Colic and a bedtime routine

[laam]

I wonder if anyone can help me with advice regarding a colicky baby. My second baby is 3 months today and suffers terribly with colic in the evenings, all wind related, poor little chap is in agony from about 7pm to 10pm. He is really good the rest of the time, sleeps well in day and happy when awake and he actually sleeps pretty well at night once he has passed out from exhaution. My problem is that I am stressing about his bedtime routine and longing for my evenings back,I just want to eat a meal with my husband! My eldest was going down at 7/7.30pm by 3 months and I am getting into all the terrible habits I said I would not do this time-feeding to sleep etc! I have tried everything in order to ease the colic-medicines, oesteopath, change in diet etc nothing helps him. It has been suggested that colicky babies react well to routine, but this seems impossible to me when he is at his worse at bedtime, I do the bedtime routine every night but he either won't go down, or does for a while then wakes up screaming. He goes down happily for his naps and sleeps well, which is obviously very telling. Someone has suggested to me the crying could be cause he is overtired (which I am sure his is after a while of trying which obviously makes everything worse but wind is stopping him settling) and a routine will help.

So I guess I am just asking what other mums with colicky babies did, if I should keep going with trying a bedtime routine or just wait till the colic passes, which hopefully will be soon! Would be great to hear any other experiences with unhappy babies!

Many Thanks

[Mellors]

You have my every sympathy, I had exactly the same with my son, and it drove me demented.

I did persevere with a bedtime routine, but to be perfectly honest, despite trying everything in the book, and in the end the only thing which worked was to wait until it passed - which as I recall was around the 3/4 month mark, so not long to go now with your little one. We started having the odd good night, and then there were more good than bad, and then it had gone. It wasn't an overnight thing.

Good luck, I know how dreadful it is!

x

[hkirsop]

hi we had exactly the same with our first, fine in the days and then at 7pm colic would arrive and he would cry solidly until we gave him a dream feed at 10.30 after which time he was absolutely fine and went down no problem. i was completely at my wits end as we had every night with one of us holding him screaming - looking back i keep thinking maybe i should have just put him down and left him crying whilst we had even 10 mins to eat quickly as us holding him didn't seem to help but it is so easy with hindsight and of course impossible to do at the time when the baby is crying.

we actually did have an overnight recovery when he was 15 weeks and 2 days - that amazing day is imprinted on my brain! - my husband got home from work and literally fell off his bike when he saw me on my own in the sitting room in silence - needless to say we crept around the flat the whole evening!

we did keep up the routine as it made me feel sane and he did really like his bath etc and the early part of the bedtime routine but dont think, from my experience, it particularly helped with the colic was more for him/me to have nice time while he was happy. we also tried infacol, cranial osteopathy etc - i even gave up chocolate and drank fennel tea which is really not tasty! as someone said it helps to reduce wind but i dont think it made a difference. in my - very limited! - experience i think it is just a waiting game until their tummy matures but agree that it should be v soon.

best of luck though - having just had my second i know that there are enough challenges at bedtime without a colicky baby! am sure the end will be in sight soon though.

[sophiechristophy]

Just wondering - could it possibly be over-stimulation (that builds up as the day goes on, and so is worst is the evening)? have you tried taking him into a quiet darkened room and doing skin to skin for a while? Sophie x

[BellendenBear]

All I can offer is sympathy. My daughter had evening colic from 6-12 weeks when it did literally stop overnight. It was horrible and exhausting. Like you, we tried to keep the same evening routine, and I'm still not sure whether this was the right thing or not. As has been said above, in hindsight I think we should have put her down more and let her cry because holding/rocking/feeding just seemed to make it worse, not so easy to do when you have a crying baby though. It does pass, just try to find ways of coping for the next few weeks and making sure your husband can share some of the load.