Screaming baby

Does it happen only when she goes to her room to sleep? Maybe she's lonely... DD did something similar around 2-3 months, and we found she only screamed when she was on her own. We put her in a moses basket in the lounge and then went about every day business, ignoring her but she could see me IYKWIM. Eventually she would just drift off.

I dont always give the reflux meds as I am trying to work out if it is really reflux.
She has a bottle before bed, the rest of the time she is breast fed. It use to only happen at night, the Dr. seemed to think that is was reflux and it was only happening at night aftyer her bottle. This made sense. But now she is has the screaming matches more so during the day and it happens when she has the meds (sometimes not...could be a coincidence).

I think she had a growth spirt at 12 weeks( i think she is 15 now).   The meds are called ranitidine (i think the other name is zantac).

She usually stops crying when I hold her up right, she is fine in the buggy lying down (never cries) and she would be fine sitting in her bouncer....but would never fall asleep.

Ranitidine is very weight sensitive. If it is a while since she had her dose prescribed then she will need a larger volume as she now weighs more. A dose that is too low won't have any affect at all (as you suspect)

It really does sound like silent reflux. Your daughter may have the acid building up in her tummy and whe she lies down it pools and aggravates the ulcers and inflammation in her oesophagus. It hurts!

Please go back to your dr and get an updated volume of ranitidine, and give as prescribed. You may find with the right dose the screaming stops, it is worth following through properly.

Other non-medicine ways... keep her upright for naps in the buggy or a bouncinette. Settle her and lie her down on her left side so that the acid has a chance to drain. Feed her in  2 smaller volumes and keep her upright for 30 min after a feed.

It may be a medical problem, or it may be her personalitiy shining trough, but either way please get the reflux checked, and then you can work on the other stuff too.

thanks, have made an appt for wednesday. I just find it odd than it only happens in her cot. I could happily put her down after a feed under her playgym, she never cries in the buggy when lying flat and she has no problem going back into her cot after her 6am feeds.

Oh and if you are bfing still, you haven't increased the amount of dairy you eat in the last month, have you?

I try after being up after an hour, sometimes 1.5......but because that generally doesn't work, she is usually for up to 6 hours!!! Her record is 8 hours....but she doesn'y get grumpy when up for that long.

Absolutely!

She has only slept 20 minutes today, and that was in the car. It has just become more stressfull to get her to bed, than it is to not.

Right. Here are the basics of what the sleep consultant said. She uses these techniques on babies over 3 months of age. It is based on the creation of biorhythms that assist the baby to go to sleep and stay asleep.

From 3 months they have sleep hormones and can start to organise day sleep. Prior to 3mths they do not have sleep hormones and they are busy organising their night sleep.

Elle was waking after 10 to 40mins from all naps. Using this technique, she was consistently taking solid 1.5 to 2 hour naps after 3 weeks.

NB: She recommended CC for extending naps and I did NOT do that...the naps extended without needing to do CC. Below I simply say "resettle" as you can do what ever you choose to help them get back to sleep if they wake early.

1. Start by setting a time for the first nap. You need to guess a bit as to what the perfect awake time for your baby is...perhaps 1 hour + or -.
2. Start the day around the same time if you can. e.g. wake the baby at a set time such as 7.30.
3. If the baby wakes earlier than you plan for the day, e.g. 7, you still keep them up until the set nap time even though this will mean they are overtired.
4. Put baby to bed for their first nap at the set time. This may be plus or minus 15mins. Have some set things you do before the nap - these act as cues. For example, go into their room, close the curtains, put them in their sleeping bag & bop them for a bit before putting them into their bed.
3. If baby wakes before 1 hour, try to resettle. Get baby calm then leave the room and repeat until they are alseep OR 40mins has passed.

Do the above for 3 to 14 days to create a biorhythm. Once the baby has a biorhythm at that time, their body will assist them to go to sleep and stay asleep.

Do the abobve for every nap. You can either do it all at once or work on one nap at a time.

Once baby is good at taking good naps, you will find you can relax the set times and they will nap well at anytime (worked for us really quickly). If you start having short naps again, setting times is a good way to recreate biorhythms and get them into a good pattern.

Some things to note:
1. Do not use props for sleep or feed immediately before sleep.
2. Make sure awake times are age appropriate. Too much or too little awake time can create short naps. However, when setting biorhythms, you have to watch the clock not the baby but only for a few short days.

Let me know if you have any questions :)

Did the dr say that you can mix the losec suspenion with milk? It may help it go down easier as it is quite bitter and salty.

Here is the faq sheet if you haven't already found it http://www.cryingoverspiltmilk.co.nz/MedicalTreatment/Omeprazolesuspension.pdf

Good luck!

The losec suspension is fine to be mixed with milk. Maybe have some ebm or formula and mix it with 15 ml or so before a feed. Worth doing when wee miss is really hungry. You do want to get the whole dose in, so don't mix with too large a volume.

Lots of babies refuse the losec suspension, in which case you can swap to the granules, which get given with a wee smidge of pureed pear to help them go down.

The losec should help reduce the acid fairly quickly, within a day or two, but it may take time for her wee oesophagus to heal if she is sore. It sucks but you really have to persevere for a week to know if it is helping.