Help! 5 month old DD won't stop screaming

[CantSleepWontSleep]

I think it's teething pain, though hard to be 100% sure. I've given her some nurofen, though not sure how much as it's nigh on impossible to administer to a screaming writhing baby. Also applied teething gel. No difference whatsoever.

She went to sleep at 7:30, woke at 7:58, and hasn't stopped screaming since, except for a brief moment when I gave her my breast so I could get a break.

Checked her temp and it's fine.

I'm at my wits end and have no idea what to try.
I can't see her crying herself to sleep if she's been at it for an hour already.

Oh poor you !
Is she well ? i know you said that she hasn't got a temp but maybe she doesn't feel well or maybe she has tummy ache ,could she be constipated?if not it must be her teeth coming through,my dd did this one day last week and when i looked in her mouth there was 2 little teeth poking up.
Hope she settles soon

DD2 has been a bit like that this week, thought it might be colic, the only way a can get her to sleep when she's like this is to hold her tight in my arms, sit down and rock her to sleep.

could you try taking her out for a walk, or out in the car? I remember once when my ds was little and poorly and he just cried and cried and cried, but once out in the buggy he stopped and eventually dropped off to sleep.
other than that you can give calpol at the same time as nurofen

I'd try disprol junior paracetemol tablets if you don't think she's getting much medicine down her as it's soluble (sp?) so you can put it in a little water for her if she'll take a bottle or cup.

try more breast? also going outside, round the garden or on the front step, often worked for me - is good distraction. big sympathy - ds is having giant molars atm it is ghastly and so much worse when they are younger.

No tummy ache (we're experts at that due to CMP intolerance), although she had given herself some wind through screaming. Just got her up and she's laying upright on my chest and has calmed down a bit, but I know that as soon as I put her back to bed she'll start again, as that's the kind of baby she is,

She won't take bottle or cup, is going through a phase of screaming as soon as she goes in pushchair, and has only once in her entire life stayed asleep when being moved from car to house.

Tried more breast several times, but she wakes as soon as it's out.

I think she's the most difficult and unsettled baby on MN, hence my name!

If she's been like this since birth have you tried craneal osteopathy? It worked wonders with my ds.

*Cranial even!

have you considered getting a sling? that way you could keep her held close to you, in an upright position, but still be free to do stuff

{{{{Big Hugs }}}}} to you hon, I take it you've cross fed the calpol and nurofen as suggested earlier? have you tried ambersol onto her gums??

cantsleepwontsleep do you think she is overtired?? My dd was exactly the same from birth until around the 6 month mark. My dd would wake within 30 mins of going down so I would get her up and talk to her/try to comfort her. Finally got great advice from a lovely midwife who told me that she was extremely overtired. Her advice was that if dd woke within 30 minutes of going down I had to resettle her back to sleep as she was waking herself in the lighter part of the sleep cycle and not resettling herself. So when she woke within that time frame I then started settling her back to sleep without talking/eye contact, but gentle patting/rubbing on her back whilst still lying in cot. At first she was quite upset but after a few days she was heaps better and started napping for 2 - 3 hours morning and afternoon.

Where were my manners - I didn't say thank you last night for all of your support and suggestions!

She eventually settled back in her room (swaddled and using baby whisperer's shush pat thingy) at 9:40, and slept until 7 this morning (she normally gets me up between 2 and 5 times a night, so that part was good!).

Harold, believe it or not, we did use a cranial osteopath and saw a big improvement. We couldn't even lie her down for the first 6 weeks without her screaming (seemingly due to headache from compression at birth), and that problem disappeared overnight. Saw her a couple more times to help with her colic too, although we finally discovered at 15 weeks that her colic problems were largely related to her being milk intolerant. I've since completely given up eating dairy, which has helped on that score.

Frizbe/Hairymclary - I missed that point last night! Didn't realise you could give both together. Frizbe - you told me this the other week didn't you, but when you said 'cross load' I thought you meant one and then the other the next time - doh!

hmc - we have a carrier that we use with her a lot, but at night she simply has to go to bed at some point, and I am quite strict about bedtime routine and getting her down between 7:30 and 8.

mymama - sometimes she does get overtired yes. I had been trying to resttle her (without eye contact or talking) for the hour before I posted, but last night it just wasn't working.

SittingBull - days don't follow a strict routine, as they tend to be driven by how well she has slept the night before, and when she gets tired, but generally she'll be up around 7, go for a nap at 9ish (this one varies between 40 mins and over 2 hours, depending on how much sleep she got overnight, but 1 hr 20mins is about average). She'll usually have 2 other naps during the day, but these will be shorter and can be difficult to settle her for. She has always been fed to sleep, apart from a spell of about a fortnight where she would settle walking in her pushchair after 5-10 mins of crying. I watch very carefully for signs of tiredness (usually eye rubbing) as I'm with her practically the whole time as she doesn't like to be without me for more than about 5 mins!

All this is based on last 7 weeks, as before that all was chaos and overtiredness due to pain from milk intolerance.

Sorry this has turned into war and peace!

CSWS, I am the same with bedtimes, usually pretty strict but I have definitely found that at times when they're feeling ill or whatever then keeping them up and comforting them is ok. I was very scared that I was going to teach my DS bad habits, or that i'd have trouble getting him to go to bed if I did it but it really hasn't been like that. I think when they're that little it's honestly ok if you just need to cuddle her for an evening.
That's just my opinion though, I'm not normally a keep them up til all hours kind of person!

It might be worth another couple of visits to the osteopath though, just to work through any other niggles she may have

Oh i am having the exact same problems, my dd is 6 months, its actually becoming unbearable its been like 2 days & we are now on day 3 i just dotn know how i am going to get through today, she has actually fallen alseep from where she has cried & cried for an hr odd, even sitting with me she is not happy nothing is helping her.

ScoobyDoooo - sorry to hear that you are having the same problem. DD seems to be in a bit of an odd mood today, but I managed to get some calpol down her this morning (using infacol dropper and some slight of hand each time she opened her mouth to scream!), and having been out to playgroup then come back and had some lunch (lots of milk and a couple of teaspoons of avocado) I have just managed to get her to sleep with just the shush pat technique - amazingly she didn't wake when I put her down in her cot. Have you tried this?

SittingBull - I'm very reluctant to bring nighttime routine forward at the moment (except for on odd occasions where she hasn't napped much during afternoon), as she only sleeps for up to 10 hours a night, and if she did that straight off from 7 then I'd be up with her again at 5 or earlier! Not taking milk is the one problem we don't have here - she's gone from 75th centile at birth to 95th now!

I was all set to do EASY as soon as she was born, but because she had so many problems early on it became impossible - I think the intolerance made her actually crave more milk, so we ended up with EAESY, with the SY bits being very very short! If I am able to keep up the getting her to sleep with shush pat then I might try giving this another go though, as I do like the theory of it.

hmc - if things don't improve once this bout of teething is over then I think we might go back to the osteopath, but I am ever the optimist, and am hoping that she will be more settled naturally once the pain has gone.

Hi - its Flame writing for Psycho who is sat here holding DS dictating to me (was telling her about your unhappy little lady )

Psycho:
My DD3 used to cry all of the time, and also had milk issues. Going from what Flame has said about cutting things out from your diet, and yet she is still crying with no apparent cause - she sounds just like Natasha.

She had been diagnosed with reflux, but they also said at the time that the crying was probably due to "silent reflux" - acid reflux, like heartburn without the reflux sickness. It doesn't make you sick, it doesn't give you a temp, but it does make you scream in pain (as you know from having grown up heartburn). The only way of babies telling you that they are hurting is to scream.

There is no direct cure for it, apart from calpol that could ease it, but if it is that then you can understand why she is hurting, and possibly suggest it to your GP so they can investigate and look into giving gaviscon etc to soothe.

I have 5 children - so not a huge number of cases, but 3 of them have had milk intolerences, and the same 3 have had reflux. I don't know if it is a general link or just in my children.

It might not be any of this, but when you have looked at all other options, it is another one to consider! I don't want you to panic, it is just one of the possibilities, and if a child is screaming it helps to know that there could be other reasons than the teething etc.

I hope this helps, and good luck because I know what it is like to have a screaming child.

(she is now a lovely little girl... or quite big girl really, and only screams at her siblings )

There could just be an awful lot of truth in your post psychoflame. Particularly as she just woke after 10 minutes and was screaming, and when I went in she was literally gargling something! Must have been something that had come up from inside, so acid sounds like a strong possibility. I gave her most of her milk an hour before bed tonight, and then just a few minutes top up before trying to settle her at 7:30. It's taken an hour to get her settled (I hope!), but was much less stressful than last night's attempt.

During the day I haven't been feeding immediately before sleep, and she has gone down surprisingly easily (compared to normal anyway!). Of course I can't draw conclusions from just one day, but it's certainly something to monitor.

How on earth do they go about diagnosing reflux though? My GP, whilst great about most things, isn't great about stuff like this. He was very reluctant to even believe that she was milk intolerant and refer her to the paed, as he just kept insisting that lactose intolerant babies don't thrive in their weight gain, and that lactose intolerance and milk intolerance were the same thing!!

We have an appointment with the paed next month, so I could mention it then, but if it is that then I would like to get the ball rolling sooner. Is infant gaviscon something that I can buy over the counter to try? I presume you can get it in a liquid form and not just powder (friends have powder to mix with formula) so that I can use with breastfeeding?

I know a lady from another forum whose DD had reflux and who has just discovered that she is milk intolerant, so your DCs are certainly not alone in suffering both. Perhaps it is a common link.

Thank you so much for your post, and will be grateful for any further info that you can give.

I'll give her a nudge to come reply more

xxx

Oops - she's out... she'll be on tomorrow