5 week old crying

[DaisyBear21]

Hello!
My 5 week old has started to cry constantly. She has a full belly, clean nappy and no fever/temperature is fine. She's sleeping quite well however when awake she is fine for about 5 mins and then suddenly cries and is difficult to settle. Sometimes using white noise or rocking her gently works but it's an effort. If she does settle, she's usually fine for about 5 minutes and then starts again. There are no tears and it doesn't seem to be a pain cry. Has anyone else had something similar to this or any suggestions? I can't help but feel all she does is cry when awake and what should be a special time is not enjoyable.

Do you know she's not hungry or thirsty? If you are BFing, then from my own experience, there is no consistent routine till about 12 weeks.

Have you got a sling? Maybe she just needs some body contact.

Might be acid reflux
Try propping her up at all times with a cushion under a mattress
Helps with wind as well.

Never lie flat

She does this even after a feed. She is formula fed however on demand but nothing seems to make a difference ☹️

Will give this a go. Thank you. She has been having infacol and gripe water but doesn't seem to be making a difference

For the wind - my LO was very fussy until I started to ‘spin’ him. It sounds extreme but it isn’t and it worked a charm for trapped gas/helping to settle!

Sit baby up and support them under the chin as you would for a normal burping. Gently move their torso (supporting every part of them as needed) in a wide circle, leaning them right down forward and backwards as they go around the circle.

You may get some pretty massive burps! Also found that weirdly the motion makes my LO sleepy after a while so added bonus there

My DS who is now 5 months was also like this, I will never forget it, was such a tough time, when he was awake all he would do was cry we even had about 4 hours in the middle of the night every night that he would spend just constantly crying until he would eventually fall asleep. Absolutely nothing we did would settle him it was horrible.

The one thing that did seem to help somewhat is gripe water as he was very windy. Other than that unfortunately for us it was just time. I remember being told by the HV that it gets easier at 12 weeks when DS was only 3 weeks and I thought how on Earth are we going to get through this.

He was referred to a pediatrician who thought it may be milk allergy and put on special formula bit he kept throwing it up so switched back to aptamil comfort. He was also put on gaviscon for suspected reflux but this didn't seem to help either. I brought him to a cranial osteopath which I do think improved things slightly and at 10 or 11 weeks he improved massively and each week got easier and easier. He is now 5 months and has settled down great and is a happy little boy apart from when he's tired.

I never thought I would get through those first few weeks it was hell and I was very down. Spent everyday trying to stop him from crying. The only thing that seemed to soothe him was going out in the pram or when I put him in a baby carrier and walked around with him.

Sometimes it just takes time for them to settle though I know how much you just want a quick fix ! Hang in there it gets easier and the weeks will fly by. Take up any offer of help especially if you have family near by. My mother would come to my house every afternoon to help either with the baby or bring my older Dd to after school activities and often brought dinners . She helped keep me sane during those first few weeks. I hope it gets easier for you soon !

How often is she fed from bottle? Could she be over feeding if you say she feeding on demand?

Have you heard of PURPLE crying? It's a stage some babies go through between 2 weeks and 8-12 weeks. www.babycentre.co.uk/x25016357/what-is-purple-crying

Have a look at getting the wonder weeks app. Babies go through developmental leaps and week 5 is the first. My calm baby turned very fussy, wouldn't let us put her down to sleep etc. The date when the app said it would end wasn't far off and she was soon happy again with some new developmental skills- including smiling.