Unsettled baby - 3 weeks

Hi - just wanting some advice on survival tactics. My baby girl Anna is now 3 weeks and the last 7 or so days she has gone from sleeping reasonably well during the day to now only sleeping if I am holding her (I currently have her asleep in a sling on me). She has even become fussier with her feeds and I am finding I am feeding her as often as 30minutes sometimes. It now seems impossible to know if she is hungry or just unsettled. I don't mind holding her while she sleeps but it means I can't do anything else - like shower or have a hot drink. Last night she was unsettled until 11:30pm and then finally went to sleep in bed with me and then I moved her into her safesleeper bed (which is in bed with us). I just need to know that this isn't going to be permanent as I don't know how I will deal with the screaming crying and the constant feeding.

Any advice would be great. Thanks

Firstly, congrats on your baby girl ;)

I had a simialar time at 3 wks and found feeding every hour or so such a drain. THe advice I got from my MCHN was that feeding him so regularly he was getting a lot of foremilk, and not getting the hind milk (fat) to settle. I ended up expressing for a day to get both fore/hind milks and giving it to him in a bottle, he had 2 or 3 of these EBM feeds and we got it right again. Too much foremilk can give them wind = unsettled = crying = overtired = unhappy mum!

Just a suggestion from my own experiences recently.

Also, wehn you feed her, offer the same breast for a 2 - 2.5 hour period so eventually she drains that breast and then offer the other one.

If wind, try propping her up to sleep during the day - raising mattress of the sleeper bed with a rolled towel underneath it to help in digestion. Warm baths - try getting a big bucket - nappy one if you have one are much bigger - or laundry sink etc and put bubs in the water vertically instead of horizontally - she will bring her legs up naturally and might push some wind out with the nice warm water on her belly - hard on our arms, but worth it.

Hope some of that helps and good luck !

From memory, at around 3 weeks tends to be the peak of unsettledness and crying for newborns.

You say you are sometimes feeding every hour, is that throughout the whole day or at particular times? Again that can be normal with such a young baby.

My some was really unsettled some days at that age. I remember one day in particular, he was awake for 12 hours without sleeping, and unhappy for a fair amount of that time.

He also used to do whats called cluster feeding. He'd have nicely spaced out feeds in the morning, and then towards the afternoon/evening he's want a feed every hour-hour and a half. Iremember thinking I couldnt do it and it brought up lots of feelings I didnt like.

But you get through it, and it does get better. There will still be days where they are unsettled, but the bulk or if should be in the first 3-6 weeks, particularly week 3 for a lot of babies.

If you can get your hands on a copy of a book called "The winder weeks" you might find some useful info in there.

HTH

Hugs :hug: and congrats on your baby girl!

Oh those first weeks are so exhausting! My advice is to say no to visitors, christmas parties etc unless you want to go, just stay home and look after your DD and yourself. Sleep when she sleeps, go to bed early etc.... Can you get help from your partner, mum, MIL just for a couple of hours they can have her so you can get some sleep?

The advice from SamiH is great to keep offering her the same breast for a couple of hours so she gets the fatty milk which should fill her up more. Wind is a huge prob early on but IT DOES GET BETTER! Try pushing her knees up to her tummy, or ly her on her tummy over your lap to get the wind out.

Some other settling ideas:

Get out for a walk, my DD would be asleep before we got out of the driveway in the pram.

A nice deep bath (you could get in with her?).

Ly down in bed to feed her to sleep, you have a nap when she goes to sleep.

It really does get better! Hang in there your DD will settle down and sleep, and so will you! Pop back in if you have more questions! Enjoy this wonderful time.... :D