so upset and trying to work out what to do about it to help break the cycle of being upset

I'm losing my cool more than a little here.

[sneakysparkle]

BREATHE!! Youre really doing great, try and rest when she does so you dont go insane!

I'm sorry I'm going to go on a tangent here... I dont know anything about reflux myself, but if shes getting more upset after a feed maybe that could be something? A friend of mine's DD had 'silent' reflux, so she didn't vomit but just had the acid coming up. She would scream after every feed - that started at about 4/5wks.
I hope this isn't what your little one has, and its probably just that she's overtired, but like Liz said - if youre worried, and she's unsettled again tomorrow maybe take her to your dr.

[Liz]

I'm losing my cool more than a little here.

We all go through it. Keep your cool

I do have distinct memories of pretty much plonking myself in front of the tv for the night and having bub sleep upright on my chest. Sometimes when it gets this bad, I found I just had to give in and stop trying. I didn't try putting bub down once asleep.. it was too important to just GET some sleep out of them. Often once they've caught up on that sleep they sleep better after that.

Maybe hop in a nice warm bath together, have a feed and a cuddle, get hubby to dress her and then watch trashy tuesday night tv haha.

I hope it's just her having a bad day and you can all get some rest soon.

*hug*

[MantaRay]

It's so confusing isn't it. Unfortunately that's how it goes with babies - just when you think you have it all figured out, they change the rules on you.

It's hard to know why she's been so unsettled, but it doesn't sound abnormal. Certainly, I would be expecting her to feed more often than 4 hourly, and in fact your body probably also needs her to feed more often than that so that your supply will establish to the right level. 8 - 12 feeds in 24 hours is normal. Sometimes babies have more or less, but most often it's 8 - 12. So the good news is she seems to be working that out.

The crying could be from a number of causes, and most often we never work out what was really going on. See how it goes over the next couple of days, and if she is still crying that much we can look more into it to come up with some ideas. In the meantime a sling is a fantastic idea. Mums often also find that walking a baby to sleep in a pram (or even pushing the pram over a bump (a folded up towel or something) over and over in the lounge room) can put them to sleep. It used to be suggested that you put the baby into the car and drive until they fall asleep also, but the price of petrol moved that option down the list. If you ever see a car rocking back and forward at a red light there's a good chance a parent is trying to put their baby to sleep (ok, yes, I've done it LOL!). Another idea is that often the baby will settle better for dad than mum - sleeping on dad's chest can work wonders. Hopefully one of these ideas will work for you.

Also make sure you get some rest. I know you've been getting some good stretches at night, but it's ok to sleep during the day also. A newborn is a lot of work and very tiring, so don't worry about housework - just look after you and baby.

I hope tomorrow is a better day for you.

[tenar]

Yeah, every time I think I have things figured out because she did the same thing two or three days in a row, she does something quite different.

The good news is that she's asleep, though lightly, and has been so for about an hour now. Thank goodness! I hope it lasts and she gets a decent sleep tonight (and me too).

I will try the sling again. I've been putting it off, having been discouraged by my early attempts. But I know I should try it again. as it seems such a good idea in general.

We don't have a car, so that part's out. But there are plenty of places to walk to in the pram here, even late at night (inner-city Melbourne), so that's always an option. The only problem with that is that everyone is tired! Even the dog is tired, she's getting so much walking.

Pushing the pram over a bump in the living room is a great idea that I'll definitely try one day. Thanks for the hint!

I'm doing my best to get enough sleep. Sleeping during the day isn't working well, mainly because of the patterns of when DH is awake and available to help out with DD combined with the way DD is more unsettled in the afternoons. And DH is sick (bipolar depresion), so collectively we're under rather a lot of strain at present. But we're coping, and DH can help me with night-feeds, which is, I think, going to make all the difference. Not tonight though - I'm sure tonight is one for DD and I to just do our usual thing, and I'll try to sleep in a little with her in the morning.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. It's so reassuring to read that this stuff is normal. I'm not used to it, is the main thing, I guess.

[Celsie]

Tenar - sounds like wind pain to me. Both my DS and DD did the exact same thing when they had/have wind. In fact, my DD is doing it right now! She's screaming and bobbing her head around, looking for a boob whilst DH is walking her around, patting her back to get her wind up. As far as she is concerned, her answer to all life's problems is a boob... unfortunately, feeding her only makes the problem worse. If I fed her everytime she's screamed and mouthed, I'd be feeding her most of the day. Once she gets rid of her wind, she has a peaceful sleep. Do you use infacol or infants friend? Your DD can have it now since she's one month old. Good luck.

Sorry... just getting back to your bit about changing her nappy a lot...

DD fed off me constantly for the entire night on night two after she was born. I didn't realise my milk had come in. She had 8 dirty nappies, one after the other. I called the midwife in tears, not knowing that she had a tummy ache from gorging herself on milk.

[tenar]

She slept for 5 hours just now, and I got about 3.5 myself.

I think we're over this thing, whatever it was. Hope it doesn't return - it was a miserable afternoon/evening for the whole family.

Now back to bed...

[Celsie]

Just another thought... yep, it's 4:30am and I'm still thinking about your situation. LOL

We had a similar night to what you're describing when DS was a baby (about the same age), but I'd forgotten all about it until just now. He screamed and screamed and we couldn't settle him. It went on for hours. DH and I even ended up falling out over it and I ended up in tears in a heap on the floor

It turned out to be acid reflux. The only way we knew was DS ended up having a bit of a chuck and where the stomach acid touched is cheek, it burnt his skin.

I'm still saying wind probably had something to do with it too... built up over the day. Some people say their babies scream around 4-6pm in the evenings, they call it "the witching hour", it's just built up lower wind pain. If you are really thorough with getting her wind up every time you feed, you should be able to avoid this. As I said before, infacol is really helpful before a feed (it causes the tiny air bubbles in the tummy to join together and come up as one big bubble/burp) and if she's got lower wind later on that's causing her problems, infants friend is really great at giving some relief, it's natural and very soothing for a variety of ailments.

Ifi you haven't already, grab a copy of Dunstan Baby Language (your local library may have a copy or you could try ebay for a 2nd hand copy). We watched this when DS was a newborn and couldn't believe how we could recognise what the different sounds in his cries were. Highly recommended!!! End result was a very content baby and two very happy parents.

[Ryatha]

Just read your post. hope you got some more sleep

We had the same thing with DD at this age. I spent most afternoons leaning back on the couch with DD asleep upright on my chest. This helped the wind pain and anything else that was going on, and if I propped myself up I could get a bit of a sleep too. Also I raised the end of her bassinet up a bit, it meant that she wasn't sleeping completely horizontally and that made a big difference as well.

Good luck and I hope today is a better day for you.

[Livinthedream]

Tenar, my baby sounds exactly like yours. THE perfect newborn.
But then at around 4-5 weeks got grizzly and unsettled for no apparent reason, I fed him more frequently, but that only seemed to make the problem worse. I was going from 100mls of formula per feed (4 hourly) to 40-50 2 hrly and bubs catnapping for 20 mins at a time instead of wonderful 2-3 hr blocks. (I do understand that BF is different, you feed more, more digestible ect)
I think it was a growth spurt combined with the fact that they just seem to "wake up" at this age. I think they are more aware of what is going on around them and need a little stimulation. I kind of went on a mission to bugger him out a bit.
So we did naked time, on a THICK towel on our bed (they will prob pee ) we do his tummy time naked and we have one of those gym thingies, where they lay on thier backs and it has toys hanging from it. We keep the room warm and he can play with this for 1/2 hr or more at a time. We started activly playing with him, rubbing soft toys all over him and reading to him, just doing anything he seemed to take an interest in.
He has gone back to a routine of sorts and the grumpiness settled down but the sleeps havnt gone back to those big chunks during the day, but he sleeps awesome at night, 7-8 hrs. He is just coming of his 6 wk growth spurt which was ugly, but looking up now.
I think a bit part of it is getting your head around the fact that they just keep changing.
HTH, good luck.

[MantaRay]

I'm glad you got some sleep hun. Usually the late afternoon and evening are the worst times for unsettledness, so it can help to have dinner prepared earlier, and definitely sleeping in in the morning if you can is a great idea. A bath is another good idea for settling them - if you need some rest you can both bath together. When DS2 was screaming day and night for 12 hours we did lots of baths - it didn't help me get sleep or things done around the house, but at least he wasn't crying and I could relax - DS1 could even bath with us so he was out of mischief at the same time.

GL hun, I hope today is better.

[Arcadia]

Oh, hun. Firstly you're doing a fabulous job!!!

I remember the same thing with DD, and I panicked, because up until then she had barely cried. I rang my midwife and she said. "Yes babies seem to wait a few weeks before showing you their lungs!"

I found feeding during those unsettled times actually made it all worse, for all the reasons the wise BB'ers have stated so far. If you feed them on a full tummy they get wind pain and acid reflux. I gave my DD silent reflux (badly) because I fed and fed her whenever she cried.

In the end I found a fit ball really helped. I would hold DD and sit on the fitball and bounce her off to sleep. It is a bit tough on your back, but that trick got us through to the 10 or 12 week mark when the witching hour (or arcenic or acid hour) finally stopped. I also recommend a sling. There is nothing as magic as wearing your little one close and going off for a nice walk to clear your head. I always found the outdoors would quieten DD, even if she didn't sleep.

HTH. You're doing such a great job. Hang in there!

[tenar]

Thanks for all the good advice, everyone.

DD slept from 9.30 to 2.30, then from about 3 to 5.30, then from about 6.30 to 9. I got about 8 hours myself, in 2-3 hour stretches. So we are both much happier this morning. Hopefully this afternoon she'll be calm still, and not like yesterday. If she isn't, I'll definitely try propping her up more, and see whether that helps, and also making really sure we burp her very well, to reduce problems with wind and so on.

I've ordered Dunstan Baby Language from the local library.

Out of interest, has anyone else experienced a baby changing from needing a nappy change every 3 or so hours (sometimes two in a short space of time, of course), to needing one more often than hourly, for about half a day? That's one of the things that was going on yesterday that was really puzzling us. Maybe it goes along with her being so upset, I don't know. In the end I was wondering whether changing her nappy so often wasn't as unhelpful as it was helpful. She certainly doesn't like being wet or dirty, but having to keep getting her up to change her didn't help with the sleeping thing at all.

Wish me luck for today!