90 minutes or more of evening screaming... HELP!

[NurseLaurie]

My little one is two weeks old. She is a good nurser (except for the smacking, which I've been told is because my breasts are so huge right now). She is peeing, pooping and gaining like a champ. However, while she has naturally relaxed into a two to three hour day schedule and a 3-4 hour night schedule, from about 6:30 until 9 or so at night she screams. I mean HOWLS! She constantly wants to nurse, but nursing makes her continuously spit up... like she is getting too much?!? Is that possible at two weeks? I've been told she may have laryngomalacia, but that shouldn't affect her nursing, except that flat on her back she sometimes gags. Any advise? Should I just let her stay on my boob and spit up, hold her while she screams frantically? I'm losing my mind :) All she wants it so suck, but when she continues to eat at the breast her tummy gets upset. It's WAY too early to start a pacifier. My finger works temporarily, but eventually that just ticks her off too. Any advise??

[alegna]

Let her stay on the boob. That evening stretch is just difficult for most babies.

-Angela

[smeep]

That's GOT to be frustrating. However, this is a good opportunity to involve your partner and/or family. When she starts screaming and refusing the boob, have your partner or whoever try to console her for a while and then try nursing again. Try burping her often also as she may be an abnormally gassy baby and that can really bother them. Just keep trying. Whenever she refuses and keeps getting upset just try to console her some other way or have someone else do it. Turning on the water in the sink (or some other sound of moving water) works great for my ds. It will get better, I promise!

[CuckooMamma]

First of all, congratulations! Having a little one is so exciting, and what an amazing gift you're giving her by nursing her. Her unhappiness must be so difficult for all of you.

While it could be other things, my first instinct is to suggest that she's sensitive to something in your diet. While many moms can nurse without any modification to their diet, there is also a good number of moms who find that their babies are much happier when a food/foods are removed for a period of time. The typical problem foods are dairy, soy, corn, egg, wheat, nuts and sometimes fish. These all have large protein molecules which babies find difficult to digest.

It can take up to two weeks for a food to be eliminated from your milk, but you should see the beginning of improvement within a few days of an offending food. Two things to keep in mind: your little one may be sensitive to more than one of these and some of these foods are "hidden" under different names in foods. I'd pull dairy and see how things go. You can check for other threads which will list the other names it can be listed as such as casein and whey.

Both my dds are allergic to several things and while eliminating these foods from my diet was initially tough, it was so much easier than watching them suffer.

Good luck and congrats again!

[Momtwice]

http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/fussy-evening.html

[julia_anne]

hmm, do you think your baby could have acid reflux? I know it's hard and it's not something you might want to think about your sweet baby having but my son did and he acted a lot like that, evenings being harder and spitting up a LOT and crying at the breast :( It's so hard, I really feel for you! KEEP up the GREAT job nursing your little one though!
http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/ts.pl

This is a link to the kellymom.com page that talks about some of these problems.

[creiberg]

My four week old goes through the same thing. He has a bad period from about 4-9pm where all he wants is to nurse even though he is spitting up constantly. I think part of it is that he knows night time is approaching and he is storing up for longer stretches of sleep. He has an "intense sucking need" and we have done pacifiers since day 3 with no breastfeeding interference...it definately depends on the child and what works for you, but the paci has saved my life! when we started out we would just let him suck for a minute and then put him on the breast so he knew the difference. she might have acid reflux, does she sleep better sitting up?

[MaryJaneLouise]

Sounds like classic colic

http://www.kellymom.com/newman/02colic_in_bf_baby.html

Have you tried eliminated cow's milk from your diet?

Sometimes, proteins present in the mother's diet may appear in her milk and may affect the baby. The most common of these is cow's milk protein. Other proteins have also been shown to be excreted into some mothers' milk. The fact that these proteins and other substances appear in the mother's milk is not usually a bad thing. Indeed, it is usually good, helping to desensitize your baby to these proteins. Ask about this if you have any questions.

Thus, in the treatment of the colicky breastfed baby, one step would be for the mother to stop taking dairy products or other foods, but only one type of food at a time. Dairy products include milk, cheese, yoghurt, ice cream and anything else that may contain milk. When the milk protein has been changed (denatured), as in cooking for example, there should be no problem. Ask if you have any questions.

[GatorNNP]

My baby would be fussy in the evenings and I wasn't eating a lot of dairy. Then I really had a lot at a wedding and the next night we were at the doctors due to the crying jag baby had at 3 months and refusing to eat. She had tons of gas and acted refluxy. I dumped all dairy and she nearly stopped crying almost completely, her poops became significantly less curdy and smaller (within a week) and they were never mucousy or greenish after that, only normal mustardy color. I hardly believed all this dairy mumbo jumbo until it happened to me!

[NurseLaurie]

Hmmm... I'm thinking I may need to give up dairy. This will be hard. I LOVE my milk and yogurt. I'll try it for a week and see if there is any improvement.

[Rio Mama]

A week may not be long enough. My doc told me that dairy takes about two weeks to get out of your system.

[CuckooMamma]

You will probably see an improvement right away, but it really does take awhile to clear from your milk. Taking two weeks isn't uncommon. Also, dairy can be hidden in quite a few things (bread, breadcrumbs, granola). Pull out the obvious dairy, and I bet you'll see the improvement. That will give you the incentive to pull all the dairy.

It is tough but the reward makes it all worth while. Good luck!

[quirkylayne]

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[missab]

I agree with Angela - the evening is when a lot of baby do their screaming.
It sounds like your feeding her well. She may be seeing comfort in the evenings - hence the desire to suck but not really "eat".

One of the things that helped my family survived colic (all day screaming) was an exercise ball. We held our son tightly and bounced. Some babies find the bouncing soothing. Some might not. My daughter wasn't much of a fan.
That and "The Happiest Baby on the Block," as quirkylayne suggests.

[alegna]

1) Swaddle, nice and tight, even if your baby fights it that is what they want


I have to strongly and loudly disagree with this. It is disrespectful at best to say that it is right and good to force your baby into something. Some babies do NOT like to be swaddled. It was NEVER what my dd wanted. This mentality is dangerous.

-Angela

[NurseLaurie]

My little monkey hates to be swaddled. She hates it to the point that she won't even stay in the sling without crying because she doesn't have free movement of her legs and arms. My slings are lying in useless heaps because she just crys and crys. I think she will enjoy them more when she can sit on my hip and still move her arms and legs.
All of the other "Happiest Baby" tips work great for her. She loves the jiggle, the shush, the suck and always sleeps on her side.

[siobhang]

Some other ideas (once you have ruled out any physical cause or while you are waiting to see if any treatments are working):

* take a bath with your baby. My second child calmed down very quickly in the bath - I could nurse him there and he seemed to settle well.

* White noise sounds - Running water, the shushing (remember what Karp says - you have to shush LOUDLY - if the baby can't hear you over her own cries, she can't be soothed by it.), running a vaccum cleaner or the dish washer (I am serious). There was a restaurant near our house that had a big bank of soda fridges - the refridgeration units were very loud - but my son ALWAYS fell asleep within two minutes of entering the restaurant.

* Sometimes startling a baby out of her crying works - like a loud noise, getting her wet (which is why I think the bath works), mirrors, flashing lights, etc.

* And finally, repeat after me as often as needed during a crying episode - "this is a phase. This will pass. This will go away soon."

Siobhan

[turtlemama77]

My dd was a huge comfort nurser, and yes, she did often nurse so much that she spit up, and then went right back on! We pretty much were parked in a chair nursing from around 5-8pm every night. If we tried anything else to soothe her, she cried. If your little one wants to nurse, nurse. Does the spitting up seem to be painful? If so, I'd look into reflux issues. Hang in there!

[alegna]

My little monkey hates to be swaddled. She hates it to the point that she won't even stay in the sling without crying because she doesn't have free movement of her legs and arms. My slings are lying in useless heaps because she just crys and crys. I think she will enjoy them more when she can sit on my hip and still move her arms and legs.
All of the other "Happiest Baby" tips work great for her. She loves the jiggle, the shush, the suck and always sleeps on her side.

Try a mei tai! My dd HATED the squished up in a sling position too. (she missed the memo that said that babies were supposed to like being squished :lol ) Also try a pouch and put her sitting up facing out- your chest can support her head.

-Angela

[siobhang]

My dd was a huge comfort nurser, and yes, she did often nurse so much that she spit up, and then went right back on! We pretty much were parked in a chair nursing from around 5-8pm every night. If we tried anything else to soothe her, she cried. If your little one wants to nurse, nurse. Does the spitting up seem to be painful? If so, I'd look into reflux issues. Hang in there!

my first was like this. He spat up tremendous amounts but never really complained about it. I think he did get into a big of a cycle around 6 - 12 weeks where he nursed and nursed, would get over full and have problems until he had either spat up or farted. The ped checked for reflux but said that it was just normal.

Siobhan

[BelgianSheepDog]

My baby has been in a big comfort nursing phase where she gets a little too much and spits up and fusses. So when she stops sucking for a minute, I take her off, sit her totally upright, burp her, and hold her that way for a few minutes. That gives everything time to digest I guess because it has really cut down on the gassy fussing and spit up.

[sdmoose]

I second the 5 S's suggestion of quirkylayne. My ds who is 4 mo. old now has had those nights (the worst one was last week, actually--that may have been teething though). I definitely think they cluster feed, but that wasn't the only thing going on and I needed the assistance of my dh to help us through this. I would let my ds nurse, nurse, nurse and then if he spit up or was delatching and crying a lot I would hand him off to dh. He used the 5s's a lot (we started using a pacifier for these times at 7 weeks...I would have used one sooner if I had found one he liked...Soothie is the one he'll take because it's most shaped like a nipple and pinkie.) Everynight was trial and error though and very tiring. The white noise of the vacuum cleaner in addition to the tummy/side lying position on our forearm and walking helps the most. I can't leave the vacuum on, though! I did try some gas drops, even though I've heard that doesn't really help and isn't the cause anyway. Do you swaddle?
Good luck...we've all been there.