Please help!!!

[Babyluck]

Hi all,

My baby is 4 days old. I am after some advice on a little problem we are experiencing.

My NB is sleeping mostof the day, but when it comes to late afternoon/evening he is having high pitched screaming sessions which last for up to 5 hours at a time. He kicks his feet as if he has tummy ache. I am thinking that this is due to colic and have tried him with infacol before each feed today. He had breast milk at 10am and has been latching on and suckling a couple of times then latching off again,therefore he has not had another proper feed since, that was nearly 10 hours ago now!. I have tried perservereing but he starts to get unsettled and appears to get colic again,probably due to all the air going in. He also sucks on the air and I have to wait for him to stop before trying again with the feeding. I am also aware that the more he cries the more air he is breathing in causing more colic.

It breaks my heart to see him with the tummy ache and so upset.i cant stop cring

i am so tired. Last night he woke screaming from when we went to bed at 10pm and didnt settle until 3am. We put him in his carseat to go for a drive and he fell asleep so we left him to sleep in it on our bedroom floor for the night and managed to get 4 hours sleep ouselves.

Anyone got any experience like this as I am desperate for advice. My hubby and I keep argueing as we are both snappy due to tiredness and I amfinding it hard dealing with it all on my own while he goes to sleep in the spare room as he has work the next day.

Please please please help.

I have my midwife coming round tomorrow so will talk to her but any advice in the meantime would be greatly appreciated!

xxx

 

[Lilli]

hello,
i know it's really hard knowing what to do. The thing is with Infacol that you need to use it before every feed so if he's stop starting it might not work...
I found these articles very helpful. When they are pulling their knees up it can be a sign of over tiredness, we didnt know that and misinterpreted his signals.
https://www.babycareadvice.com/babycare/general_help/article.php?id=31
https://www.babycareadvice.com/babycare/general_help/article.php?id=32

My husband slept in the spare room for a couple of weeks until everything settled down. I just want to give you big hugs It will get easier hun. Your baby is still so young and your hormones will be all over the place, give yourself a break
I'd talk to the midwife about feeding and trying to get a bit of a pattern going. Again, it's such early days and 'on demand' is meant to be just that but if he's only doing lots of short short feeds, he might be getting too much fore milk and not enough hind milk so it would give him tummy ache...
Will he fall asleep on you? I think i was feeding about every 2 hours during the night when adrian was tiny and it seemed to be even more often during the day...
Good luck, it will get easier

 

[iwanababybump]

Don't have any advice Hun but didn't want to read and run sending you lots of hugs hope your midwife can help x x x x

 

[Kage76]

oh love- the first weeks are rough. It could well be colic but as Lilli said it could well be overstimulation. it is super common for babies to start screaming fits around the 5pm mark, so much so if you google arsenic hour you will see how common it is.

My nurse would say look for tired cues- but the only cues that Sophie would give me in the early days was back arching. its only been in the last couple of months that she has given me genuine sleep cues (rubbing of eyes jerky hand movements) Up until then if i had covered all bases (nappy food burp bored) and she was still crying it was tired.

What worked for me is at the first sign of grizzling after her play i would start to settle. I found getting a light wrap like a muslin and putting it over her face so it cut down on visual stimulation very helpful, but it has to be light- if i chose a heavy fabric she would have difficulty breathing and start to overheat which was another trigger for screams.

Also remember at such a young age- everything is pretty intimidating for a newborn. Just their bodily functions can freak them out, the key is to understand that crying is their only form of communication and that they will do it a lot. Try not to get too stressed, and just tick off the boxes, if in the end they are fed, dry, burp free and they still cry they just may need comfort- try not to take it personally and get stressed- and seriously i found 1 earplug in the ear closest to the baby very helpful- 1 because it stopped the ringing in that ear- and it brought the crying level down- which helped calm me down and I became less frantic to settle- which then helped her settle.

It will get better- i promise- it may feel like the 3rd circle of hell at the moment but it does get better-

 

[barbarap]

hi there,
i've read on a different number of sites that colic usually starts a few weeks after birth.
if he's eating poorly maybe he's hungry..??
would you be willing to express and see if he takes your milk from a bottle?
b.

 

[Babyluck]

He hasn't eaten well tOday and I have avoided the bottles as my midwife says it can confuse them! I feel sO low! He's still awake now & I'm in bed alone crying! I'm hoping it's my hormones too! I just don't deal very well with lack of sleep!

 

[aliss]

This was my nightmare at 4 days too.

In hindsight, he wasn't feeding properly because he was having acid reflux (arched back, screeching, no sleep, crying for hours on end). Try searching "infant gerd" to see if this may be a problem. Good luck. It's okay to snap & yell at each other. Get out your frustrations. It is the longest-hardest week of your life.

 

[maddog37]

I don't have much advice either but also just hope you feel better soon. Those are tough days.

The only other suggestions I can think of is to try the swing to see if it'll calm him down, and doing bicycles with his legs throughout the day to help with the gas. Another way is to sit him on your lap facing the side, then hug him and do circles with your whole body, clockwise. My son was never "colicky" but whenever he had tummy problems and it's not "end of the world" bad, that and bicycling his legs seem to calm him down.

 

[Kage76]

I would also contact your breastfeeding association, just to see if they can offer advice on latch or help in getting food into him.

 

[aliss]

He hasn't eaten well tOday and I have avoided the bottles as my midwife says it can confuse them! I feel sO low! He's still awake now & I'm in bed alone crying! I'm hoping it's my hormones too! I just don't deal very well with lack of sleep!

You can use a tiny cup or syringe in the mean time to avoid nipple confusion before she arrives