2 Month Old Wakes up Crying

Hi Josyln. I have an 8 wk old baby boy and that happens to me occassionally. Where is the baby napping? In his crib or bassinet? Have you recently changed his environment like bassinet to crib? Babies can react to change. Other things that me cause him to wake up crying is if he is hungry, gassy, or needs to have a bowel movement. When my baby wakes up that way, most of the time it is because he is very gassy and needs to have a bowel movement. After he has a BM, he seems very content and can go back to sleep. It seems most babies don't like to have a BM laying down. They prefer to be in a sitting position. You might also want to consider whether your baby is too cold or hot, he may be uncomfortable. You can check if he is too hot or too cold by placing your hand behind his neck. Hopefully my advice helps some. Oh...another thing you can do is read Dr. Karp's book, The happiest baby on the block--he has some suggestions for having a baby sleep and be content. I have used some of his methods and they seem to work. Some other moms try using white noise which helps drift a baby to sleep. White noise sounds like the vacuum cleaner running, for some reason they say this type of noise mimics the sound of the blood gushing in the womb. This sound puts the baby at ease. It is mentioned in Dr. Karp's book in detail.

Unfortunately, this sounds very much like reflux. Many babies develop reflux at 2-3 mo. old. and it suddenly becomes disruptive to their daytime sleep, which is lighter than their night time sleep. This behavior comes "out of the blue" and can sometimes be alleviated without medication but often needs medication until it resolves itself, usually by 6 months of age. The non-medication remedies that doctors usually recommend are 1. Feeding him in an upright or nearupright position and keeping him in an upright position for at least 15 minutes after eating. 2. mixing 1 or 2 tablespoons of rice or barley cereal with milk (don't do this without your doctors guidance as some doctors don't believe in this for good reasons) 3. If you're nursing, illiminating certain foods from your diet to reduce the liklihood of reflux. Medications are usually used if these things don't work or if the doctor suspects that the reflux is too severe to avoid medication (they can do a test to determine the exact nature of the reflux....many doctors forego the test and just go by symptoms).

I would NOT delay in addressing this as a baby with reflux is in a lot of pain and the longer it goes untreated, the more damage it can do to baby's esophagus.

Good Luck.
L.

You already have some great advice. Just to add something else...You may also want to consider how sensitive he is to light. can you make the room a little bit darker? is it a stimulating color on the wall that is overstimulating him? hang in there!

Does he seem to be awaking startled? I believe that babies, especially that young, are very sensitive/intuitive, and he could be responding to a number of things. The key to handling this will be in how in tune you are with your baby.

When I've faced this issue with my babies, I would just offer them extra comfort--trial and error while figuring it out--hold them to my bosom, sing/hum/talk and rub their backs, look them in the eye and focus on what might be ailing 'em.... A lot of mothers would disagree with me, but I don't believe that you can hold a baby too much at that age. There's no cookie-cutter answer. Just learn your baby and give him what he needs, which might be different from what another might need.

Sorry if this is too vague. Understand that this happens to all of us, so you're certainly not alone.