Newborn Sleeping Habits/ Constant Grunting

A.,
that grunting is totally normal. i was worried at first with my baby but my doctor said that it was okay. now this is the only way that she will comfort herself. it's kind of cute now. oh, i would say, take him off of the meds. as for the sleeping... try one of thos bears with the swishing noises... try some colic stuff. grip water might help. dont worry you will get through this. good luck..

HI A., My little guy did the same thing. He ended up having a sensitive stomach. My Dr. told me to give him Mylocon and it helped soooooooo much. He slept in a cradle swing wonderfully. We ended up buying two of them. One for up stairs and one for down. You have to put it on a higher swing setting, not slow. I learned this from the DVD Happiest Baby On The Block and it saved me! Good luck!

A., Not quite sure if this will work for you, but my baby always wanted to be held as well, but when he was that young I was able to swaddle him and I placed his "Boppy" pillow in the pack and play bassinet that we had and proped him in that. I think this made him feel as though he was being held and he would sleep for hours like this. After each feeding I would prop him just a bit turned towards one side or the other (just a bit) so that he wasn't always in the same position. Hope it works for you. Good luck.

This happened with my son...according to his Pedi, there are a certain amount of infants who just don't assimilate right away to be outside the womb.

He also said, 'congrats you're a Mommy'.

I think what was easiest for me is that I had already decided to be an Attachment Parent, and with that usually comes some form of co-sleeping. But, its not for everyone. For us it took until about 3 months to get into a groove, but it all changes again with growth spurts, solids and teething.

The best advice was to sleep while he was sleeping...forget laundry, dishes and other chores...focus on the important thing. Ask for help if you need someone to get things done around the house.

Also, it sounds like gas. My son was very gassy, and it felt like all I did was burp him. Talk to your son's doctor about gas and easy remedies like drops or gripe water.

Your baby will sleep you just have to find a peaceful and calm pattern to fall into gradually. It will get better, not perfect, just better...have fun and enjoy the love.

Good luck!

Deanna

Co-sleeping is wonderful. You will learn to relax and sleep in between feedings. Your baby will eat more, and grow faster and be a more relaxed fellow because he trusts his mommy to be there with him. There are great links to read more about it here:

http://www.cosleeping.org

Slings are also wonderful, especially when babies are young. Your muscles will grow along with your baby if you sling him now -- don't let him get too far ahead of you! The motion of your body when you move will massage your baby and help him remove his bubbles naturally.

Finally, my daughter had to be burped twice after each feeding. She would swallow a lot of air. That second bubble took time to coax out, but was well worth it.

Sorry about the sleep deprivation thing. It's something you don't know much about until you have a child. Welcome to motherhood.

Babies are used to being cradled in the womb so when they come out, they want to be held all the time. That is completely normal. Your baby is waking up because he can sense that he is no longer being held. I would recommend sharing the holding time with your husband, get a sling or a baby bjorn and get a swing. If you carry your baby around in a sling throughout the day, then he will feel secure and might sleep longer when you put him down. Also, most babies really like the rocking motion of the swing and he will probably sleep for longer periods if you put him in one when it's time for you to sleep. The swing is also slightly elevated so that might help your son with his other issues. Make sure you convey everything to your pediatrician, I'm sure he/she will have good advice.

My baby was doing this and it turned out that he was allergic to dairy and eggs. Whenever i ate dairy or eggs, it went into my breast milk and gave him an allergic reaction. He was grunting a lot, waking up a lot and uncomfortable. I took him to the doctor and they did a panel right there in the office on his fecal matter, (they just took a tiny scrape from his diaper). They gave me a very restricted diet for two weeks, no wheat, nuts, shell fish, dairy, eggs, etc. and rechecked his poo. It came back fine but the best part was that he improved IMMEDIATELY, literally within a day or two. After the two weeks of restricted diet I was able to add foods back in one at a time and watch him to see which foods caused him discomfort. The doctor said if I can avoid dairy and eggs completely until he is a year old it will give him a great chance at not having the allergy when he gets older as opposed to constantly stressing his little system with it now.

Hope that helps! Good luck!

A.

Hi,
I had a similar situation with my daughter, she would not sleep either unless I held her but I also had a two year old so it was a liitle difficult but what i found for me to work is that she slept in her car seat I would put it right by my bed I would nurse her and she would fall asleep then put her in the car seat after making sure she burbed real good and she would sleep for four hours maybe longer depending this went on for 6mos. So I hope it works.
Good luck this will pass my daughter is five know and she sleeps like an angel but her first 7mos not so much.
Take Care,
M.

is he constipated? sounds like that could be the problem.

A.,

This is a post I wrote to another mom in a similar situation:

Patricia,

Are you nursing or formula feeding? My son was like yours - miserable, uncomfortable, crying, never sleeping. I was nursing and did an elimination diet (dairy, soy, eggs, caffeine, chocolate, fish, shellfish, nuts, peanuts, citrus and tomatoes). Within a week he was noticably better and by the end of 3 weeks he was an entirely new, happy child. I was then able to add everything back into my diet except dairy, soy and eggs (I was able to add eggs back when he was close to 1). He's 2 years old now (and weaned) but he's still very allergic to both dairy and soy. If your baby is formula fed, you should check out hypoallergenic formulas. Similac Alimentum is the "1st" level of hypoallergenic (nothing is truely non-allergenic but some things are more or less allergenic). If that doesn't work, Elecare or Neocate is "more" hypoallergenic. It takes dairy close to a month to leave your system entirely. If you are nursing you do an elimination diet, you'll need to make sure you are reading the labels on everything you eat. Dairy and soy are hidden in many other foods.

Is an elimination diet a pain? It is hard to start but not all that hard to maintain - after you figure out what you can eat. Is it way better than having a miserable baby? Oh, yes.

My son was on Zantac and then we went to Prevacid, we also did gas drops and tried gripe water, chamomile tea and all that but nothing really helped until we identified the foods that were bothering him and eliminated them. After about a month of me being on the elimination diet we were able to half his dose of prevacid and after a couple of months (for his GI tract to heal) we were able to eliminate the medication entirely.

I found that doctors - including our pediatric GI doctor - were clueless (or disbelieving) about food allergies in babies (much less the idea that food proteins could cause problems in a breastfed baby) but moms who have been there and done that believe.

Good luck!
T.

Lay down with him in your bed and then after he is deep asleep you can get up and do things,co-sleeping is great for both mommy and baby!do you burp him after every feeding?it's very important.the first couple of months are hard because pf their digestive systems not being mature,they get gas and all that.You can get Gripe water at health food stores and Gas drops but you will still have to burp him and hold him with his tommy on your shoulder a lot at first.It gets easier though,hang in there!
M.,mom to 5yo ds and 21month old dd.

Do you have a baby swing? I found it was a miricle to soothing baby and allowing me to sleep. At times I even resorted to keeping her in it all night! Its safe, but a bit habbit forming you just want to wean them off the swing at around 4-5 months.

Hi-
I didn't have time to read the other advice but we had the same situation with our daughter.
First: he is only 3 weeks old. Some people call the first 3 months "the 4th trimester" b/c the baby has to get used to living outside.
Second: there are 2 books that helped us a TON.
1. Happiest Baby on the Block
2. No Cry Sleep Solution

Both involve trying to replicate the conditions in the womb. We found our baby slept better in a swaddle. Kiddopatomous has them (BabiesRUs) in fleece for colder nights. They are about $10. Swaddle, shush, swing and let him suck on a pacifier.

NOTE: In the first 3 months baby's digestive system is not totally developed so the reflux and belly aches etc. are par for the course. Are you breastfeeding? If so, go on a BLAND diet. Get Dr. Sears "The Baby Book" or if you don't want to get another book, read the chapter on breastfeeding. I had to cut onions, garlic, tomatoes, citrus, dairy and spice for a while. Def. no cabbage, broccoli, or cauliflower. Then you can gradually phase those things back in one at a time as your son's digestive systems matures.

PS Our baby never slept alone in her bassinet for a few months and definitely still won't unless swaddled and rocked first. Good luck!!! Do some reading!!

Last important note: do NOT put baby to sleep in a Boppy. They can slide down and suffocate. Not trying to spread panic but just be careful about that. I think a swing sounds safer for the most part. We tried co-sleeping but our bed is too small so we got an Arm's Reach co-sleeper and it's attached to the side of the bed. She didn't sleep in it till 3 months and then only in a fleece swaddle.

LOL, yes, it is normal. Actually, this is the reason why some parents decide to put their babies in their own crib. The grunting keeps us parents awake. Babies make all kinds of sounds, grunts, grumbles, etc. I remember when my little girl started sleeping 5-6 hours a night, I put the bassinett at the end of our bed so I wouldn't hear her as much. Once she started sleeping in her own room, when she came in our room when she did wake up at night, it was so hard to sleep with her noises!!!

Good luck,
B.

I have a friend whose son did a lot of grunting as an infant. They were told it was totally normal,which to some extent I think it is. But it turns out that their son was allergic to just about everything. All the major food allergies. He also had bad exczema that started at about 3 or 4 months of age along with the grunting that started shortly after he was born.

My son never really grunted, but was always a noisy sleeper. Lots of gurgling, belching, farting...just noisy. Turns out he was lactose intolerant for the first year of life. And looking back now, we had him on soy formula and his system probably wasn't mature enough to handle soy either. But once he turned 1 we put him on whole milk and he was fine. He now drinks rice milk with me just because he prefers the taste.

I wonder why your ped suggested Zantac or any medication if your son isn't vomiting or having other signs of reflux? I am just a firm believer in not giving kids medication unless necessary and trying natural methods first. But that's me.

Maybe you could try eliminating some of the high allergy foods one at a time from your diet and see if that helps your sons grunting.

A.,

I was in the same spot until I got the book The Happiest Baby On The Block (suggested below). The techniques work like a charm. We used the methods in the book and they worked wonders to make him happy. Colic usually goes away by 3-4 months, and we started using the techniques at about 6 weeks, and the colic went away when he was about 3.5 months. Trust me it was worth doing for that short time. The baby will fight the swaddling and such at first because they are so upset and don't know what is going on, but will soon give in and love it.

The book is available at any library. But basically you swaddle tightly, turn them on their side, swing (or rock or bounce) your baby, give them a pacifier, and shhh them, or play any other white noise such as a TV on the fuzzy station (snow) or heartbeat sounds or ocean noises or rain or the vacuum. Those worked the best. Anyway, our son was the same way and he hardly got any sleep because he was so unhappy. Then we started doing all of this to put him to sleep and he began to sleep 8-9 hours at a time at night! We even did it for naps and it worked wonders.

On another note, your diet has nothing to do with his upset tummy. Scientifically speaking, what you eat does not get into your bloodstream - the nutrients after you have broken them down go into the blood and then in turn go into your milk. So it is a myth that if you eat gassy foods your baby will be gassy or that a baby can be sensitive to anything you eat at all (the gassy enzymes go into your digestive tract and then into your large intestine, not into the blood stream). It's a medical fact that the nutrients only are what get into the milk, and not the gas or soy or anything else. So, don't put yourself through any unnecessary discomfort or hardship eliminating foods from your diet. It won't help at all. Basically all it does is make mom feel like she is doing something to rememdy the situation. =)

Best wishes to you. Have a great day. =)

Hi, I can't say I know for sure what is causing your newborn to grunt as you describe, but I would talk it over with your pediatrician. I would be VERY cautious about giving a newborn a drug like Zantac....especially since you're not evern sure he has reflux. (And it also is just treating the symptoms and not the cause..)

It is pretty common for newborns to have difficulty adjusting to eating. Are your breastfeeding or is he on formula? If the latter, he might not be able to properly digest the type of formula he is on. There are formulas for babies with very sensitive digestive tracts. You can find them in the baby food aisle, or ask your pediatrician.

As to the sleeping issue, when our baby was 2 months old, the only way he would sleep for a long time was on his tummy. We would do this during the day when we coud keep our eye on him. For example, I would put him on his tummy on the couch while I was cleaning up or doing stuff in the kitchen. I was always able to see him, so was not concerned about SIDS. At night we used a special motion detector type monitor that would set off an alarm if the baby stopped breathing. So we actually let him sleep on his tummy at night, too. When on his tummy he would sleep 3 hours at a stretch, otherwise, he would wake up just like yours does.

You may want to try the tummy thing to see if it will work for your baby, but because everyone is so freaked out about SIDS I am not recommending it to you specifically.

Lastly, you might want to try co-sleeping with your baby in the early months, especially during nap-time. Dr. Sears has a grest section in his famous Baby Book about co-sleeping-even if you only do it periodically--and how new research is showing that the mother's breathing actually regulates the baby's breathing. Babies who were not sleeping well, or who had sleep apnea or asthma, had dramtatically improved breathing when they slept next to their mothers. It is very exciting stuff, actually. I highly recommend you read that section in his book. You might even be able to do a Google search like Dr. Sears _ co-sleeping.

I wish you all the best as you figure out the best way to make your baby (and you!) more comfortable. Just know that you are not alone, as many of us have been through these things!

It's tricky at this age because the babies aren't really regulated when it comes to sleep. But you need some sleep. There are some good books out there, but a sleep consultant can probably help you cut to the chase more quickly.

Eileen O'Sullivan is my favorite person to recommend for these issues. I'm a parent coach and I only recommend people with proven track records. Eileen's number is ###-###-####.

Good luck.
There is an answer out there.
D.
www.betweenparents.org

Both of my kids grunted when they were newborns. They just grew out of it for me. I was wondering, do you use one of those foam things that go in the crib/bassinet and you lay your baby on and it has the foam sides that keep your baby in place, and also it makes them feel like they are still being held? (Was that at all clear? Do you know what I am talking about?) Both of my kids used those for a long time, and it helped them to sleep snuggly as a baby.

L.