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Original poster

Waaaaaaaah - 4 week old screaming and I don't know what to do

15 replies

LittleMilla · 05/06/2011 20:13

My 4 week old DS has had a meltdown over the last few days and I am at a loss as to what to do. We'd been giving him infacol for a few weeks and all was going OK. However, last Thursday I noticed that he was pooing every time he soiled his nappy and thought the infacol might be to blame. So stopped him on it and tried gripe water instead. Worked OK, but wasn't great and had a few periods of really uncomfortable windy baby that took ages to settle, even when fed, burped (as much as we could get out of him) and very tired after it took so long to wind him.

Last night he was screaming in pain from 3-5 and then slept on and off until about 9am. He slept on my mum for two hours (whilst we slept) and then I fed him again at midday, with some infacol. He;s had a (

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Tinkerisdead · 05/06/2011 20:20

My dd was like this screamed for first 4 months. Everyone used to say it was colic meaning wind but she wasn't a windy baby. But then I looked colic up and it was attributed to inexplicable constant crying so I thought well yes it's that! I got lots of info on reflux etc but that didn't seem to apply to my dd. She only slept in the car so we used to drive up and down the motorway at night! Crazy!

I found a machine called a dream machine I think, a platform that you stand pram on and it rocked it. Saved my sanity as I could finally sleep when she did whereas I couldn't before as I was driving or pounding streets with pram.

I tried everything else, infacol, gripewater, massage, cranio ostepathy, colief. I hope you find a solution because I found it unbearable. Good luck.

JollySergeantJackrum · 05/06/2011 21:32

Hi Milla. Our ds was very similar to yours. I did three things:

Cut out caffeine from my diet
Started doing colic massage three times a day (look up youtube)
Bought colief.

I think it was the colief that sorted it. 2 weeks on we now get hardly any screaming.

Also, doing the 'colic dance' helps our ds - hold him upright with his head against your upper chest/neck and walk with a very bouncy step about 60/70 steps a minute - same speed as your heart beat.

Hth, I know it's hell. Your health visitor should be able to support you too.

Original poster

LittleMilla · 05/06/2011 21:45

Thanks for your replies. He's currently asleep on DH in the sling and we're too scared to try and put him down. He's utterly exhausted which I think excasserbates things - gulping down lots more air etc.

Feeling so worried that this could be something like silent reflux...which will mean we're in for it. Staying hopeful that the Colief will help, thanks for the suggestion Jolly. We'll be first in line at Boots tomorrow!

Doctorswife that device sounds very impressive. DS has been sleeping OK in buggy but will also wake up as soon as I stop. Hates the carseat (and I had a C-section so still cannot drive), so that;s one thing scratched off! Constant pounding the streets is certainly helping shift baby weight though!

Out of interest, were you guys bf or ff?

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Tinkerisdead · 05/06/2011 21:48

I was breastfeeding, to use colief had to mix it with expressed drops on a spoon. My machine is my one piece of equipment I just can't loan out as it seriously saved me. I'm so scared I wouldn't get it back. It was great because when I turned it off the pram stopped and dd would wake on demand ha ha.

Tinkerisdead · 05/06/2011 21:52

Google robopax and you'll see it on youtube

Liskey · 05/06/2011 21:54

LittleMilla we had that with DD - all the air she gulped in when screaming made the colic far worse. She had a dummy for those occasions which she could suck for comfort and it also stopped her gulping in more air and making herself worse. DD was ff and we tried Dr Brown bottles as well as they are meant to reduce wind - they did help quite a lot.

Good luck.

BertieBotts · 05/06/2011 21:57

Are you breastfeeding? If so it's normal for every nappy to be poo in the early days. You could try the infacol again if that was the only problem you had with it.

BertieBotts · 05/06/2011 21:58

Also - look into cranial osteopathy.

K999 · 05/06/2011 21:59

Could he be getting over tired? This makes them very cranky. My DD was like this. Swaddling helped.

Original poster

LittleMilla · 05/06/2011 22:08

Thanks Bertie. Yes, I am bf-ing - good to know that he's not some sort of super-pooer. I'd just been reading the WHO guidelines that said he ought to be doing 3-4 a day. Hey-ho, I guess I need to just let him be.

K999 I would think it's over-tired, but he's waking himself up when he's obviously asleep. And seems to be in pain - yelping. Also, he slept really well from 11-3 last night. So he can sleep, but it's just a struggle to get him off and for him then to stay asleep.

Lisky we've been using a dummy on and off, but it has a shelf life with our DS and he starts to spit it out after a while. He did take some warm water from a bottle earlier whihc seemed to help him do some more farts!

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JollySergeantJackrum · 05/06/2011 22:11

Ds is ebf. We also swaddle for sleeping and ds will sleep in his carrycot if the Hoover is switched on. (our electric bill will be insane).

BertieBotts · 05/06/2011 22:30

At least 3-4 :) Every time is fine. It should settle down over the next few weeks, then you get into the delightful stage that they save it up for over a week and then have a massive blowout

turnipvontrapp · 05/06/2011 22:33

Cranial osteopathy sorted out my 3 with colic. They were different babies after it. Would recommend it highly.

icd · 06/06/2011 08:51

I'd recommend making sure that he has enough naps during the day: keep an eye on him 1.5hours after he wakes up and put him down at the first sign of tiredness (or if you don't spot them, just try putting him down). So if he wakes at 7am then at 830 he WILL be ready for a nap at this age. I noticed with mine that as soon as I started giving more day naps, the evening cries became much less.

Original poster

LittleMilla · 06/06/2011 20:13

Thanks for all of your helpful replies. He woke up every 2 hours last night, but wasn't screaming in between (which i'll take!). So thinking that he might be gearing me up for another growth spurt by upping my milk supply. Don't know? He's been 2-3 hours between feeds throughout today and had a couple of short naps and one big one at lunch time - so fingers crossed!

Bought the colief and I've just given him his second feed with it and DH is trying to settle him down. The crying sounds less pained, but he's still not asleep so I won't be able to say if it's working or not. Also hoping that the shorter time between feeds means he's got less milk to try and breakdown etc. Any thoughts on this??

Certainly going to look in to cranial osteopathy if we don't see any improvement over the coming days...

Thanks again. x

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