Colicky baby and routines...help!

[YummyMummy1208]

My little girl is 5 weeks old and has suffered terrible colic gradually getting worse and worse since she was maybe 1 or 2 weeks old. :( it went from happening maybe 4 or 5 nights a week (we would usually get 2 good nights where we would sleep in our own beds and have what i would describe as a typical night for a newborn - feed at 2am and 5am etc and then it would go back to 3 or 4 bad nights) to now its happening every night - well for the last 5 or 6 nights so far anyhow.

Before colic kicked in i desperately wanted to get off to a good start and try get her onto a routine at night, iv bought the baby whisperer books and this was the approach i was using - tanking her up at night and then a dream feed hoping to eventually have her sleeping from 11 till 5am but as the colic then took over its very hard to get any sort of normal bedtime routine going as usually from 6/7pm through to 10/11pm shes fussing/uncomfortable and crying until i rock her to sleep, tip toe over to her moses basket and put her in asleep.

At the moment, on a typical night i bath her after putting my 2 yr old to bed at 7pm, dress her for bed, give her a bottle and try get her to send herself to sleep by putting her down drowsy but not sleeping, but it always ends in her crying, colic kicking in, lots of knee pulling up and then i proceed with rocking her out of the crying and calming her to sleep, she will wake ten minutes later and the whole thing repeats again until around 10pm when she gives in and sleeps for a good few hours. by this time, i have then missed the slot for the dream feed as ill be damned if im wakin her an hour after finally getting her off since 8pm at the risk of her not sleeping through the feed! so then i get woken at 12/1am for her next feed.

Sorry for long post, i was wondering if anyone had suggestions of anything different you would or did with your colicky baby to get them into a night time routine or if i should just wait for this to pass (usually by 12 weeks im praying) and then start the routine ritual? I am so desperate to get our evenings back, even an hour or 2 alone couple time each evening would be good at this point as rite now, im sleeping downstairs OH is upstairs all to get her sleeping each night!

I can give suggestions on helping her colic, & hopefully the rest will follow if you can get that under control

My own DD suffered terribly with Colic & this is what finally helped with her.....

Epsom Salts with a few drops of lavender & chamomile pure aromatherapy oils in her bath - the Epsom salts will give her magnesium, which will help sooth her nerves & help her body cope better with the colic pain - if shes stressed, which she will be if in pain, then that makes it all worse, so a bit of a vicious cycle - lavender & chamomile help her sleep, & calm her nerves.

Baby massage, we had one that worked well for her colic - baby face down along your thigh - face over your knee - gently massage in an anti clockwise direction, sort of a square shape, just below shoulder blades - down to just above hip - across to just above other hip - up to just below shoulder blade etc etc ,,,keep going round & round gently - if you find a good baby massage books, you will find this one & more.

& lastly, but most importantly

are you breast feeding at all??? if so, then what YOU eat, will affect her

I was lucky to get this great advise from an old friend who works with children & babies in alternative health care, after getting fobbed of by our GP

Avoid all "layered" vegetables, onion, lettuce, cabbage, leek etc etc, these will pass through your breast milk & cause her wind, as will spicy foods, & chemical additives such as benzoate preservatives, MSG & artificial sweetners - I was dubious about this, but was desperate to try anything, & it worked like a dream, instant calm pain free baby again - yes it meant my eating a very bland diet, cutting out a lot, but it wasn't as hard as I first thought & it was so worth it :) (DD also had skin problems caused by artificial food dyes)

If you are not breast feeding, then you might want to talk to your GP/Health Visitor etc, about lactose intolerance, as it could be the dairy based formula you give her, that is upsetting her stomach??

good luck :)

are you swaddling? if not i would give it a go.
would recommend a Summer infant swaddle pod or a woombie. Both were brilliant for settling DD.

agree very much with rockinhippy, also put baby on her side in the cot it really helps with colic. soft rolled towel behind back so baby angled back but onto fall onto back. But a lot of colic is lactose intolerance what ever anyone says. You could try maybe just at night a soya feed there are ones specially for babies. good luck

rockinhippy, thanks for the advice i tried that massage last night - not sure if it helped but she loved it and we got a few burps whilst she was down there so will be trying that again tonight, before the crying kicks in to try help avoid the build up. Im not breast feeding but have considered the lactose intolerance as my 2 yr old had issues with cows milk based formula and we still cant give him cows milk now without him getting constipated so its crossed my mind but health visitors and paediatricians all seem to say the same - constipation doesnt normally indicate an intolerance, diareah does so they never actually agreed with me regarding this issue with my son, at the moment shes on the aptamil comfort formula but if nothing improves by the end of this tub (this is the 3rd week of using it) then i will be tempted to by the cow and gate Infasoy formula to see if that helps.

TheSugarPlumFairy yes i have tried swaddling, not every time i put her down but if iv struggled to get her to sleep iv usually then resorted to swaddling her, and i have one of those summer swaddle pods which are amazing - they didnt have those when my son was a baby and it was such hard work keeping his arms in to wrap him up in a blanket!

The last 3 nights shes gone from spending up to 7 hours crying to now a few hours a night but then we dont ever get a good nite now so i dont know which is the better option!

She might actually have reflux caused by the cows milk. Symptoms of reflux (silent reflux means no excessive vomiting) are similar. I'd suggest you look into it and make a note of symptoms and take it to your GP. My DS had this.

Another issue is overtiredness. Is she getting enough naps in the day? It can cause a major meltdown - again this happened to my DS. Ended up wearing him in a sling most of the time so he got enough naps.

To bring up wind I used to give DS a little bit o tummy time every evening. Also keep the baths and bedtime routine really really calm - low lights, little talking etc. I found that helped.

We had a terrible time with our ds and colic.

After a really traumatic birth for both of us we then moved into day upon day of crying (from him and me!!). We tried everything from diet to massage and all the potions on the market without much success.

Eventually we tried cranial osteopathy which although didn't cure the problem certainly did give him some relief and would certainly recommend it. Not sure where you are based but can recommend somewhere if you're interested (very reasonable price as they can be expensive) just pm me.

Happy to report he his now a happy 7mth old who sleeps well and fusses very little.

At the time it feels like it will never end but it will hang in there and just try what you can. Wishing you a good nights sleep soon .

Lots of great advice here and I hope it works as colic is soooooo hard. DS had it for three weeks and honestly any longer and I think DH and I would have got divorced.
Have you also tried the five S's from the Happiest baby on the block book. Here it is: