Struggling to nap

[Gella75]

My 5 week old baby really struggles to nap in the day. She will have a good feed and then be awake for a while, but then won’t sleep and just gets unsettled. Normally the only way to settle her is to give her some more milk! If she does fall asleep it is never for very long and she will wake up and cry as if she is hungry again!! Sometimes I don’t think she is hungry but she’s so unsettled that the only way to calm her down is to feed her again! What am I doing wrong?

[becj86]

Hi, welcome to BW

Is this a reasonably new thing? She may well be in a growth spurt - this sounds very normal for that. If she's been like this since she was born, I'd be thinking gas or reflux may be contributing.

She will have a good feed and then be awake for a while

How long is she awake all up? She could also be overtired - most babies this age are awake for 45min-1hr including feeding time before they're ready for a nap...

[Gella75]

Hi thanks for the reply. She has pretty much been like this since birth. I do definitely think she has a lot of wind which I try my best to get up and she will do burps but sometimes burping still a couple of hours later if she wakes up! She generally has one good nap in the day but it takes a long time to get her to sleep nd to stay asleep. Other than that she sleeps very little and is sometimes awake the whole time between feeds as I just cannot get her to sleep.
Sometimes her feed takes about 45 mins and she might fall asleep, I then change her nappy which she will usually wake up and want a bit more milk. She then is awake and alert for around 15mins and then starts crying and unsettled. This can go on for another hour normally by which time I’ll probably have to feed her again early just to get her to settle.
She will get to the evenings and seem to all of a sudden crash out and sleep for a long time for the first part of the night, as if she is completely exhausted from the day!
I really don’t know what to do for the best now, I feel that I never really know what she wants and she is never happy, it’s really getting hard to cope with 😔😔

[becj86]

Sometimes her feed takes about 45 mins and she might fall asleep, I then change her nappy which she will usually wake up and want a bit more milk.

This is probably when she's ready for a nap and she's looking for milk to make her sleepy... then she's OT by the time you put her down. Most babies this age can stay awake only 45min-1hr including feeding time.

WRT gas, what have you tried? There are lots of different burping techniques I can suggest... also, is she BF or FF? If you have a strong letdown or lots of milk, LO can struggle with gas because they're gulping to keep up with the milk as it pours into their mouth. laid back feeding as per the video on biologicalnurturing.com is worth a try.

How are her poos?

[Gella75]

Would it be better to change her nappy before feeding her then to avoid this ? She doesn’t have much awake time where she is content..she’s either feeding or unhappy!
She is bottle fed and I give her infacol with every feed and wind her a few times during feed and after. Sometimes she’s brings up lots of burps and not other times. I have dr browns bottles for wind too. She pops probably once a day...she had been given gaviscon from the dr but it made her constipated so I stopped it, not sure if it made much of a difference anyway.
Thanks any advice is much appreciated, I’m feeling very down like I never know what she wants and I’m doing something wrong!!

[becj86]

Sorry, I wrote a long reply and it appears not to have posted successfully. I'll try again.

Would it be better to change her nappy before feeding her then to avoid this ?

Possibly so, give it a go - can't hurt

WRT infacol, its great at making little bubbles of gas into bigger bubbles - great for making burping more efficient but if the air doesn't come up, it can hurt a lot more further down. Perhaps try not using it for a couple of feeds...

When she's fed, you can put her on her tummy with her legs curled up under her - that can help, though you must watch her, can't leave her unattended if she falls asleep like that.

Burping techniques - try circular rubbing on her back rather than tapping/patting. Also worth trying burping her lying on your arm so you've got some gentle pressure on her tummy. When she's squirmy and upset with gas further down, you can do tummy massage (rainbow shaped movement with your fingers from her right hip, up across the bottom of her ribs and down to her left hip) and pushing her legs up into her tummy to help move the gas out.

she had been given gaviscon from the dr but it made her constipated so I stopped it, not sure if it made much of a difference anyway.

Was this for reflux? If so, perhaps another trip to the doctor for another option would be an idea.