To ask you to please tell me it gets better

[PleaseLetMeSleeeeep]

My son (3 weeks) is suffering really badly with colic. His trapped wind is awful and he just can't sleep at all. This is the 3rd night in a row I'll have sat up in the living room rocking him until 5/6am (he's bad every night but the past 3 have been ridiculous).

I don't know how to do this, I am so unbelievably tired.

I took him to the GP today to check nothing else was wrong but just got a sympathetic 'its common' and sent on my way.

He looks like he's in so much pain, will only settle on me sat upright. I am terrified of falling asleep with him on me I'm so tired.

Every time I think he's finally dropped off he wakes again the minute he's lay down in his basket.

@PleaseLetMeSleeeeep It really is so hard 😓 my DS was the same!! He’d lie crying crunching his knees right up to his belly trying to get his gas out and you could see how uncomfortable it was for him. It was awful!

If you’re going to try comfort milk then keep in mind that they can’t take Gaviscon at the same time!! Also...once baby reaches a month old try gripe water instead of the infacol. We actually found that the infacol made our DS worse!!

Bless you OP I can completely relate to this, my second was exactly the same. I was back and forth to the doctor's. Eventually I saw another doctor who agreed she could have an allergy and prescribed prescription milk and I kid you not, After the first bottle she was completely fine and slept for 6 hours solid! It was amazing to see her pain free and settled at last. I really would keep going back to the doctors x

My daughter was like this, turns out she had temporary lactose intolerance. It might be worth (if things don't get better) asking your health visitor - mine was fab, took one look at DD feeding and then arching her back and screaming halfway through a feed (as well as lots of wind, and whimpering in her sleep due to pain) and got us some lactose free milk. Made a big difference within 24 hours.

She grew out of it, but refuses to drink milk even now (age 8) so I wonder if she associates it with pain?!

What bottles do you use? Different ones seem to work better with different babies. Also look at that size and flow, trying to minimise the amount of air they take on.

@PleaseLetMeSleeeeep the comfort milk is great for Dd.

Only issues

Poo goes green and disgusting.

If using perfect prep it separates after cold shot so needs another good shake
It's not available ready made but she was on it about two weeks before I needed ready made and is OK on occasional feed of first milk.

It certainly helps with her wind and she now goes both ends no problem.

I introduced it slowly but I'm not sure how necessary that is if same brand. I did a feed a day.

I don't think anyone's mentioned it but DS1 used to get carried around in the 'tiger in a tree' pose lots at that age. The HV suggested it for when his tummy seemed unsettled.

My 12 year old had awful colic we tried everything colic drops, gripe water. The only thing that worked was comfort milk (make sure your tests have quite large holes as it's thicker than normal formula).
My baby was 11 weeks when we tried it so possibly a coincidence but it worked like a dream, different baby after a day.
So yes it will get better but in the meantime make sure your partner helps. You need your sleep.

@Camomila

I don't think anyone's mentioned it but DS1 used to get carried around in the 'tiger in a tree' pose lots at that age. The HV suggested it for when his tummy seemed unsettled.

I didn't find out about this until my mum suggested it during one of my desperate rants about how tired I was - life saver

She also showed me some different burping positions that nobody else had told me about

I don't know if they are open at the moment but I really recommend cranial osteopathy. It does get better.

Thank you all for your suggestions and solidarity! Gosh it's hard. He's let me sleep a few hours this morning so I feel at least a little better but we're awake again now (didn't go down until 6ish).

I'm going to go off to shops shortly to get the comfort milk, I didn't want to wake him this morning after he finally dropped off.

The only thing that concerns me is it says for colic and constipation. He isn't constipated. He goes at least twice a day and it's not hard although I wouldn't say they were any looser than normal either.

Will this be a problem do you think? GP said I could try it if I wish as I asked her about it at my appointment.

I'm using MAM anti colic (yeah right) bottles for those that asked.

He is already on cow and gate and I planned to get their comfort milk too so hopefully it won't cause a problem.

And to show how tired I am, I very nearly just signed this message off Kind Regards, my Name as if I was at work! 🥴

I had same question re constipation. Dd wasn't either but comfort milk seems to make her more fart more and as I say above green poo.

Worth a try not going to do any harm. I knew after a couple of feeds it was working.

And to show how tired I am, I very nearly just signed this message off Kind Regards, my Name as if I was at work!

Bless you. It was in the comic months that I (famously) refrigerated my specs and then couldn’t find them to watch TV for two days.

Colic months^ (not so comic)

Yes it does get better as they get older.

How was his birth? I have two sons:
First born with suction cup and was really hard to burp full of wind by the evening. We used infacol and took him to a cranial osteopath. He used to cry for hours each evening till about 5/6 weeks. Either he grew out of it or the infacol or the oesteopath worked. I know once he got headcontrol - he started burping?. Also infacol can take a week to see an improvement - it's not instant.

Second child - c-section so no birth trauma and he burps well and no screaming?

I don't know if you've tried "wonky winding" but we found that helped (if you Google it I think there's a YouTube video) and also keeping baby upright in a wrap, really helped with her wind. She is a CMPA baby so I do understand. And some babies just don't like being put down either, and that too will pass

My son is 5 weeks old and we were experiencing similar issues. He is FF so we have infacol before a feed and gripe water in his bottle. We have also just switched to Dr Browns Bottles as we were us using some anti colic bottles that were clearly not working. He has hardly had any wind while on these new bottles. We have also done massage of his abdomen and the bicycle kicks too. We split our night so I go to bed between 6/8 and my husband comes to bed with the baby between 12/2 and then I take over. It's saved us as we were both getting next to no sleep. I hope you get some relief soon x

It’s get better. And yes, there bloody well is something called colic. Anyone who has had a baby with it knows this. I can’t say how angry someone saying ‘it doesn’t exist it’s just crying’ makes me.
OP we used Dr Brown’s bottles with DC2 plus colic drops - I can’t remember the name but it cost a fortune - about £10 and it didn’t last a week. We went through ten of them. Maybe someone else can remember the name. You added a few drops to a slightly warm bottle. He was far less bad with it than DC1 but we obviously don’t know whether it was the stuff we used or whether he didn’t suffer as badly.
With DC1 we used to hold him so the back of his legs were against our chest, feet upwards, and support him with our arms behind his head & back and bring his top half up and down gently so his stomach was bending. It’s hard going, does work your arm muscles but it seemed to give him some relief. It sort of faded away by 12 weeks.

You poor thing. My first born had this and I was planning our wedding at the same time. Every evening we had to do the tiger hold and jig her up and down and each night she woke up every hour - for about 6 months!

The best thing we found to help her was this activated charcoal drops from the USA. I think we dropped it onto her tongue and it helped with the acid in her tummy. It was the only thing that worked. Gripe water and Infacol had minimal effect.

Here's a link. If I remember it's quite expensive but SO worth it for a happier baby and more sleep!

www.coliccalm.com/blog/post/the-benefits-of-using-activated-charcoal-with-your-little-one-all-you-need-to-know

You'll look back at this time one day after a looonnng sleep and it will be in the past.

I see Dr brown bottles recommend on here a few times. It's just going to be such a big expense as I have the mam bottles that you take apart and sterilise within themselves in the microwave so I'd need to get a steriliser on top of the bottles if I changed to Dr browns.

But if it helps it's worth it. I think I'll get one and give it a try before I commit to buying the lot.

Poor thing, you can hear the bubbles in his tummy sometimes

OP, I’ve just googled colic drops. I think the ones we used were Colief. Gripe water and Infacol did nothing for DC1 as far as we could tell.
We already had a steriliser and avent bottles, but our someone recommended dr browns to us and we were willing to try them. To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether adding the milk powder and shaking in the browns bottle would get powder stuck in the valve so I made the bottles up in avent and then carefully transferred to dr browns trying not to get air in so I sterilised two sets of bottles ...

I was also using expressed milk for one feed at least each day and you can add colief to that as well if you’re mixed feeding. It sounds like yours has got it quite badly and at a bad time. DC 1 had it in the evening - gone by late at night. DC 2 had it in the afternoon. I used to dread the evenings, but it had stopped by about 11-12 weeks maybe a bit earlier.

Oh yes I remember this phase so well OP
and yes it does pass.. I was breastfeeding and found that cutting out dairy made a giant difference, but of course everyone is different.

I've always wondered like @welshladywhois40 if there's any substance in the birth having an affect. DD was a long drawn out 34 hour labour topped off with x3 failed suction and then forceps. She was badly bruised and suffered damage to her eye socket so pretty battered. I was the same as OP, I couldn't work out what we were doing wrong. She was always awake, crying or screaming to be fed but then crying in pain afterwards.

My daughter wasn't constipated either and I don't remember the milk making her go any more than usual.
I used the bottles to reduce colic. Never found they made a difference.

Your situation sounds like both of my boys when they were babies, we endured the endless screaming for 7 months with our first until our health visitor stepped in and practically forced the doctor to prescribe Nutramigen which is a prescription formula for milk protein allergies. Within three weeks he was a different baby, happy, settled and not in pain anymore. When my 2nd baby was born he started showing the same symptoms that his brother had and by 3 weeks old I had him on Nutramigen as well, again, the pain and discomfort passed within a week or two. It may be worth speaking to your doctor about milk protein allergies and insisting on at least a trial of prescription milk for it.