Tantrums or Paddy Tantrums!!!!

[GenT]

My lil angel (so they say) seems to go into a paddy every other evening, and she is only 6 weeks old. Her face gets very flushed, she cries for England and sometimes can't seem to catch her breath. It can be frustrating to calm or try to calm her when we don't see any need for her to be like that, esp. if the nappy is clean, been fed and had a bath. Has anyone else had the same problem and how do you deal with such behaviour? Makes you wish she could take and say what is to do sweetie?

[Neen99]

Sounds like colic, have you asked your Health visitor about it? Not sure what age you can give it from, but gripe water has worked for friends of mine who've had similar episodes.

[ninja]

Gripe ater is from a month - so OK.

My little one is like this and it's nothing more than tiredness. She sleeps well in the morm=ning but will fight it in the afternoon. If she goes more than 2 hours without a sleep she's very cranky. It was about 6 weeks that I noticed this, I think when they become more aware of their surroundings. So this could be another reason.

[GenT]

She is an early one, at 2 weeks she had colic and started Infacol. Then at 3 weeks she started on gripe water. The gripe water helps now and you can actually hear it working to bring up the wind. She is very tired because she thinks she will miss some action if she falls asleep and she would be very tired but refuses to sleep.

[kaz33]

White noise - have you tried comforting her in front of the dryer, a fan, vacumn cleaner - does wonders for my 6 week old. Whats your daughters birthday - mines 30 May.

[GenT]

B/Day was 28th in the wee hours. Will try with a drier but not in it

[Davros]

Agree with Ninja that its tiredness. In my fairly limited experience (2) have definitely consistently observed crying before sleep. As they develop, IMHO, its best to let them cry a bit and "allow" them to drop off to sleep, if you keep picking them up at the slightest noise they won't learn to fall asleep without company. Its tricky to know how long is reasonable and needs to be played by ear but if its persistent, especially when young and certainly as young as yours, then of course you neex to comfrot them to sleep.

[GenT]

Haven't tried the dryer but instead radio frequency, nothing happened, she still cried and this was about noon. Will try again some other time.

[GenT]

My little one has been unusally tired today and have slept most of the day, which is unlike her. So I can rule out tiredness as to the cause of a tantrum, cause for being fussy, yes tiredness is one. She was pass the parcel once again.
It has been 5 days since we haven't had a tantrum. Could it be because there is no one to rile up? Daddy is away from baby for a couple weeks.

Have anyone heard people say this:
I can remember as kids, you did something bad or which parents couldn't understand why you would do it, like do they really deserve such behaviour? They don't know how to treat the situation so they say "WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE KIDS". Meaning that you will get the same behaviour as you were doing then. It will come back to you full circle.

So, according to my sis-in-law, my husband was a right little tyrant and would throw paddy tantrums as a lil boy. She can compare him to the child now and constantly tells him that is the way he was. Maybe it is true, he is only getting the same dosage. I sort of believe it as she never has had any of these tantrums with myself. Not that I am an angel, but I don't think I threw tantrums like these.

All in all, mummy and baby have been having tantrum free days. Which is absolutely wonderful, when they did happen it was, so who do I comfort first...Daddy or Baby??? Baby usually got comforting first.

[kaz33]

GenT - good to hear that things have settled down a little, just remember that when you think that things have been cracked they will go off on one again !!!

My DS2 has also settled down, sleeping better during the day and night.

[aloha]

These aren't 'tantrums' at all. At six weeks your dd is far to young for tantrums, her brain is very, very immature and she doesn't do this to upset you, she is completely incapable of that. In fact, she can't even understand that you are aseparate being from her. I think it is so important to remember that a baby this young CANNOT do anything to deliberately upset, frustrate or hurt you. They are just registering some kind of internal feeling - tiredness, hunger, discomfort, or some kind of distress. All babies cry. It's the only way they have to express themselves. Prolonged evening crying (hour or more at a stretch) at 6 weeks is totally normal IMO. Horrible, frustrating and upsetting, yes, but also normal. My ds went through this upsetting stage a bit later and it lasted several weeks and we just had to wait it out. There is some evidence that babies that are constantly fed all day are more likely to suffer from colic (basically another word for crying in the evening), and it might help to space feeds out to every two or three hours. But also hunger can cause crying. A swing helps a lot of babies but otherwise the best treatment IMO is a walk. Even if she doesn't stop crying at least you get a change of scene and the noise always sounds less outdoors.

[aloha]

These aren't 'tantrums' at all. At six weeks your dd is far to young for tantrums, her brain is very, very immature and she doesn't do this to upset you, she is completely incapable of that. In fact, she can't even understand that you are aseparate being from her. I think it is so important to remember that a baby this young CANNOT do anything to deliberately upset, frustrate or hurt you. They are just registering some kind of internal feeling - tiredness, hunger, discomfort, or some kind of distress. All babies cry. It's the only way they have to express themselves. Prolonged evening crying (hour or more at a stretch) at 6 weeks is totally normal IMO. Horrible, frustrating and upsetting, yes, but also normal. My ds went through this upsetting stage a bit later and it lasted several weeks and we just had to wait it out. There is some evidence that babies that are constantly fed all day are more likely to suffer from colic (basically another word for crying in the evening), and it might help to space feeds out to every two or three hours. But also hunger can cause crying. A swing helps a lot of babies but otherwise the best treatment IMO is a walk. Even if she doesn't stop crying at least you get a change of scene and the noise always sounds less outdoors.

[GenT]

Baby eats ever 3 or 5 hours, with some luck she may sleep for 6 hours during the night. She hasn't had colick in a long while, but tonight she was lifting up one leg, gave her Infacol, gripe water, water, the dummy, none worked so gave her 2 ozs of milk and that sent her to sleep. Let alone she was fed with 5 ozs just 2 hours prior but she also brought back some milk, which I guess accounts for milk loss.

Jst on another note, is there somewhere I can look to understand what the abbreviations mean. What is IMO? and some others I have seen....

[aloha]

IMO = In my opinion

Your baby sounds a dream, honestly. If she went to sleep after food it seems she was just hungry. Some crying just goes with the territory!