20 week old inconsolable at bedtime and I'm losing the plot

[morningsunrise]

Please help. My 20 week old baby has suddenly started crying hysterically and inconsolably at bedtimes and I just don’t know what to do.

It’s the same pattern every night - she falls asleep with no problem for about 30 minutes then wakes up and starts crying. This increases in intensity until she’s completely and utterly inconsolable and the hysterical crying can go on for up to 3 hours. No amount of feeding, rocking, shushing, patting, white noise, lullabies etc. will help settle her. It's so distressing.

She’s getting sufficient naps in the day and we make sure she isn’t overtired at bedtime. We have a consistent bedtime routine too.

She has never been one to settle easily at bedtime but was only ever a bit grizzly and could be calmed eventually. This seems to have come out of nowhere.

I’ve found being a first time parent unbelievably hard and this is honestly sending me over the edge. I thought this type of crying only happened with younger babies? Is this just a phase that will pass? How do you settle/cope with a completely inconsolable baby?

Are you breastfeeding or bottle feeding? When my DS used to do this (only occasionally) a quick feed would be the only thing that settled him, but I think that's more of a breastfeeding sort of thing. Could it be tummy pain or reflux?

@OnSilverStars she's BF. I've always relied on feeding as a way to calm her when she's been upset but suddenly it's not working.

Could it be teething? My 22 week old baby has recently been a little similar, she has always settled nicely and barely cried so it really knocked us for six last week when our normally chill baby suddenly started crying inconsolably in the evenings. Last Friday I ran my finger over her gums and sure enough a tooth seems to be ready to appear, so the crying makes sense.

Like your little one she's falling asleep normally in an evening and waking up crying not long after. Last night was the worst and the crying just seemed to keep ramping up until we gave Calpol and she went to sleep straight away, so she'd obviously been in pain, poor girl .

Oops posted too early! We also found she hasn't wanted to feed as much when she's been in pain. For our little one we've used Ashton's and parsons teething powder and then offered cold wet muslins and teething toys which seem to help to some degree. Other than that I've just resigned myself to plenty of cuddles until this tooth finally makes its breakthrough appearance, which I'm hoping isn't too much longer!

Could you try keeping her up more in the day? My 20 week old is a pretty good sleeper, but if he sleeps too much in the day he will always cry at night and not settle for hours. I try to keep him occupied and not have long naps in the day. Or may she could just be having a growth spurt? I'm not sure if there is a growth spurt around 20 weeks but I wondered this as my DS has been more fussy than normal the past few days. I also wondered if he may be just getting ready for food soon as I read that babies start to get more unsettled at night as they start to feel they need more than just milk.

Thanks for the replies ladies. Teething is a possibility. Perhaps it's worth seeing if Calpol makes a difference then at least I'll know if it was caused by pain.

I'm wary of cutting naps as she used to get overtired and things improved when we increased the length. Saying that she is a bit older now so perhaps that's worth a try too.

Any tips on consoling the little ones when they cry like this? I find it so upsetting.

It takes about 30 mins for calpol for kick in so give her calpol at bedtime and if she doesn’t wake up 30 mins later you know the cause is pain.

The only techniques we've used so far when our little one has been inconsolable have been:
A) putting her in her pram and taking her for a walk around the street (she either cries for a few minutes and then falls asleep or settles down to no crying but it takes longer for her to fall asleep)
B) holding her against mine or my husband's chest and shushing/speaking/singing softly (when we knew it was definitely teeth I gave her a cold wet muslin, she gummed on this while I was rocking her and she eventually fell asleep). We usually try to do this somewhere less stimulating like in the hallway in the dark.
C) Calpol and cuddles worked the other day when we thought all hope was lost, she settled straight down once the Calpol kicked in and was back to her chirpy self and went straight to sleep.

Usually I find with our little one that she only becomes inconsolable when she is super tired and she just needs help to fall asleep, she's normally so good at sleeping but I guess it's hard when your teeth are hurting! If she's had enough sleep in the day we don't seem to get to the inconsolable stage, she just tends to be grizzly.

Hopefully it's something like teething for your little one because I think it definitely helps you to manage if you know the cause, it's the most heartbreaking thing to hear them cry like that and feel useless

Just wanted to comment to say that ibuprofen is more effective for teething pain than calpol because of the anti inflammatory effect.