3 week old hysterical from 6pm-3am daily - I am so tired.

[Freyfreysmum]

She is great in the day, content, and feeds well. I am still feeding her, but also now offer a few bottle feeds a day too. She was a big baby at 10.4lb and has since put on a good amt of weight.
Hence why the professionals dont want to know.

I have taken her to an oral specialist, HV, 2 x GPs, who all have confirmed on examination that she does not have tongue tie. Several have said it is 'just colic' and to ride it out.
The chiropractor said she is incredibly tense and clearly something is up.

Symptoms are :

Screaming as opposed to crying and completely inconsolable no matter what I do.
Trembling and rigid legs and back.
Shaking bottom lip.
Her tummy is round and solid.
Refusing sugar water or breast or bottle.

To date the only thing that settles her is utter exhastion, then in bed with me she takes a feed.

I am at my wits end, I cant rest in the day as have a 2yr old daughter, and am getting on average 3hrs sleep a night.
Everyone I have seen asks : Is she putting on weight and growing well, and the answer is yes, so that is that, just put up with the rest.
What is wrong with my lovely girl?

Have you tried cranial osteopathy? It had a very dramatic effect on my dd, although this doesn't happen for everyone.

My sympathies go out to you - ds was like this from about 4 - 11 weeks old (never 3am, but always 12 - 1am until he fell asleep with exhaustion).

We also saw a cranial osteopath, which did help, but over time (and maybe he would have got better anyway, we'll never know).

DS had reflux, as was being sick a lot and also cried about half an hour after feeding, always. But that high pitched, in pain cry is horrible.

We ended up on Ranitidine, which did help, but ds was showing all symptoms of reflux. Whilst we were going through this, we found the following helped:

Extractor fan
Wrapping ds up warm and walking outside in back garden
White noise
Car trips
DH and I used to take 'shifts' to try and calm ds
We used to sit in a dark room, which sometimes helped?

If you've ruled out reflux, it probably is colic. It does pass and there is not much you can do about it in the meantime, although it is heartbreaking to experience.
It will pass ...

My daughter was like this, and it turned out to be milk protein intolerance. Because of this, she was screaming because she was in so much pain (poor thing). Have you tried cutting out dairy from your diet if you are BFing? It may be worth a shot.

Everything sheeplikessleep has said. My DS was the same from 3 weeks to about 10 weeks old. The various things we tried that worked were:

White noise (at one point, we had the vacuum cleaner on under his cot for 7 hours non-stop - I refused to look at our electricity bill for that month!!)

Walks in his buggy - vigorous and going over every single crack in the pavement. He seemed to like the bumps!

Fisher Price vibrating bouncy chair - we used to rock him in this quite vigourously with the vibrate on, and he would go to sleep pretty quickly. Don't get the baby to toddler rocker - get the early stage ones, like the rainforest bouncer. If you live anywhere in Croydon/South London, I have one going spare that will probably end up in the nearest charity shop or playgroup - my DS is now way too heavy for it.

Carrying him around with one arm wrapped around his tummy gently - this was for my DH as I was nowhere near strong enough to do this. However, I appreciate this may not be possible if you also have a toddler to contend with.

Time - believe it or not, regardless of what anyone says, it will pass!

Yep can relate, my DS was un-consolable from 10pm-4am every night for over a month when he was born. He had reflux and after seeing an osteopath it turned out he had a 'cricked neck' which made lying down painful for him.

Anyway, he is 4 years old now and from about 5 months old has been a great sleeper. Hang in there, as the others have said, it will pass

Sorry meant to add that I also had a 2 yr old DD at the time so I know how utterly exhausting it is. Really hope you get some sleep soon

hate to say it but 3 weeks is the time that colic kicks in - we were fortunate not to deal with it but I have friends who have had experiences and sounds similar.

Really hope things get better

I had exactly the same. Cranial and reflux medicine didn't help. Nothing helped. He was awake same time as yours and ds1 had just started school.
I still don't know how I coped. And I am afraid I have no advice to offer. Nothing. But it did stop at 12 weeks. I hope it does for you. Big hugs.

how does she sleep in the day? could she be getting overstimulated/overtired which is triggering it?
do you feed her before she cries or wait until she cries? with ds3 i have to get him before he cries or he just flips and will scream forever before exhausting himself enough to actually take the feed

don't give her sugar water, it has a laxative effect i believe and may be making her uncomfortable.

are you giving her formula? my second child used to do this and he is intolerant to dairy, is it possible she is reacting to the formula? did this coincide with the introduction of bottles?

my last suggestion is to buy "the happiest baby on the block" by dr harvey karp. almost saved my life with ds2 that book did

Our first cried from midnight to 5am, like your daughter. One session of cranial osteopathy and it was much better. He was still hard to settle but the colic or whatever it was stopped. Good luck - you must be exhausted.

Can you try cutting out the formula for a bit and see if that helps?

What time does she have her forumla? Could she be eating too much? Too much formula / food can cause an upset tummy/wind/bloating etc.

What's her routine like at the mo?

All three of mine have to some extent had colic, reflux or milk intolerance. My third was as you describe until the day that I cut dairy out of my diet and he was like a different baby - settled almost immediately. I also tried cranial osteopathy which did help a bit.

Obviously, if you aren't breastfeeding then it may just be the dreaded colic - or perhaps it's worth trying a different formula if you're bottle feeding, to see whether the particular formula you're using isn't compatible with her system.

Huge sympathies as it's SO hard, especially when you have other children to look after.

Has this been since you introduced the formula or has it always been like that?

Have you tried making any changes to your diet?

Have you considered a night nanny to let you get one night of sleep? If you're interested pop over to the nannies/CMs section and see if there is anyone in your area.

Sorry - didn't read your message properly - see you are mix feeding. Can you drop the formula and go dairy free to see whether that makes the difference? It was as though a switch had been flicked with my son - I wish I'd tried it with the other two!

Don't write off silent reflux. Not enough detail in posting to say for certain not but in my experience caused endless crying and 'colic' symptoms.

Many many sympathies to you. Having two is a challenge in itself. It will improve, all you have to do is survive!

(and one small consolation is that although she appears to be in terrible pain from whatever, she will get past this and never remember so whatever instinct tells you to do, go with it, she will be fine in the long run).

I would suggest milk intolerance too, but I see that plenty of others have already. If it is that then it won't stop unless you remove dairy from her diet, which means stopping formula (or getting hypoallergenic one) and giving up dairy yourself.

With dd I endured 16 weeks of round the clock screaming until we realised that this was the problem (was fobbed off with colic until then) and I gave up dairy. With ds it kicked in at 3 weeks and I stopped dairy right away, and after a few more hellish days whilst it cleared from our systems he was also better.

I would also try cranial osteopathy though, partic if the problem is only when you try to lie her down.

Ohhh you have my absolute sympathies, I only have 1 DD and she cried from the very day she was born for 4 months solid. I heard every reason from colic, silent reflux, "she has her days and nights mixed up" everything and it left me more bewildered and upset.

The problem was that everyone put it down to "colic" meaning trapped wind and i knew it wasnt that. But if it was "colic" as in inexplicable crying then that was it for sure.

i tried colief which didnt work for us but many people swear by it and the doc gave it to us on prescription so it cost nothing to try. The one thing that absolutely saved me was a dream rocker pram rocking machine.

DD always settled in the pram or carseat and so I bit the bullet and paid 80 quid i think it was. Put the pram on the rocking machine and she would sleep in there. It was a big outlay but it was truly my dream machine because it allowed me to sleep when she did as I wasnt pounding the streets or up and down the motorway.

FWIW everyone tells you it will end and every single day feels like a month but it does end and you do find the strength to keep going each day.

Poor you . I think lots of us can sympathise with this. My dd1 had reflux and screamed the place down constantly when she was tiny. No-one wanted to know, I was slipping towards PND when a friend suggested I demand Infant Gaviscon from the GP. It worked a treat (bit of a PITA having to express and then add the Gaviscon to a bottle, but better that than the screaming).

Also totally concur with the white noise thing - we used to leave an electric toothbrush running in her cot to get her off to sleep. Until we discovered that you can buy CDs that play white noise. Or just de-tune a radio and leave that going...

Cranial osteopathy
Swaddling

You poor things

OP, how are you doing?