5day old newborn screaming unconsolably

[monniemae]

My baby seems fine in the day, but she's having an increasing number of sporadic, hysterical, uncobtrollable screaming starting in the evening through till 2 or 3am. I can't calm her at all. My partner can eventually...

He thinks it's normal for a baby but I'm sure something's wrong that we haven't figured out. I thought maybe we were letting her get too hungry as she roots a bit and cries but even when I tried offering the breast earlier and earlier to pre-crying cues, she kind of frenziedly roots for it but screams, won't latch, arches her back right off and away from it and screams horrifically. Sometimes for an hour or two.

Any ideas? My milk only came in today / last night. I've spent today trying to make sure she gets the hind milk but tbh my tits feel rock hard even after a massive feed.

She is calm and asleep now in sling with partner. But she is definitely hungry (I think; he thinks if she was hungry she'd feed) and if I wake her or wait for her to stir and offer breast again the whole cycle restarts...

and yes at 5do she should produce a loud actual burp, when it comes up

You will hear it. Mine always was fussy if he had wind that needed to be got out fo the way - he would be hungry but couldn't fit any more milk in iyswim. No need to rush, the milk will still be there if she takes a while!

What are you eating?

Everything you eat will affect her.

Anything acidic, Anything windy ( fizzy water), anything too fibrous,, oats, Ds yelled until my DSis gave me the swiss advice to eat blandly.

Shame. No melon, strawberries, coffee, porridge, lemon, champagne, etc.

also she hiccups a lot after feeding if that means anything

monnie, you need real life help and a proper dialogue. Great long lists of what might be 'wrong' (just on this thread we have had colic, wind, reflux, tongue tie....aagh! And you have had some confusing advice from friends about emptying the breast and trying to keep the baby awake....aagh!). And the baby's only a few days old :( :(

None of what you have read or heard may be wide of the mark, but the most overwhelmingly likely answer is your baby is fine, and you and he just need to be snuggled together so you can get in tune with one another, so you can respond to his cues and meet his needs with as little fuss and stress as possible....you are still under midwife care, so do make the most of that, and think how you and your baby can be able to stay close and learn about how wonderful you are to one another :)

And now we can add what you are eating to the list of what might be wrong :( :(

It's far, far too soon to be messing about with exclusion diets - don't you think?

Sorry to sound critical of good people who want to help and who mean well and of course a few babies do seem to react to foods in the mum's diet, but this is rare and not worth persuing just at present....IMO.

Sorry me again :)

It is just not true that 'everything you eat will affect her'. This is such an unhelpful myth and it's worth challenging.

Hiccups normally mean wind, or that was what I was always told. Try winding her how others have described upthread.

In regards to getting real life help and not being able to get out, try calling your MLU as ours will send out maternity care assistants (with bf training) or breast feeding counsellors to you - 7 days a week.

Agree tiktok about the diet.

Disagree that baby is likely to be fine. Many RL "experts" do not even think of TT, reflux etc and dismiss these as potential causes instead of ruling them out.

I went through weeks of unnecessary hell where my second baby was unsettled from day 1, as opposed to my first who slept a lot until a few weeks in. My second had TT and I went every week to BF drop ins (NCT trained) and they told me it was just a latching issue.

Hiccups can be a sign that baby has wind and that's the way the body gets rid of it.

There's no harm in suggesting causes so that the OP an discuss with someone to rule them out.

tiktok, thankyou, you're right.
she's asleep on me now and I'm feeling calmer about the night ahead

I will def call midwives tomorrow and ask for help..

thanks all

Any RL expert worth their salt will not be going through a list of colic, reflux, diet etc etc etc with a baby aged just 4-5 days old, creature (I think it's reasonable to check every baby for obvious TT and then explore further if the problem persists).

Really, you think fizzy water drunk by a mother will give a baby wind? That's the most bizarre thing I've ever heard!

I agree with tiktok - generally babies cry because they want to be fed and held. Not all babies need furious jiggling and winding anyway - mine rarely burped.

Point taken. However I was up to 12 weeks and still not getting any answers!

Something else which I found helpful. If you think back to prehistoric times the hours of twilight and darkness were the most dangerous for babies so it's not surprising that they get fussy at this time and need soothing. It ensures that mummy (or maybe daddy) have to stay nearby and keep baby safe. There are obviously physical reasons too. Some of these are cramping pains that can be eased by suckling or movement or a hot bath but they're all survival mechanisms. I find it helpful to think of it this way.

keep offering the breast. Watch out for those cues that baby has a good latch (full, fat cheeks, a chewing motion, gulping swallowing, chin firmly pressed into breast tissue etc). call some of your local baby cafes. It may be possible for a volunteer to come and see you if you can't get to them.

I hope this is helpful. Good luck and keep going. You're doing a fine job!

I will add, and don't take this the wrong way, that you are quick to rule out any causes regardless of the age of the baby... Making a sweeping assumption that a baby is just being a baby isn't always helpful.

creature - you obv should have had better help before 12 weeks :( :(

Oh dear yes - the fizzy water hypothesis :) :) Can someone explain how the bubbles get into the milk?

I am not ruling anything out - read my post.

I accept that these problems may exist, but 5 days is not the time to assume there is something wrong....

I feel for you here, OP.

Don't be afraid to call your midwife out if you are struggling and they can come and see you. Maybe they could contact a BF counsellor who would be willing to drop round to your house?

I'm relieved about the fizzy drinks thing anyway

I did wonder if it was all my fault!

My son was like this. Things that stopped to crying were white noise, especially the hoover, being in water ( I found breast feeding in the bath a bit tricky!) and being driven in the car.
I also used a dummy ( which when preg I swore I would never do)
I hope you find a solution that works for you. Hugs

Tiktok I can see what you're saying but actually having had a very calm and happy ds2, who cried literally twice in his first 6 months (not kidding) to then have a screamer of a ds3 taught me that there was something wrong, or he would not be crying iyswim.

It's just I think there is something wrong with a lot of babies so it is normal in that sense.

It's just figuring out what is wrong that is the issue - and then trying to sort it. I kept going to midwives/HVs and so on, 'but I know babies don't all cry. I know he is in pain. I just don't know why'. and they all said the same, it's very normal, he's a baby.

No one would even try and help - he was gaining weight like a trooper so obvs latch was fine, nothing obviously wrong at all apart from, something was, and I still don't know what it was. That was very very hard to deal with for me anyway.

Are you drinking diet coke? Excess caffeine?

That gave my baby exactly the symptoms you are describing.

She ended up with reflux but that's necessarily a helpful label right now for you. It sounds like its pain of some kind so I would concur with the posters about winding. It can take ages and you can try a few techniques - some work better than others!

Tiktok, you may be right, but German and swiss paeds have, or had, diff views. They are, IME, more diet, herbal, alternative therapies than UK ones.

And I know Ds exploded if I ate oats. And was upset if I ate acidic stuff. And when I stopped drinking fizzy water he was happier. He still yelled for England but was less unhappy in his feeding.

Op see your midwife/ hv. But all babes are different so you may need to try a number of things.

Just to explain - I don't think it is 'normal' for babies of 5 days old to scream for hours (actually, it's not normal for babies of any age). My issue here is that assuming something is wrong with the baby's digestion, physiology, or whatever, or something wrong with the mother's diet, especially as early as 5 days old, is to go chasing around while risking the simplest explanation and 'cure' which is to really tune into the baby so he can be comforted and soothed swiftly before he gets to screaming stage....this screaming stage may well be the result of the baby's feelings being all over place (babies cannot 'regulate' their feelings and rely on a responsive caregiver to help them do this when they are tiny).

Being close to the baby, holding and comforting, and feeding (from which the baby gets a lot of reassurance and comfort), following the baby's cues, is often enough to help the baby stay calmer and happier (though he will still cry sometimes).

Some mothers babies do take a little while to get their act together around this, but it has got to be a good idea at 5 days, to do the skin to skin, closeness, responsiveness and to see if this turns things round and if the baby gets calmer with fewer screaming episodes.

It's simpler, it's more pleasant than messing about with diet, or working down a list of physical conditions...that's what you do when the screaming doesn't start to calm with these easier measures.

buchanan, if German and Swiss paeds are recommending wholesale changes of diet at 5 days, and at any time recommending no fizzy water, then I don't care how many letters they have after their names, they are wrong.

:)