11 Weeks and Worse Than Ever

[mariel]

We've been struggling since the magic 2/3 week turning point. We thought the sleeplessness, periods of inconsolable crying, and frequent non-hunger related nightwakings were related to gas, reflux, food allergies, etc. and tried zantac, Prevacid, gas drops, gripe water, probiotics, elimination diets, colief- you name it, we tried it. I was loathe to admit it was colic but now at 11 weeks of misery, I'm ready to confront the truth.

Unlike some colicky babies, she isn't unhappy all the time and her crying spells aren't limited to a certain time of day. In fact she can be very smiley giggly and babbling and a second later she's shrieking and inconsolable- all day long. I've worked out that she can comfortably be awake for about an hour before she needs a nap (she shows no tired cues) so I feed her, take the 15-20 min I have to use the bathroom, eat, maybe shower and then put her in the boba wrap, go to bathroom, turn off lights and turn on the shower and bounce vigorously. if im lucky and catch her at the right time, shes asleep within 5 minutes (though of course she doesn't always stay asleep so I have to repeat it if she wakes up when I leave the bathroom). If I'm unlucky.....its a total nutsshow of hours of in the boba out of the boba, comfort nurse to calm her down, ad nauseam. I usually manage - by completely foregoing to take care of myself - to eke out 4- 5 hours of daytime sleep. I know she's frequently overtired but she has such a hard time "turning it off" and tuning out the world.. She's better at night with settling, perhaps because lights are off and there's less to be distracted by - we swaddle, nurse, and rock and are able to put her down after about an hour. She used to go 3/3.5 hours in the first stretch and then she'd be up every 1-2 hours later for the rest of the night. Now, after about 2 hours, she wakes up and no matter how long we wait and how deeply she's out before we put her down, she's up in 25 minutes, every single time. She will only sleep when held. We tried cosleeping in the bed and she won't even tolerate that- she HAS to be held. My spouse and I trade off in 2 hour chunks of holding her in the glider or sofa.

I thought things would be getting easier by now but instead things seem worse. I used to be able to bounce on the yoga ball or rock (vigorously) in the glider to get her calm/asleep (though I have to hold her for all naps during the day because she hasn't been able to be put down for naps since week 3). Now even the bathroom/boba combo is hit or miss and the nights have completely gone to nuts. I am beyond exhausted and the stress has now made it impossible for me to pump (I was able to get 4 oz in 6 minutes in the beginning to now barely 1 oz in 20 minutes) so I can't even take a night to myself and have someone else feed her because I don't have enough milk saved up.

I guess I mostly wanted to vent but also find out whether anyone else's baby got worse before they got better? When were you able to start putting your baby down to sleep? Swings, car rides, stroller: none of that works; she's only "dozed off" on her own in the car seat or stroller a couple times. What terrifies me most is that this won't go away at 3 or 4 months and I won't sleep for a year (or worse). Please tell me it gets better!

[mamasue]

I understand what you're saying, my daughter had colic for two and a half months. In the beginning we thought we had tried everything all the remedies they suggest, some you mentioned above. Lindsey had horrific colic from 9:00 PM until about 6:00 AM every morning. I was exhausted and in constant tears and my husband was pretty close behind me. A pediatrician suggested a product called Dr. Dave's Baby Comfort that he had experienced success with and I gave it a try. Lindsey stopped crying and would fall asleep in less than a minute which shows you how exhausted she was also. The machine is on a timer and every time it would stop she would instantly start crying, so we would put the timer back on and she would stop again. We found that we would get up in the morning after sleeping all night and the machine was still going, so we were actually so exhausted we were turning it on in our sleep. I passed it on to my niece who's daughter had colic, she experienced the same success. Dr. Dave's Baby Comfort gave me hope where I felt I had none, and I would strongly recommend this product to any parent experiencing colic.

[ljc]

op this is such a difficult time - in fact i think most mums find that around 3 months all the usual tricks for getting baby to sleep stop working as well. if you search this forum you'll find a lot of threads on post-colic sleep training...i would say it's possibly the way forward for most previously colicky babies at about 4 months old although i did gentler sleep training around 3.5 months with success....i think you'll find once LO is sleeping better the crying will reduce a lot.Have you considered using formula for bedtime feed so you can get a break there? That's what i do ... massive hugs. xx

[mariel]

Thank you, ljc!! I really think her fussiness is completely related to chronic overtiredness. I am loathe to cry it out with her though; what methods did you use? I am eager to start trying no cry methods, especially if they can work for a colicky/high needs baby!!

[ljc]

I'l be brutally honest - the method I used did involve crying, a lot, however it's gentler in the sense that i was there with her. Look up babywhisperer shh pat and pu/pd. Basically for me it involved 2 very brutal nights where i sat with her shhing and patting her while she cried, stopped, cried, screamed, stopped, cried etc for an hour the first night. Then 40 mins the next night. Then 10 the third and after that she goes to bed with a bit of babbling to herself or sometime 5 mins of fussing. I should say that on the 5th and 6th night she started crying again like the first 2 nights and it nearly broke me but it's called an 'extinction burst' and is very common -so if that happens don't assume that it didn't work....it is working but you have to persevere with it.

I would also say that for me, picking my daughter up to try and calm her never helped, she'd calm down but be even worse when i put her back down so i abandoned the picking up bit and just kept her in the crib while shhing/patting. you will find out what works best for your daughter as you do it. Good luck!!! x

[Maddy's Mom]

Hi,
I was reading the posts and wondering if anyone successfully sleep trained a baby while colic still persisted. Our girl is 11 weeks too and woke she's much better, I wouldn't say it's completely gone. We are desperate for sleep and want to try something. Thanks!