To think it's ok for a newborn to cry?

[Refluxsux]

Baby is 7 weeks old and has silent reflux treated with Ranitidine. Late afternoon/early evening are his worst times which happen to coincide with the only time I get to be with my older son after school. I've been letting the older child watch wayyyy too much tv to get us through while I endlessly feed/jiggle/do squats/use white noise etc to try and settle the baby. If I persist with going up and down the stairs for about 20 minutes I can usually get him to nod off but it's killing my knees. So tonight I could tell he just needed to sleep so I popped him in the bouncy chair put the white noise on and let him scream for five minutes. I stayed with him and stroked his face (not that he noticed!) but I didn't pick him up. After five awful minutes I picked him up and gave him a cuddle and he fell asleep almost immediately and I could put him back in the bouncy chair. Am I being awful to him? I'm just so tired and my older child is so fed up. He almost seemed to need to scream for a few minutes before he could calm down or am I being dilusional?

I have a little on with really bad reflux and 2 older dc. I use a wrap for little one. Got it on Amazon for less than £20 and it honestly is a life saver. If your breastfeeding losec mups ompromozole might work better. It can be a hassle as you have to dissolve the tablet and syringe it in (I mix it in the syringe with 4mls of boiling water, by the time it's mixed it has cooled down) I have seen a drastic improvement from we started it. I personally can't listen to little one cry but couldn't with older two children either. I hope you get some relief soon

I think you need to try different meds and maybe a dummy. The suckling action is soothing and it might help. Switching to formula will make it easier to use gaviscon. I had lactation failure and had to use formula and it made no difference but my dd's issue was colic due to lactose sensitivity not reflux. I'm actually laughing out loud at the poster whose dc never cried because she 'never let them'. You have never met a baby with colic or reflux. If it were as simple as just picking them up we'd all do it. My dd's screams were that traumatic that I never put her down but she still screamed. I've waited 5 years to have another baby because, after the first time, new born cries would send me funny. I find it traumatic to listen to - to the extent that if I'm in Tesco and I hear that newborn scream my heart starts beating so fast and I feel hot and nauseous. I've left a trolly before because I thought I'd lose it. If you have no experience of colic or reflux then you do not know what you are talking about.

I used to put a warm tea towel on DDs tummy when she was colicky. No idea about the logic, MIL insisted I tried it and it worked every time

Funnily enough, both my dc hardly cried and I'm sure it's because I never left them to cry

What a load of bollocks.

Hate when people have one experience with their own kids and then apply it to everyone else's.

Newsflash: all babies are different.

What have me PND was not the total lack of sleep (yy to whichever poster said they hallucinated), or the baby who wouldn't be put down, but constantly reading about how my child would have attachment issues if I put her down for even one second as she cried. CMPA here as well.

Life is so much better now, but if I can bring myself to have another baby, I will use my common sense.

Trust yourself, OP. And a massive handhold, if you have a hand free!

Every second or subsequent child has to be left to cry briefly at some point, the needs of the baby can't always be dealt with instantly cooking, applying first aid, wiping bottoms, having a shower all have to happen. A loved baby will not get attachment disorder from mum or dad having to juggle normal family life!

Mud - do they? I can't say my second was left any different from my first. If anything they were closer as lived in a sling the first year virtually as convienient

I am trying to reassure the op, my second was a sling co sleeping baby but there must have been times when I couldn't respond to him immediately, no harm done.

My cousin had a baby with reflux in the summer and they found a tummy tub helped him hugely. He screamed all the time and especially hated the car seat, but the tummy tub seemed to soothe him and he's fine now.

5 minutes with your face being stroked is too long/terrible? What are you on?

Bloody hell, remind me not to come on here when I reproduce...

I actually did sleep train at 6mos so I should be hung drawn and quartered according to many on here.

I was frankly suicidal from lack of sleep at that point and wanted to shoot anyone who said "oh just co sleep" as frankly I had the only baby on earth who hated, and I do mean hated, being in bed with me.

Post sleep training ds is happier as he's sleeping better and I no longer see double all day and forget my own name through lack of sleep.

Do what works for you.

Agree with many pps. I've had both a screamer and a reflux baby and it's hell on earth. It turns out that my screamer couldn't handle the stimulation of being rocked...I broke down hard when she was 4 months, as I couldn't take the constant screaming anymore. If a baby has had all of its other needs met ie.fed, clean, dry sometimes they just need to be left. It is not the same as sleep training or controlled crying ffs. My mental health suffered so badly because I felt guilty for putting down a screaming baby. I'm currently expecting baby 3 and have a 4 &5 year old. I will not feel guilty for putting baby down to see to their needs, I will be outnumbered and so something has to give!!

It may have been mentioned but for refluxy babies a dummy is often an absolute godsend. DD had awful silent reflux and the problem was that whilst she wanted to feed it hurt her too. So she would drink and scream and drink and scream...we found that using a dummy helped considerably as it stimulates saliva production which helps to calm the acid but also gave her the comfort of sucking without a constant stream of milk which, whilst wanted, caused her pain.

We also used it when we were feeding her - she was bottle fed which made this easier. We'd let her drink until she started crying, then swap the bottle for the dummy. She'd calm down, suck the dummy for a few minutes then start to grizzle for more milk at which point we would swap back. Repeat until she's full and keeps the dummy, and probably falls asleep. Sounds bonkers but it made a massive difference.

Mil was hugely against dummies and used to refuse to give her it until she visited one day with a friend who had been a nanny for 40 years. Nanny saw this and immediately asked if I had lots of experience with babies (in a positive way). Mil shut up from then on.

I agree about a dummy it was a godsend for Dd1 and us i was deadset against them but got her 1 at 8ish weeks she had awful reflux the one i had you could take the top off and squirt the infacol in so was win/win

Hi OP, i know you mention not really wanting to give formula but how about on occasions as combi feeding? Reason I mention is my baby has silent reflux so has gaviscon in her formula and it's been a life saver, as with you nothing worked before, she could cry all day, since being on gaviscon she's a different baby, smiley and happy. Maybe you can mix gaviscon with breastmilk, worth asking the dr?

This is one of those threads where I wish posters would see how many posts there have been and either commit to RTFT or not bloody comment at all.

OP HAS SAID SHE'S BEEN DAIRY, EGG AND SOY-FREE FOR FIVE WEEKS. AND HAS TWO DIFFERENT TYPES OF VERY APPROPRIATE SLING.

Now that I've got that off my chest...

Your ring-sling, properly fitted, is really not going to put your baby in any different a position to a wrap sling, so I don't think it's worth trying a wrap, TBH. One thing you haven't mentioned that worked (sometimes) for my second colicky screamer was going topless under the sling and stripping him down to his nappy so that we were skin to skin while also in the sling, plus a dummy. He also had boob access that way while keeping my hands free for my then two year old. Is this worth a try do you think?

Fwiw, my daughter needed to cry herself to sleep. She still does sometimes. She would be on my shoulder, rocked, swayed, the whole works but she would go from whining to full on screaming to sleeping, right in my arms. She cried for a lot longer if I tried all the walking and rocking. If I just cuddled her she'd scream for 30 seconds and conk out.

She's still a bad sleeper but if she's having a really rough day, she'll come to me, hit me, start crying and then be asleep within ten seconds.

If she hurts herself she'll scream like she's dying for two seconds, then climb down from the hug and run off happy as Larry. She just needs to cry sometimes, crying isn't the end of the world.

Layer we done you, you def win mother of the year award

Yeah, someone clearly has no idea what it's like to have a child who screams for hours on end, day after day. You have to put them down and walk away for a few minutes or you would go crazy.

It's easy to say I never left my child to cry if you didn't have a crier.

Dd2 hardly ever cried a slight whimper when she was hungry, people used to say she is so good it has nothing to do with being good it is just you get what you get imo

I agree with mud that second children do tend to get left a bit more than first children. In fact, some excellent advice I received on here when I was worried about 6yo adapting to a new baby was to sometimes attend to the older child first, so he can see he's still important, because an older child will remember that time whereas a baby will not. Clearly I don't leave my 2 week old to cry and cry, but a few minutes while I talk soothingly and then respond as soon as possible isn't going to damage her for life. She has masses of attention and is always being held and cuddled, but everyone. Her needs are always met very quickly, if not immediately. Letting a young baby 'cry it out' is what is damaging if done all the time. By 'cry it out' I mean the baby crying and crying and crying until falling asleep through exhaustion, not having been attended to by way of any kind of soothing.

I've tried the dummy as I've nothing against them but he just spits it straight back out. I tried holding it in a bit and giving it a jiggle etc. I got so desperate I was eyeing the sugar bowl wondering if that might encourage him to take it but obviously didn't do it! Any tips for getting him to take it much appreciated. I wonder if it's because he's breastfed and used to a warm nipple?

Some babies do have a cry before they sleep. DS2 used to do this, he now talks or sings until he drops off. He doesn't have attachment issues.

Some people have a really warped understanding about what causes attachment issues in children. Leaving a child to cry for five minutes whilst providing comfort in a form other than holding isn't one of them

IIRC, the first time I gave DS2 a dummy, I grabbed it out of the cupboard and chucked it into the water I was boiling for pasta to sterilise it. Obviously I made sure it had cooled off sufficiently before I gave it to him, but it was probably still warm, and he took it immediately so worth a try perhaps? DS1 never took one, however, so luck may have just been on my side.

Also...a tiny bit of sugar probably won't kill him. There's sugar in BM. Stir some sugar into cooing boiled water that you soak the dummy in to warm up...?