Witching Hour / Squealing baby

[winniethepooped]

Please someone give me hope! I am about to absolutely LOOOOSSSE IT!!

DS 7 weeks old and witching hour has just peaked. Nothing consoles this child once it has started.

I'm BF and giving expressed bottles too. We have a good routine... bath/swaddle/dark room/warm crib/white noise. He gets lots of expressed milk at night to put him over and seems very hungry for it, burped after bottles/feed but never burps a lot.

Have been trying infacol and tonight tried colic calm.

Squirms a bit but no real signs of colic or reflux just cries for about 2-2.5 hours unless feeding or in the bath.

I am at my wits end

When will it end? When will I feel like a human again?

Can you gently rub his tummy and move his legs up into his torso a bit in case there's some gas trapped? Aww little pet, it's such a short time when you look back but I totally sympathise as the crying is distressing.
Mine used to like being in the crook of my arm,lying on the tummy, they can see life from a different angle when you move about the room, and it seems to help windiness. I often wondered if they were just bored? Stay strong, you're a good mummy!

We had this for months and months, I think it finally ended after 6mo when we started co-sleeping all night.

My dh had extended paternity leave (6mo off) otherwise I have no idea how I'd have coped.

We never found a solution, we just did The Pacing ie dh carried the baby and walked up and down the bedroom for an hour while I had a brief doze. Then once dd had cried herself exhausted, I gave her a quick feed and then we carefully lowered her into the Moses. Sometimes she'd start screaming again at that point and the process would start again. It was dreadful

@justanotherparrot yes we should maybe start trying that! My husband would do it quite a bit when he's trying to settle him. I'm just wishing the weeks away longing for him to be older and settled 😔 which is sad because I'll never get to be back at the little newborn phase again but it's truly miserable at the same time.

@Mummy08m 6 months?!!?? I was hoping for like 3!! 🙈🙈🙈 that sounds like a nightmare you had!

Early teething ?

Ear infection ?

Some sort pain going on perhaps ?

We had this. It was horrific so I feel your pain.

DD calmed while feeding so DH had to take over with the older two and I basically laid on the sofa from 4.30 every day while DD cluster fed and cried. She stopped eventually but it’s so hard when you’re in the midst of it. Sending hugs

Yeah it wasn't ideal tbh! What helped me psychologically was stopping trying to find an underlying reason (I'm totally convinced there wasn't a medical reason in dd's case). I found this thing called Purple Crying, it's this theory that babies, well, just cry. I kind of accepted that my dd was just like that.

She's always been fairly rubbish at sleeping, started refusing naps well before her first birthday. But she's always been normal on other milestones (eg height and weight, learning to talk, toilet training, learning to count etc) so I've accepted the sleep thing is just the way she is!

In conclusion- I advise embracing Acceptance haha

DD2 screamed every evening for 2-3 hours, didn’t want to be fed, nothing would calm her down. DH used to pace the living room with her from about 8pm while I went to bed, she was waking every 2-3 hours once she did settle so I’d get some sleep in then be “on duty” the rest of the night (DH drove long distances with an early start so needed to get some sleep).

Looking back I think she was overtired, and perhaps we should have put her in her cot & left her, or tried to get her into her cot before the madness started (not easy with a 2 year old to deal with too!). Wouldn’t have been able to bear leaving her to it at that age, of course!

I can’t recall how old she was when it stopped, 3-4 months maybe?

Ps the only thing I would do differently (and plan to, with dc2 due soon), is co sleeping earlier. We stuck rigidly to the guideline that co sleeping before 6mo can increase the risk of SIDS, even though that risk is still tiny, and in hindsight that was the wrong call for dd. It might be a coincidence but as soon as we started co sleeping at 6mo, sleep just got SO much easier. She still woke up 2-3 times a night but it wasn't a screamathon any more, it was just tiny murmur - straight on the breast for a 10min feed - straight back to sleep. Dh would often sleep right through.

It’s awful I know DS2 was like this, he was a very unsettled baby, but from 5pm until he exhausted himself by around 11pm he screamed and screamed, DH took him to dr’s a couple of times to be told he’s a healthy baby, take him home. It did improve around 7mths old.

We honestly tried everything, infacol, gripe water, cooled boiled water, breast feeding, cranial osteopathy, white noise, swaddling, pushing him in the pram, car journeys.

It was a really difficult time, couldn’t have gone through it again tbh. And they reason we didn’t have a third baby!

But it will get easier OP, I promise.

It’s just a case of surviving til this phrase ends, we coped by me going to bed as soon as DS1 (who was under 2) was in bed, DH stayed up with screaming DS2 until he fell asleep. Then I was on night duty for when he woke up.

Thankfully for us my late MIL was an absolute angel and helped us so much, she would look after him all night one night a week, and insist we went out for a meal/drink to get away from the screaming for a while. Forever grateful for all her help and support over the years.

Thanks for all your support and tips!! @Roselilly36 sorry to hear your MIL has passed. I too thankfully have awesome support from my MIL and Mum who take my 2 year old out 1 day a week each!

DH great at taking over too in the evenings and sorting my 2 year old and doing rocking with this one.

Will try earlier bedtime again tonight and the usual routine putting him down in crib with monitor for an hour or 2 before I join him.

Hi OP, just to say that I'm in a similar boat with our 2 month old baby. She is very difficult to get to sleep / have stay asleep and when she wakes up, it can easily take an hour or two with her screaming before she will go back down again. The only thing that has even vaguely worked is co sleeping and that is more for her benefit than mine, as I struggle to sleep with her next to me (but prefer at least being able to lie down while she comfort suckled herself back to sleep, which can often take an hour). I'd still recommend it. My partner did try taking her for a walk at 3 in the morning last might to get her back to sleep - it worked but not sure whether that's a sustainable solution! Good luck!

That kind of crying in the evening can be from overtiredness and overstimulation that builds up during the day. The best way to avoid it is to actually have a relatively short gap between the last nap of the day and bedtime.