5 month old crying all night and nothing soothes her!

[jrwxx]

I've done a previous post about baby sleep. My daughter is now 5 months old and recently has started crying between 11pm and 5am for hours on end! She sleeps best between 7pm and 10pm and then all hell breaks loose

She's never been a good sleeper or had long day time naps. However, I use to be able to settle and soothe her during the night with a cuddle, dummy, bottle etc.. now NOTHING will soothe her, she just cries and cries no matter what I do- swaddle, nappy change, cosy cuddle, sitting her up, rocking her, bottle, dummy, white noise.. you get the idea. If I constantly give her a bottle that settles her for a little while but I surely can't feed her ever hour during the night. I try and wait 2/3 hours before giving her another feed. There's no way I could let her CIO because it isn't like she's fussing it's full on crying.

Is this maybe a regression? Teething perhaps? Something else? I'm utterly exhausted, and I can imagine my daughter is too as she definitely is not getting enough sleep. Don't have a partner to help at night so that's not an option.
Has anyone else had similar experiences with their babies and have any tips? I hope it passes soon.

I also want to add- I'm used to her wakening through the night but it's the fact she's wakening up crying and I'm not able to settle her.

@Handsoffstrikesagain

Check for an ear infection. Take her to the GP. This is not normal. She is clearly in pain from something.

I feel if she had an ear infection she'd have the same behaviour during the day, but she's a lot happier and settled during the daytime hours. No signs of ear infection

I also feel she may be in discomfort but she isn't the same during the day, only at night

I would also assume she's in pain with something. My DD was a terrible sleeper, & could have epic crying sessions, but not this bad.

Perhaps it's something to do with laying down for extended periods of time? But we can't diagnose her, you need to take her to the GP. Take notes of how long she's awake/asleep/crying, what time you put her down at night, feed her, etc.

How long has it been going on for?

My experience of ear infections is that they are very very unhappy during the day to

It's been going on around a week now. She is absolutely fine during the day, it's only between 11pm and 5am. When we get up she's happy.

It could be her lying on her back for long.

I've taken her to gp before about sleeping and crying and they are just useless. Prescribed baby gaviscon which done nothing.

She has acid reflux but it's not as bad as it was when she was first born.. could be the reflux.

Could it be reflux, there is a thing called the acid dump where a certain thing happens I think is like the digestive system turning on (that was how it was explained to me) and it happens at night early hours of the morning and can really upset them as if they have reflux the acid comes up so it feels like it's burning x

I think you need to keep going back tbh.
Some Babies wake a lot and they do cry but this seems a bit much.

It sounds so difficult. It will pass though
Is there anyone who can give you a break?

@Dspx

Could it be reflux, there is a thing called the acid dump where a certain thing happens I think is like the digestive system turning on (that was how it was explained to me) and it happens at night early hours of the morning and can really upset them as if they have reflux the acid comes up so it feels like it's burning x

I feel this could be the problem. She's had acid reflux since she was 4 weeks old. It's definitely gotten better but I think it has come back during the night hours.

@jrwxx what happens during the day, in terms of sleep?

Where does she sleep and how do you get her to go to sleep? How long/often is she napping?

One of the symptoms of middle ear infection is pain when lying down because fluid can build up and put pressure behind the ear drum (and can burst it if left untreated). Would make sense that the pain starts once she’s been lying down for a few hours.

So no she wouldn’t necessarily have the same pain in the day.

[quote FATEdestiny]@jrwxx what happens during the day, in terms of sleep?

Where does she sleep and how do you get her to go to sleep? How long/often is she napping?[/quote]
She never naps longer than 45/50 mins during the day. She will only fall asleep in the pram being rocked, she fussed for a bit then falls asleep.

She usually takes a morning nap and then another in the afternoon or sometimes two in the afternoon.

@GemmaRuby

One of the symptoms of middle ear infection is pain when lying down because fluid can build up and put pressure behind the ear drum (and can burst it if left untreated). Would make sense that the pain starts once she’s been lying down for a few hours.

So no she wouldn’t necessarily have the same pain in the day.

That's really interesting, I feel I'm never away from the doctors. I'll maybe give them a call today!

However, she doesn't have a fever at all, which suggests to me it's not an Infection. She doesn't rub at her ears either

IMO it won't hurt to get her ears checked.
It would rule that out :)

Osteopathic treatment can help. It help my second baby. He was forceps and ventose delivery and was miserable lying down flat at night so we took him to a cranial osteopath who was recommended to us as good with babies. It worked wonders.

Def check for an ear infection. I took mine to the GP because she’s become horrendous at night. Fine in the day. She did have an ear infection

Mine wasn’t rubbing her ears either so I was surprised

How was she delivered? I had this and my baby was ventouse delivered. It turned out she needed a few sessions with a chiropractor as he hips were slightly misaligned. The health visitor poo pooed it, but it worked for us.

Does anyone know if there is anything they can do if it is an ear infection? When my little one had one the doc said they don't prescribe antibiotics for them.

Either way I would definitely speak to doctor