Any experience of colic starting late? 14 week old suddenly seems colicky.

[dotty2]

DD2 has up until now been pretty settled and happy, and sleeping well at night - just waking up for feeds. But over the last week she has got more and more unsettled and screamy in the evening and night - waking frequently and crying inconsolably, not settling after her early evening feed etc. In short, she seems to have colic, and I have just discovered from a quick google search that it's not unheard of for colic to start late. Am feeling pretty despondent - DD1 had terrible colic and I thought we'd escaped this time. Anyone else experience this? How long did it last for? And should I take her to the GP in case it's something else? (I am mixed feeding, btw - bottle early evening, bf the rest of the night.)

Hi Dotty,

How long have you been mixed feeding DD, and is she having any other bottles through the day?

Have been mixed feeding (reluctantly) since 4 weeks because still not back up to birth weight in spite of near constant feeding. She has 3 bottles altogether (usually takes about 4oz), and although she was a bit colicky for a day or two when we first introduced the formula, she's been fine for the last 10 weeks, and is gaining weight well now, so I don't think that's the problem.

Sounds quite likely to be teeth to me. Have you tried giving calpol or teething gel?

Hmm. I guess teeth is a possibility - though seems a bit early. Will try some calpol tonight and see if it makes a difference.

Could it be overstimulation?

My DS is 'colicky' (ie wails every night) but I'm totally convinced he's just got sensory overload and his brain can't process the information it's receiving all the time. He used to be really windy but it's much less of a thing now, and yet he's still howling at night. By the end of the day he's overwrought, wired and hyper, then DP arrives home (exciting), there's conversation, the lights go on as it gets dark, TV etc. He's too tired (won't sleep much in the day) and doesn't know how to switch off, cue meltdown.

Things that have helped are wearing him in the sling with his head covered while in stimulating situations, keeping evenings low key, arranging outings for mornings where possible and rhythmic swaying motion plus white noise to calm him don when having a paddy.

Not had chance to post for a while (since we're back to spending our evenings taking it in turns to cuddle DD2 on the sofa), but thanks for your thoughts, CSB. Have also seen your comments on another thread - our two sound v.similar. Things have done from bad to worse here - last night she would only sleep if rocked in our arms in the evening, then a bit of a doze in bed with my nipple in her mouth all night - exhausting for both of us as neither of us really sleeping. I think the problem is that we have built a really bad sleep pattern where she expects to be fed to sleep, but she is a v.windy baby so then doesn't get burped and is all farty and distressed a little while later. plus is very over-tired so that makes it harder to settle. Clearly some sort of sleep training needed, but what? Might try pick up/put down - but since it takes a good 45 minutes of pacing the floor with her with white noise to get her off that way, how long will PU/PD take? We ended up doing CC with our first rubbish sleeper and it did work, but not for good (6 months brilliant sleep, another 18 months patchy sleep so far) - and in any case DD2 is still too young.

This started off as a health thread, but clearly should have been a sleep one...

Just looked at your thread dotty 2 and you probably forgot about it by now. My DD2 is now 6 months and got really bad sleepwise at about 4 months. We didnt feed her to sleep but did feed her several times in night and like yours caused problems because didnt bring up wind and wakes later distressed. we are now trying to only feed her once and have tried some sleep training, combination of Pu/pd and cc but didnt really work. Complication is ours may have reflux which could be worth checking if shes screaming after feeds, etc. So go back and ask doctor.