Colic help!

[meg1503cb]

DS is 5 weeks old, like clockwork every night he starts screaming at around 6.30pm. He will scream, clench his fists, arch his back, go red in the face until he eventually tires himself out ( could be 10pm to 1am)
Ive tried infacol, dentinox, bicycle legs, warm baths, dummy, massages, Friday windi gas passers, burping, baby gavisvon from the GP.
Hes breastfed, he does decent burps and farts.
I also have a 20 month old and I’m starting to lose my mind.
The GP doesn’t think it’s a milk intolerance, as he’s fine in the day.
any suggestions welcome

Have you tried the 'i love you' massage?

It will pass....I have a sturdy baby carrier (baby bjorn) and I used to put him in it and walk up and down the stairs or go out for a walk while singing or reciting poems off my phone. It was the only thing that did it. Could. Not. Stop. Moving.

One of my neighbours still remembers me walking him around the block around 11pm one night, looking absolutely broken. She mentions it every time she sees me 😂

Can't remember when it stopped, around 10-12 weeks - ish.

That sounds really hard.
How does he sleep during the day- or how many hours in 24 roughly? Overtiredness can make them crosser.

Does anything change at 6.30- eg do you have him in a sling in the daytime but try to put him down to sleep in the evening? Hand him to someone else in the evening?

Our milk/soya allergy baby was indeed grumpy and a poor sleeper all day long, but extra bad in the evening/on lying flat. And had zillions of green nappies longer than usual. So it wouldn’t be my first thought if they’re good in the day but it’s easy enough to rule it out by switching to oat milk and cutting out cheese and bread with soya in for a few days and see if things improve.

Before it was diagnosed we got by on high dose Infacol, other things you’ve mentioned, swaddling, tilting the crib (not usual advice, I think GP or HV advised as last resort), dummies as sucking stimulates saliva to soothe belly, warm flannel on belly in bath, white noise, loud soothing music (mostly to drown out the screaming for my sanity).

Hope you have friends or family you can call on. Try to get your own rest and relaxation to help you emit soothing vibes! I hope it’s just newborns being newborns and settles soon for you.

It’s brutal I know. My 8wk old has had horrendous colic, like my first born. He’s now 19 months old and I forgot how awful it can be. I feel you with trying to deal with a colicky baby and an active toddler.

Whats worked for both of mine has been reducing the dairy in my diet - no milk allergy, but cows milk proteins can potentially increase colic symptoms. I also give a baby probiotic. My 1st born did well on Optibac and my newborn is having Baby Gaia. Took around 5-7 days to start making a difference. So if their little bowels
do need the help of added probiotic bacteria, it really does help seed their gut.

I found having my baby on his front across my legs when in peak crying whilst rubbing and patting his back helped settle him enough to fall asleep, then I could transfer him to his bassinet/cot.

Tummy time throughout the day helped pass extra gas too.

Failing that, I pop him in the papoose, stick on Super Simple songs on YouTube and have a dance party with my toddler.

Honestly put him to be bed. Start a bedtime routine and put him in the crib at 7pm. Our first had raging colic and our health visitor suggested it, and it worked a treat. One of us would go to bed with him in the next to me and get 3 hours sleep while the other would watch tv downstairs and get some separation.

Often with colic they are overtired and overstimulated, we found it was best to just put our baby down (I know it’s trendy to hold your baby 24/7 and co sleep etc but it didn’t work for our boy) we could see his body visibly relax as we lay him in the crib.

if he’s asleep, he’s not screaming all evening! Good luck x

Thank you so much for everyone’s advice. I’m going to give it all a go. I have health visitor today and I’m going to talk to her about cutting out dairy, eee if that helps

Sympathy - my DD was like this and it was quite traumatic. She had a bad tongue tie and things improved once we paid a private midwife to have it sorted. I would recommend maybe looking into this. I agree with the PP that being tired and overstimulated doesn't help - make sure wake windows aren't too long. We had no idea about all that and in hindsight reckon DD was often just knackered and wound up!! Although it feels awful now, it should gradually improve over the weeks. We also gave her Bio Gaia drops and saw a chiropractor but unsure if either helped.

Sorry but I actually laughed out loud at this. Yours clearly did NOT have colic. Mine would have screamed to the point of vomiting if I put him down. And he could scream for 3 HOURS+ straight.

@BackThen8878 he absolutely did have colic, he screamed non stop from 4pm every single day for 3 months. He just didn’t mind being put down. The two things can both be true.

it’s absolutely disgusting to say my baby didn’t have colic, how dare you. You don’t know what we went through, it was horrific.

no one knows what causes colic, some say it’s overtiredness and overstimulation, some say it’s reflux, some say both. Some say it doesn’t really exist but I know what we went through and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

some babies just prefer to be put down and not faffed about with when upset, and my first was one of them (although very cuddly now). My second prefers to be held but she hasn’t had colic and also goes down in her crib like a dream.

it’s really disappointing to see parents going after other parents, invalidating their lived experience.

have a nice day

You are telling me you took a screaming inconsolable newborn baby, gave him a bath or whatever, just put him down and he fell asleep? At 5 weeks? That's not colic, that's the dream.

If it makes you feel better to tell people you had a colic baby, go ahead. But it's pretty shitty to say this on a thread where someone is desperate for advice with a 5 week inconsolable baby. I'm sure she's thought about putting the baby down.

Yes I am. he would be screaming his head off, we would give him a bath, feed him and then put him down in the crib. He was exhausted from crying so much and would go off to sleep. I guess he was just so shattered he dropped off. He was unusual I suppose - he could never sleep on us for more than about 5 mins, he always slept much longer in the crib and this is why our health visitor suggested it. She said maybe try bringing bedtime earlier and honestly it changed our lives for the better.

Your experience of colic isn’t the only one that’s valid.

I am saying what worked for us, and has worked for others (when our health visitor suggested it I googled it and found other parent’s stories) and I was genuinely trying to help.

you suggested a carrier - she may well have already tried that too, but it’s still worth suggesting. I’m not attacking you for suggesting that as you are attacking me - we also used the carrier a lot. Every suggestion is valid - the OP can try it and see if it works.

a calming bedtime routine and putting our baby down earlier in the evening really did help. It didn’t cure the colic of course, it just shortened it in the evening which gave us all a rest and as I said, we could actually see his little body rest when we put him down.

im not sure why you’re so angry with me when I’m sharing what worked for me and I’m trying to help someone. I’m also not sure why you’re so certain I’m making it up that he had colic.

Every baby is different, what works for one might not work for another, but OP is asking for advice. just because your baby didn’t like to be put down doesn’t mean that’s the case for all babies.

i do remember when I was going through the colic months, people saying to me ‘try holding him like this, it always stops mine from crying’. They just didn’t understand that with colic the crying doesn’t stop. But I could see they were trying to help me, so I didn’t jump down their throat. I would calmly say yes we have tried that but sadly with colic the soothing techniques tend to not make the crying stop, but thank you.

our second baby didn’t have colic and the difference was obvious. When we used the soothing techniques (rocking, shushing etc) they actually worked.