Struggling… crying 14 week old every evening

[Sparklesocks]

I have a 15 week old who is mostly happy but is prone to bouts of being unsettled throughout the day, then she has her witching hour (ha, one hour would be lovely) every day between approx 7.30-11.30pm, or sometimes gone midnight (like tonight, DP is downstairs carrying on as I’ve run out of steam ).

She just won’t settle, will take a bottle (she’s ff) but only small amounts, screams, cries, fusses, in general won’t be comfortable or happy until she eventually crashes out. In fairness she will then sleep for 5-6 hours. During our evenings my partner and I will scoff dinner down then get ready to take turns managing her for this period. It’s been like this since she was 6 weeks old.

Nothing we do affects this - I’ve tried attempting to do a nighttime routine, playing with her, reading to her, bathing her, holding her throughout, infacol, gripe water, white noise, rocking her, dummies, going for long walks beforehand or during, driving her in the car, the amount of sleep she has in the day makes no difference (she only naps 30 mins at a time in the day anyway). Anything that does ‘work’ only lasts briefly, and she’ll be crying again shortly after.

She is a bit refluxy so I can only assume this is a part of it, but the GP was blasé as she’s a normal weight so wasn’t keen to prescribe any meds. Health Visitor wasn’t helpful either, offered very basic advice like ‘maybe try burping her?’ Which we’ve clearly been doing…the general ‘support’ for reflux seems to be ‘oh sorry…they’ll grow out of it in the end!!’ which I accept, but isn’t particularly helpful.

Ive read that witching hours are meant to die down around 3 months but if anything she’s getting worse. I keep being told it’ll get better and logically I know it’s true, but with potentially the 4 month sleep regression and teething around the corner I can’t really imagine it will.

I’m finding it easier to just accept my life will be a bit shit for some time, evenings no longer belong to DP and I and relaxing or doing even basic stuff like watching a film (or even half a film!) are no longer options for us. Sex isn’t an option, neither is socialising - I don’t want to ask that anyone babysits because I wouldn’t want to inflict this relentless crying on anyone else. This might sound negative and downbeat but it’s been this way since 6 weeks in with no change on the horizon, so I’d rather this way than having false hope that she’ll get better soon. It’s easier for my self preservation to adapt and expect the worst than pretend it’ll end soon.

i took her to our first baby group last week and despite it being day time when she’s normally ok, she screamed throughout the entire session then fell asleep for the last 5 mins or so. A lot of the mums already knew each other and I found it hard to infiltrate the cliques. I’m not sure if I can face going back for the same thing again.

Im in an NCT group and all the other mums have said their baby gets a bit fussy in the evenings but nothing like mine. They all seem to have night time routines down already, one of them sleeps through 7pm-5am and mum happily chatted about how nice it is to have that time at night with her husband.

Sorry this is long. I don’t really know what I want from this except to vent…and see if anyone has any tips for grinning and bearing it when it’s tough. I appreciate I just have to wait it out, but it’s just so hard when every day is so difficult.

thanks for reading my ramblings….

We had this, you can get gaviscon granules also slow feeding (frustrating) really helps so an oz then wind. Put the face first horizontally over your knee to wind we learnt this through NICU.
also gripe water in the milk

Someone I know has been going through the same things from birth for 5 months, feeding, reflux, unsettled - and baby scarcely sleeping at night for the first three to four months; it is utterly exhausting for mother, father, everyone.

The nights are improving so there is a reasonable amount of unbroken sleep but now teething so it's still difficult and mother takes him for regular sessions of cranial massage which may be helping a bit. Things seem to improve albeit slowly and I hope and expect that will happen for you too.

Mine did the same. 3pm-10pm every evening until she learnt how to sit up and slide backwards on her tummy on the floor at 4months. GP said it was emotional colic.

High needs/ fussy baby literature helped. She definitely changed once she was less frustrated with the limitations of her baby body. It may have also coincided with her feeling less overstimulated by everything.

Solidarity though, it's shit when they get stuck in that loop of crying. I never imagined parenting a baby would be that relentless at the beginning. I'm sure it will resolve soon. I do think 4 months seems to be a turning point for most people.

Second opinion at GP wouldn't harm though.

Do you use a perfect prep machine?

I keep being told it’ll get better and logically I know it’s true, but with potentially the 4 month sleep regression and teething around the corner I can’t really imagine it will. Please - don't look ahead! Just keep taking each day as it comes.

evenings no longer belong to DP and I and relaxing or doing even basic stuff like watching a film (or even half a film!) are no longer options for us. Sex isn’t an option, neither is socialising Well, no - but it's not for ever, and you'll survive.

It might help to keep a diary - when something goes on so long, it's difficult to notice small changes, but keeping a diary may help you realise it is getting better and give you hope for the future.

I feel for you. My second was like this every evening and seemed to last hours. The “witching hour” was renamed “the gremlin time”. I can’t tell you a magic spell to sort it but I can give you solidarity! I spent a lot of time rocking infront of the window with her in a “tiger tree” baby hold position just nosing outside but sometimes in tears as I didn’t know what else to do. What I can say is she is grew out of it. Probably around 6 months. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear 🙈 but it’s a distant memory now. Sending hugs!

I had a crier/screamer too. The ‘hour’ was more like 4-7 for me as they’d eventually go to sleep, waking at 11, 3 and 5. 🥱 On mat leave, waiting for OH to get home and after little sleep at night, it was so stressful. I found a long, long bath (sometimes them, sometimes me
with them) helped to pass the time if nothing else. I had the gaviscon granules. Such a faff especially as I made each bottle fresh as per the hygiene advice I was given. A couple of other things helped. around 4/5
months it occurred to me to put the telly
on. I think it was Waybaloo at the time that caught their eye and calmed them down. I also got a ceiling projector which had the same effect when it was time for bed. The waking up a few hours later was another story… basically my child wanted to cosleep. There was no way I was risking this when they were small. I was almost broken by the time they went to school so I let them get in with me and they slept all night through.

Hello op, I'm sorry you're going through this. Months 3-5 were challenging. It's so bloody hard. Please know that you're not alone in this, and my DD (and I'm sure lots of others) was exactly like this. We used to go to the local park which we called the "despair park" and listen to her cry in an open space which we felt helped. What helped us was finding her "ideal" bed time. She needed to be down to sleep by 7 otherwise she'd be awful, but understand that won't work for everyone.
Please know that it gets sooooo much better and you'll get your evenings back - DD has just turned one and it's been the hardest year but it has got so much better.

I would second the suggestion of "paced feeding" which is time consuming but if it helps reduce her discomfort and thus the crying then of course it's well worth it. You can find instructions online, it's basically a way of making bottle feeding as similar to breastfeeding as possible so baby has to work harder for the milk and it reduces the risk of them getting an uncomfortable tummy.

I would also really, really, really recommend a sling - some schools of thought believe that babies are hardwired to become unsettled as day switches to night, so you want to aim to keep them feeling as close and safe as possible. The classic "M"/frogs legs position in a good sling can also help with tummy pain, and the position helps them to pass any gas, and being close to you will promote oxytocin release which is a natural painkiller.

Do you have a local sling library/carrying consultant? Ours does regular meet ups where you can try on a whole variety of slings to hire and they will also come to your house to do one to one consultations. We must have spent thousands of hours bouncing on a birth ball with our eldest in a sling with white noise on, he was so high needs. His baby sister loved to sleep in the cot, it was a proper shock for us 😆

My youngest baby was like this. He’s lactose intolerant and I was ignored for a year.

He obviously settled a bit without intervention other than gaviscon but the big choky burps and possetting was really hard.

I tried him on lactose free milk one day and he transformed overnight. Literallly.

Try some lactase in his formula (Colief) - give it 2/3 days. It will do zero harm but you’ll know quickly if it’s that.

Hi Op, my baby was like this too. I swapped from powder milk to ready made liquid formula and it was like I had a new baby! No more crying! Did am experiment after a few weeks by going back to powder formula and the crying started again.

Costs a fortune but gave me a break so really worth it for me.

I think go back to the GP and push for meds. Gaviscon changed our lives with DC2 who had undiagnosed silent reflux - we endured months and months screaming at night before the GP would listen to me and prescribe anything. It's really hard dealing with endless screaming, you have my sympathy. Sounds like you and DH are a good team - hang in there

OP, our DD was similar. Omeprazole and infant Gaviscon changed everything. If you think it is silent reflux, push to try meds. Why should she be in pain if it is preventable?

My kids all.did this
My youngest too were diagnosed silent reflux and had all the meds and special formula but my eldest was the era of weaning at 3 months and that did the trick instantly.
But with hinesight weaning may have cured any silent reflux.

Thanks all, I truly appreciate your kind words and support.
yes I will absolutely go back to GP about reflux and push for prescription. I felt quite dismissed the first time and felt a bit too beaten down to push back, but you’re right I need to be more assertive for DD’s sake.

We do have a sling which I’ve tried a few times but she still gets angry in it, but I’ll maybe try putting her in it before she kicks off to see if that helps.

Yes we have a prep machine too, but there have been times where I’ve stayed at my mum’s and only used the ready pour formula bottles all day and had the same problem come evening.

She’s actually been a lot better tonight, slept from about 7.30-8 and then again 9.30-10 with minimal screaming inbetween so I’m wondering if that’s helped combat some of the usual over tiredness. It’s not much I know, but more than she normally gets. She’s awake now and very fiercely resisting sleep, but happily babbling rather than crying. I can handle that! I know she’ll probably be a handful again tomorrow night but it’s been a lot less fraught than the last few evenings at least. We even managed to watch half an episode of the sixth commandment on iplayer!

Thank you again, it’s also been helpful to hear from others who have been through similar - everyone I know’s DC seemed to have outgrown this phase after about 2-3 months so it’s nice to know I’m not alone.

I love gremlin time!! That’s very accurate 😄

Might be worth trying infacol to help with the reflux?
you may have already tried this too, but burp LO after drinking every 1-2 oz milk.

My son was like this. Every night 6pm-11pm. Nothing helped. He stopped on his own accord.

He was breastfed. He is not lactose intolerant. No reflux that we know of.

We coslept. Sometimes carrying him around would help, a bit. A hairdryer or a hoover nearby would help, a little. The white noise machine did nothing. In the end he grew out of it - that’s the only thing.

It was hell. 7y later I still carry some resentment to DH (and my in-laws) for their behaviour over those early months. Eg, once DH came 6:30 instead of 6, saying he bumped into someone at work and hd a nice chat so left work late. In the meantime I was holding a screaming baby for half an hour, each minute seeming like a lifetime, after holding a clingy baby all day. I desperately wanted a shower and a plate of pasta. But no - DH thought chatting with colleagues is his human right.

If it's only in the evening surely it's less likely to be silent reflux? Both of mine were like this- absolute terrors for 5 hours a night. My HV wanted me to get omeprazole from GP, but after doing some research I decided that giving my baby a drug that studies and guidelines don't support and that has potential long term health implications wasn't for me. I found the purple period info reassuring and the knowledge that it's awful, but it's normal and only age will fix it kept my last bit of sanity. Obviously I don't know your child but I think you should look into the evidence behind medications before giving them something that may impact their developing gut biome and immune system. And no, I'm not a particularly crunchy mum!

I think weaning is supposed to help and in our generation babies were weaned at 3 months rather than 6. At 14 weeks some baby rice or porridge might work. Check but think packages say 4 months. So maybe in couple of weeks you could see if it works?

I just wanted to post an update as I know in the past I’ve searched for old threads on mumsnet for subjects relevant to me, and it’s always nice/helpful to see how things went.

Thanks to everyone who shared advice/sympathy, I was really at breaking point when I wrote this and I appreciate everyone who took the time to comment.

It’s been a few months and it’s so much better now. I can’t tell you what changed, but DD is just so much more settled in evenings, she’s like a different baby. She will go down between 8-9pm (she naps around 6-7pm but can’t quite link her sleep cycles yet, so her big sleep is always post 8pm). She only does 4-5 hour chunks since the 4 month regression (she did 6-7 hours before) but it’s manageable. Before she goes down she’s a bit fussy but nothing like she was. The regression didn’t even hit us that hard because we were already in the trenches - it hit my NCT friends with their babies doing 10 hour stretches much harder!!

I think she had bad wind or reflux issues and these have just…stopped. She is still quite posset-y but it doesn’t bother her at all. We did go back to the GP but as the pain seemed to have eased we didn’t proceed with gaviscon in case it constipated her - we didn’t want to rock the boat and risk a new type of discomfort when she isn’t bothered by it. It’s just a laundry issue now really!

Evenings are so much calmer and my DP and I are so much less stressed. We can watch TV or have a chat without consecutive hours of tag-teaming with a screaming baby. She’s better in the day too, and although she slept through most of her baby sensory classes (🤦🏻‍♀️) I’ll take that over screaming.

We’re about to start weaning so that hopefully might aid her reflux too. I’m still jealous of the NCT mum whose baby bounced back from the sleep regression and is now sleeping 7-7 every night (!) but I’m honestly so much happier with the change that 4 hour stretches seems like a fair trade off.

I hope anyone searching MN threads who might come across this finds my update useful. Hang in there, but I know how bloody awful it is when you’re in the thick of it 💖

So nice to read your update and hear that things have improved ❤️ but I’ll let you into a secret- the NCT friend with the baby who sleeps through, is lying!!

So glad things have improved @Sparklesocks

Amazing what 2mths can do

But know I'm that time you were prob dragging on your knees

4mth regression is often a thing now but wasn't 20/30yrs ago when babies were weaned at 3mths +

Weaning early can help and I find those that weaned at 4mthe - many didn't get the dreaded 4mth regression .......