Infantile spasms or colic? Should never have googled...

[mamabrownbear]

My DD has started having issues at night. She goes down but within seconds her legs are twitching, waking her up. She bangs her legs really hard to the mattress. When I pick her up and nurse she is ok but as soon as she's down and trying to sleep its like her body spasms.
Is this infantile spasms? Ie epilepsy? Am now really worried. Or is it colic? She doesn't howl the way I'd expect her to with colic but she is still progressing well, although this is a new strange thing she is doing. Mainly her legs are the problem. If I hold them to stop them moving its ok but as soon as I move away they jerk her awake. What is going on??? Is this serious?

I'm assuming your dd is a newborn ish baby? Could it be the startle reflex?

Maybe swaddling might help to stop her waking herself up?

There are no noises to startle her. But now having googled that I suppose it could be Moro reflex? It's only been noticeable when I try to get her to sleep. It just freaked me out and if its something neurological I'd want to move fast...

Afaik there doesn't have to be a noise for the startle reflex. My ds when he was tiny went through a phase of startling a lot when dropping off to sleep and waking himself up. He just grew out of it after a couple of weeks.