to ask you for ideas why my son may be crying?

[cloudbutter]

He's been crying since 2am. No temp, he's had Calpol, doesn't seem to be teething, he's in my bed with me. He's been crying for 4 hours, drifts back off to sleep, then wakes up crying again. He's now been crying for a solid hour. I mean screaming. What can I do? I usually go out for a walk but obviously can't right now as we are in isolation (he had a mild temp 10 days ago). I'm going mad.

How old is he?

My daughter once did this as a baby and it turned out she had an ear infection?

17 months

He's breastfed and doesn't want boob which is highly unusual

What do I do if it's an ear infection?

Like the pp, I’d say ear infection.

Warm compress, otc painkillers. I’d say call 111 but that’d be your day gone. Check out NHS website.

Trapped wind? Try gently rubbing his tummy, cycling his legs? Needs a big poo?
Tbh I might bung a bit of anbesol on his gums anyway.
Do watch out for ear pulling.
Check his toes & fingers for a hair tourniquet?
Given the time I’d get up with him, resign yourself to a scratchy day & see if you can distract him.

If mine does this is

Ears
Blocked nose
Sore throat
Or he's about to shower me in vom

Phone the surgery as soon as it opens. You will quite possibly need antibiotics and they probably have special arrangements in place not to expose children to infection risk.

A lot of surgeries are mainly doing phone consultations. They might just prescribe on your description or direct you to a children’s clinic.

(I’m not an HCP - to be clear - but agree it sounds like an ear infection. They really do scream when it’s the ears.) Normally you’d just take him to the surgery but everything is special arrangements ATM.

My son does this when he has trapped wind. Not really much you can do till he gets it out it's awfully horrible to watch then like that though.

Mine do this when they have an ear infection or teething. Unfortunately they often tug ears when teething too so it can be difficult to know which. At that age though I imagine some back ones will be coming through? My youngest is 15 months and does this a lot at the moment but his big back teeth are coming through and I imagine they are super painful. I always know when his teeth are the problem because he won't take his milk or eat until I've numbed his gums. Hope your little one gets better.

Thanks everyone. I actually live with a medical professional but he's staying elsewhere briefly whilst me and my son self isolate and didn't want to wake him at silly o'clock considering his life right now! Son has finally gone to sleep....

Tonsillitis? Can you look at his throat?

If it is an ear infection he will be more comfortable propped up, but in agony lying down.
This is why children wake up in pain so frequently with ear infection.
If you can keep him propped up as much as possible and use local heat and calpol that should help.

I can help I think!

DS is 20 months old and has been crying like sleep tantrums for a while now. We have an excellent paedatrician who has said at this age is 90% likely to be night terrors! They just happen unfortunately. There’s a small chance also of worms as they come out at night and bother them - so watch out for signs of clawing at bottom and have a look at bottom during the night with torch on phone. Also check his poo. But my DS didn’t have these and he said he would be a bit young so assume yours too. Worth a check though!

OP my 15 month old did exactly this last night but he's cutting his canines so for us it was obvious.
I just wanted to add my yawning sympathies.
I get the two extremes in these circumstances, he either wants to suck me to death and I can't sleep, or I can't even comfort him with a boob and he just cries at me.
(Ideally he would have a quick boob and go back to sleep).

Check for a hair tourniquet. It happened to my daughter when she had a hair wrapped around her toe, it took me a few hours to work out why she was crying, luckily I managed to remove it straight away but her toe took over a week for the indentation to go.

He’s picking up on your subconscious stress and the underlying tension. It’s a bit woo but babies really pick up on feelings and the whole world is completely stressed right now.

Cuddle him get into bed and try and stay there