Hours are worse between 6pm and 10pm. Fights sleep because of the screaming
For us, it was developing coping strategies. With my oldest son, it was only in the evenings. Running water soothed him. So I would run a bath for myself and let the noise of the water soothe him. My husband took over for me when I found it emotionally draining. My other children had a few weeks of it each (around 6 weeks). With them I had swings, bouncy vibrating seats, music machines, etc. that konked them out.
Colic. One of my dreaded phantoms to this day! My daughter had night terrors and screamed from 8:00 to 10:00 every night.
Wonderful doctor said, 'It will stop at 3 months." It did. To the day.
All you can do is hold your baby and sing, play music and reassure.
If it continues or you feel something else might be wrong, go to the doctor.
Sounds like 'the witching hour' - which is a thing and I don't know why they say 'Hour' because it lasts something like at least 4 to 8 hours.
My mom tells me I screamed my head off for the first 6 months of my life.
And then it just stopped.
Our son cried a lot up until about 8 weeks, and then he settled down quite a bit.
He seemed to really calm down during car rides.
I remember my husband taking us out for a drive around the airport at 2am and for 30 minutes we had blissful quiet!
Soon as we pulled into our driveway and turned the car off - yep - baby started crying again.
Try a swing, try putting him in his carrier and have that sit on the wash machine (make sure he can't fall off) or dryer while it runs.
Try a vibrating bouncy seat.
Ear plugs will help you through this.
It will end eventually but it can sometimes take a while to get there.
Hang in there!
There is some information missing. For instance, do you breast feed or bottle feed?
Have you spoken to your Pediatrician, and if so, what recommendations were made?
The first thing to do is to contact and discuss this with your Pediatrician to make sure it is colick.
Next would be to adjust your diet if you are BF or adjust your baby's formula under the guidance of your Pediatrician.
I had to stop breastfeeding to rule out food allergies. Even formula did not help much until and we had to try 4 different ones. My Ped finally diagnosed my son with acid reflux and gave him medicine which helped some.
What I also found helpful, was for my son to sleep more upright (he slept in his bouncy chair or car seat), and husband and I took turns trying to soothe him,
If you have someone that can help you out at anytime, reach out to them, Just taking a break for an hour was very helpful.
His symptoms did ease by 12 weeks.
Hope your baby finds some relief so that you can too!
Good luck!
I remember my daughter doing this when she was a baby. It was from 5pm to 9pm every single night. It was the worst time in my life. I was helpless and nothing would sooth her. Strangely, one thing did help. We would blare music and rock her. Something about the loud music calmed her. They say the noise in the womb is loud, so maybe that had something to do with it. But that was the only thing that seemed to help. It did stop around the 3 month mark. One day it just stopped and she was an entirely different baby. Good luck. Trying to keep your sanity through colic is hard!
Talk with your doctor, I believe they sometime recommend sleeping in a more seated position to help with reflux. We used to use "Little Tummies" drops with my oldest and the worked really well.
There are colic drops made by Gerber, which runs between $25-$30 that might help. Some studies show that the particular probiotics in the drops might help with colic.
My little ones screamed until I figured out that they were intolerant to milk protein. I was nursing, so I cut all cow's milk products from my diet (milk, but also cheese, yogurt, and anything with milk as an ingredient). One of mine was an entirely different baby after I did this. The other had reflux on top of the milk intolerance, so cutting out the dairy helped but didn't cure his discomfort and crying.
Have you ruled out a food intolerance? My ped told me that diary, egg, nuts, and soy are the most common. He said to try eliminating them from my diet 1 at a time (each try has to be for 2 weeks) and see if it helped. Not all infant screaming is caused by diet issues, but it might be worth a try.
DS had colic and really bad acid reflux. When you feed your babies, make sure that they are in an upright position. He used to wake up every two hours in pain. Babies magic tea did however work for my son, but I also switched him to Similac Sensitive formula. With the formula, I used to put one oz of tea and mix it in 8oz formula. The consistency helped him keep in down.
Colic is so hard! And their little tummies are a hard knot and they are in pain.
What has your ped said? Did he or she give you any ideas? You HAVE gotten an actual diagnosis of colic, right? You would want to make sure that it isn't something else, like reflux, etc...
Colic usually resolves itself by 6 months. I know that's hard to hear right now...
Vacuum might work. Worked well with my granddaughter. Go figure! Lol.
