Witching hour... inconsolable crying

[R1cciteddy]

Any tips for this? We try all sorts. A drive in the car works but she wakes up as soon as the journey ends

She is inconsolable, it's non stop crying for hours and hours in the evening

My only thoughts can be gas and wind.

Haven't properly tried swaddling yet but I will do

She's almost 5 weeks

Also cries during the day unless she is feeding or sleeping

Sleeps amazingly at night, so I am very lucky in that sense!

Sounds exactly like my first baby. She had CMPA. It was so hard and awful seeing her so upset. She slept too but only because she wore herself out so much. Doctor gave us all the reflux meds but nothing worked.

First stop I would go to the GP, or health visitor. As some GP’s are awful with babies and will fob you off with ‘colic’.

If breastfeeding considering giving up milk, if formula feeding you could ask to trial Nutramigen milk which is available on prescription. If you directly ask the doctor about this and say you want to trial it they should prescribe it for you.

I have newborn twins now and they barely cry in comparison, or when they do they’re never inconsolable.

Hope you get it sorted.

Colic is unexplained crying some babies just do it. It's crap and really really hard work. If it's not an allergy or reflux it is most likely just a stage and you have to grit your teeth and get through it. I used to wear headphones to listen to music to dull the sound a little whilst pacing around the house with dts.

Similar to dd1. No cmpa. No diagnosed reflux. Also slept appallingly at night. It passed eventually. I can't remember when, but around 8 to 10 weeks I think. It was exhausting, but it passed . Breastfeeding her helped sometimes.

Sounds like colic - just a catch all reason to explain ongoing crying.

We gave a dose of dentinox and some cycling legs and could often get some wind or a poop out which would help sometimes.

It should tail off around 12 weeks - my dc went all the way to 17 weeks with it 😳😳

Some practical things - get a sling and put baby in it - sometimes being close and hearing your heart can soothe. / walk up and down the stairs/ Strip off baby and have skin to skin. / Firm hold on baby close to your chest and pace up and down (put a film on whilst doing this to keep focussed on something other then crying.) Lots of loud white noise - you tube rain sounds an absolute winner IMO. Bath/ drive/.

There is no real cure it's just survival and baby will come through it. Work as a team with your partner and in a few weeks you'll forget it was ever a thing.

Thanks everyone for your comments...
We did take her to the doctor but they were really happy with her (she was 4 weeks) as she is gaining good weight...already 11lbs! She they didn't think much was wrong... I'll go again if I need to.

Will look into all these ideas... thank you 😊

I also think she may get over tired it's hard to get her to nap. Although she is right now, hurrah!

Argh it’s so hard, I feel for you. My daughter was just like this but nothing medically wrong (or nothing we could find anyway). We took turns to take her up to a dark bedroom and sway with her in a sling with loud white noise blasting until she conked out. I’d read my Kindle one handed while comforting her with the other, it saved my sanity. My husband would do the same the next night and I’d have a bath or watch tv with noise cancelling headphones on and have a break. I found it easier once I accepted it was just a thing she did and decided not to get worked up about it. It will pass, I promise. It peaked about 8 weeks for us if I remember rightly and tailed off by 10/12 weeks. She’s a delight on the whole now. Hang in there x

When we head this, the only thing that worked was carrying in a sling and bouncing on a yoga ball whilst holding the wee one. And he still cried. It'll pass though, just accept it for now, make sure you've got food supplies, flask hot drink, etc, all ready ahead of time. I was also reassured by reading up on developmental leaps (see the Wonder Weeks). Also look up "orchid babies", try Evolutionary Parenting and the Beyond Sleep Training Project. But it would also be sensible to rule out medical issues eg reflux.

A sling. A soft one like ergo embrace. Means you can wear out for a walk and leave her in it indoors.
I think the movement plus uprightness helps

It must seem weird but have you tried singing lullabies to her? I always stops my baby crying.

@R1cciteddy my baby also used to get really fussy in an evening but sleeps like a dream! When she was only a few weeks old I learnt more about wake windows and naps (I was very naive before and just assumed a baby would sleep when they were tired 😳). I realised that as the day went on my baby was not napping/sleeping hardly at all from around 4pm when the crying would start. I thought this was normal as she did cluster feed in an evening but once I got on top of the naps it's made such a huge difference and in hindsight I think she was getting really overtired and cranky.

She does really fight napping sometimes and takes some persuasion but on the whole the crying mostly stopped around 6weeks (now 9 weeks) and she's not inconsolable. It could be coincidence and she may have just outgrown the evening fussiness/cluster feeding around the same time anyway but I still think the naps help if you can try and get her to nap (not easy I know - I pick my battles and usually rock my baby to sleep and let her sleep on me in an evening and just enjoy the cuddles now). I also don't put her to bed early - she's always come up with us and sleeps around 11pm - I tried putting her to bed earlier and found she just kept waking crying until 11 so now I just stick with it and let her nap and feed throughout the evening.

Like others have said the big turning point for me in the early weeks was also just accepting the fussiness and that it was normal made it easier. The first two weeks I really struggled and found it exhausting - once I changed my mindset it suddenly got so much easier and it did pass quickly in hindsight but know how hard it feels when you're in the thick of it.