I said before that 5S works pretty well, but there is another benefit. It’s no secret that taking care of an extremely fussy baby can be very emotionally taxing, and sometimes it’s hard to find a way to relieve that stress.
One of the 'S’s is Shhhh…and not a gentle little ‘hush hush’…it’s a seriously loud SSSSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHS. I was amazed when I watched it the first time how loud it had to be. And it only worked for me when I did it pretty loudly, too.
Well anyway, I realized one time that making that noise was actually a stress reliever for ME. Don’t ask me why, but I remember it making me feel better.
Hm…'nother thought. I wonder if the fact that I was getting calmer in the process helped little guy calm down and be quiet, too. Little team effort, there.
If she insists on sleeping on her tummy getting an Angelcare monitor or one of the others like it would be a very good investment in peace of mind. A friend of mine lost a niece to SIDS and the Angelcare was the only reason she was able to sleep for the first couple years of her kids lives.
Dunno what the equivalent in the States is, but here they sell a number of over-the-counter remedies for colic. We found something called Infacol given before each feed helped a lot, and I’ve known other people swear by something called Colief given in milk - didn’t work for us, as Infantosity is breastfed, and would reject expressed milk it had been added to.
Depending on the baby’s weight, a sling might be an option, so she can remain close to someone at all times. Infantosity is pretty much a Velcro baby and loves to be carried in hers (no small job at 21lb!)
About the tummy thing, what we were told was ‘If she can get herself into it, she can get herself out of it.’ In other words, if she’s strong and agile enough to turn onto her tummy, she’s not likely to get stuck with her face smooshed into the mattress. So don’t put her down on her tummy, but if she starts turning that way, you don’t need to wake up and turn her back every ten minutes throughout the night or anything.
Is it definitely colic? Because what you describe sounds like it could be reflux. My nephew had that, and what helped was propping up the head end of his cot a few inches (so his head was higher than his stomach) and giving him baby reflux meds. There are both OTC ones and prescription ones.
Earplugs. It sounds like I am being flippant, but I am not. Assuming that your daughter isn’t the only adult in the household, then she needs to get six hours of real sleep a night, and she can’t do that if the baby is waking up and crying all the time: even if she isn’t "on duty’, she’ll wake up when she hears the baby start crying and lay there listening until after whoever is on duty has resolved the issue, and then take another five minutes to fall asleep. Earplugs really, really saved me.
Some friends are on their second baby with reflux. They have prescription drops they give the current baby (now 2 months old) but it apparently tastes awful so they have it compounded instead of buying the pre-mixed. It can be more expensive, but their baby likes it, and would spit out the pre-mixed.
My kids were colicky (or whatever was actually causing it), holding them the way they show in the video was the only position that would stop them from crying.
I would walk around all night like that (glad that’s over).
Oh man do I feel your pain - our middle son was colicky for about a year. This probably won’t help, but our magic and only cure was for me to sit in a chair leaning forward, legs outward, and swing him forward and back, kind of like that pirate ship ride at Six Flags. Boy did he love that, and the minute I’d stop he would start wailing.
I guess the answer is that everyone finds their own trick, and more often than not it involves motion.
Run (jump from one foot to the other) in place, while singing any song whatsoever (except baby song) and pat her back all over in time to the music. This. Works.
This, too. Fisher-Price makes a swing that can be turned to swing front to back or side to side, my baby loves the pirate ship style. You know what works best for colic? Empathy. Buckets and buckets of empathy and patience. Imagine if you had an itchy tag and couldn’t change clothes or scratch. Imagine if you had horrible stomach cramps and didn’t understand what caused the pain, or couldn’t take anything to relieve it. Imagine if you had terrible gas or heartburn but no ability to change positions and relieve the pressure or pain. Imagine if you often felt like you were falling, if your diaper was cold and wet and burned raw skin, if light bulbs hurt your sensitive eyes, if perfume or deodorant was strong and irritated your nose… imagine if you were brand new and completely helpless and needed someone else to do absolutely everything for you. Then, try all those things.
Especially given the fact that this is a foster child on her fifth home in four months. The likelihood that she has some additional risk factors (poor prenatal care, maternal drug use) is high and this would make her more vulnerable.
OP, does your daughter know her medical history?
When my son was young and colicky, I basically had to wear him all the time, and in the evenings I had to be walking around wearing him. I’d stop by the dinner table for a bite, then keep walking.
In a strange way, though, this helped us bond really strongly. By the time he came out of that, we were partners in this crazy thing, you know?
No drug issues that we are aware of, but we don’t have much information. We just learned yesterday that Marie hasn’t had any of her shots. Her case worker leaves a little to be desired.
Ayup. Even if you’re the one holding the baby, earplugs/ headphones can be a godsend. You can still hear enough to know what’s going on, but they take the edge off the crying so you don’t end up in a panicked, “Oh god, I can’t take it make it stop” state when the baby is really loud.
Our baby didn’t have ton of colic, but the things that helped us the most were the baby swing (at 5 months she still loves it- I highly recommend the Fisher Price little lamb one), the baby carrier (you may need to try more than one- Ivester only liked the Baby Bjorn when she was really little), and a good rocking chair. The baby probably doesn’t want to stop moving or be put down anyway, so anything you can do to make it more comfortable for you to hold her makes it easier to make it more comfortable for her.
Mostly you just wait it out and try not to go nuts, while rereading what Troppus posted.
Since she’s about four months, is she showing signs of teething? It’s early, but our daughter started at that age, so it’s not out of the question.
1 - stomach sleeping (sorry, everyone, but both my kids were stomach sleepers - I think there’s a lot of hype on this one)
2- Low iron formula. Both my children had problems with the standard formula. They were just gassy and uncomfortable all the time. My mom suggested trying the low iron with my first, and it worked almost instantly. When we started having the sample problems with my son, a switch to low iron worked just as well.
The low iron formula has worked for almost everyone I’ve suggested it to, to the point that I get angry at the formula people for continuing to market a product that cause so much pain and discomfort for babies. Lots of people have digestive problems with too much iron, and I haven’t seen any numbers that indicate that babies are dying or growing up crooked because of a lack of iron in their diets as babies. Reflux could be reacted to that as well, since if the baby is not pushing out what it needs to on the back end, there’s not enough room for the food coming down the hatch to settle.
Another thing that sometimes works is going to either soy milk or goat milk.
My first child was either asleep or crying her first 4 months of life, and she was 100% breast fed at the time.
Anemia is a very large public health problem in babies - iron can prevent that.
Baby gas drops are miracle workers. My g-baby has terrible gas (like her mother) and these work fast and they work well.
So are the 5 S’s that have been mentioned: Swaddling (tight), swinging, shhhh’ing, and…I forget the other 2 because the first 3 have worked for me. Read “The Happiest Baby on the Block” for sure.
Vick’s makes this petroleum jelly based stuff that you can put on a baby’s chest. It’s safe for babies over 3 months old. It has lavender, eucalyptus and another oil that soothe fussy babies. It really works…the stuff is crazy. I checked into it because essential oils on babies kind of scare me, knowing about oils, but this combo is safe.
If the baby needs to be held all the time, hold her. Why not? It’s not going to hurt anything. If you believe in the “4th trimester” theory, it makes sense.