r/Colic

Sorry for the long post in advance.
I’m not seeking medical advice necessarily! More so looking for other experiences/ things to mention to my pediatrician to get them to take me seriously.

My 3.5 month old daughter has been struggling since she was 2 weeks old. We were originally told she had colic. After persistent crying, obvious discomfort, and recurring diaper rashes we saw a different doctor that diagnosed her with cmpa( tested Lactoferrin levels in stool) and silent reflux. We immediately started Similac Alimentum and peptic. We noticed improvement for about two weeks before things went downhill again. Retested her stool after a month and still had high Lactoferrin. So we switched to Neocate. She did terrible initially because of the reflux it caused so we started using gel mix. That has helped significantly with the spit up but she still seems to struggle with silent reflux( gulping, swallowing noises, sour look on face when burping, constant wet sounding burps, lots of hiccups).

She is still having intense crying episodes which seem to have gone from mostly at night to on and off all day at almost 16 weeks old. She is on Pepcid twice a day but I’m not sure it does anything for her. 3 weeks on Neocate and we’ve noticed no real improvement in her fussiness. Blood in stool was never one of her symptoms but I noticed a small spec in her stool when I changed her diaper earlier. Could she still be reacting to Neocate? Or caused by something else or just a random one off? She is gassy all the time and spends most of the night wiggling and grunting. She has always put her hands in her mouth when her stomach was bothering her but now she’s doing it more frequently and trying to mouth everything else in sight. Unsure if that’s from discomfort, just normal development or a sign of teething? And her newest weird symptom is throwing her left arm above her head while in her bouncy seat or being held upright, tensing up and screaming/fussing, followed by crying.

I know these are all concerns that should be addressed by a pediatrician and we’ve been in contact with them often, but our pediatricians have been super unhelpful because she’s still gaining weight. There’s a 3 week waiting period to get into the other pediatrician office in our area and she has a GI appointment but it’s not until the end of October when she’ll already be 7 months. We just keep getting told it’s colic and she’ll snap out of it at 4 months. But the closer we get to that mark the less likely that seems. I’m at a loss and could really use any other experiences and advice if you’ve been through this. At this point we know all of the soothing techniques, I just really want to make her actually feel better as she’s such a happy baby when she’s not crying. I’m concerned this is something that actually needs to be addressed medically and she won’t just “snap” out of it like we’re being told.

Symptoms: intense crying/fussing on/off all day, congested sounding in nose and sometimes chest, grunting/wiggling when sleeping, gas, chewing on hands, stiffening/arching and then getting upset, rubbing face either with hands or against us, gulping and making hard swallowing sounds a lot, and every now and then she’ll go stiff and scream/ fuss like she’s agitated before she starts crying.

I appreciate any responses at all!!

My husband and I are at our breaking point. Our daughter seemingly had CMPA - she was very colicky and turned out to have blood in her stool. The pediatrician said to cut out dairy or start formula so we started her on Similac Alimentum and she seemed to not do well on it.

2 days later she had a BRUE that lasted for 15 mins and I had to do CPR on her. I went back to breastfeeding bc it made me more comfortable after that. After a week in the hospital they said she has severe reflux and prescribed her Pepcid.

I cut out dairy, soy, and eggs w no slip ups 3 weeks ago and have kept her on the Pepcid and she started having bloody diapers again 1.5 weeks ago and screaming/crying all day and night unless you hold her upright. She also started to refuse her bassinet the last few days and can only sleep on us. We do not want to co-sleep but the sleep deprivation is finally getting to us.

We are in between providers for her and have taken her to the ER again this week for all the bloody diapers and pain she is in and they told us there’s nothing they can do. She has an appt with a new provider next week so hopefully this one actually takes us seriously.

Someone please give me advice and recommendations for formula with CMPA and severe reflux. Also, Pepcid seems to not work and I think she may have other food sensitivities at this point but I have no idea.

Please help! Even words of encouragement at this point.

Our daughter is 4.5 months old and has always been extremely high-needs and fussy. She’s healthy, growing well, and we’ve seen both her pediatrician and a pediatric GI specialist. Neither has any concerns, so at this point we think she may simply have a very sensitive temperament.

We’re struggling with sleep and would love advice.

For naps, she currently only contact naps while being bounced on a yoga ball. Not just to fall asleep—we have to continue bouncing the entire nap. My husband and I literally trade off every 30 minutes because if we stop, she wakes up. If we try to transfer her to the crib, she wakes almost immediately.

She cannot fall asleep independently. Her wake windows are also quite short for her age—about 1 hour 20 minutes before she becomes overtired. Because of that, she’s taking around 6 naps per day. Her first nap is sometimes about 1 hour 10 minutes, but most of the others are around 45 minutes even while contact napping.

At night, she does sleep in her crib, but since transitioning out of the swaddle she has been waking roughly every hour. Prior to this, sleep wasn’t great, but it was significantly better.

We’re at the point where the yoga ball is completely unsustainable and we’d love to help her learn other ways to fall asleep and stay asleep. Has anyone had a baby with a similar temperament who successfully transitioned away from constant bouncing and contact naps? What worked for you?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I’m hoping to hear from moms who have more than one child because I’m struggling with some anxiety about having a second baby.
My first baby had a pretty rough start with colic, reflux, and eventually we found out he had a milk protein allergy. Those first few months were honestly some of the hardest of my life. There was a lot of crying, very little sleep, constant worrying, and feeling like I was always trying to figure out what was wrong.
Now that we’re thinking about baby #2, I find myself feeling scared that I’ll go through all of that again. I know every baby is different, but it’s hard not to wonder if colic, reflux, or allergies are likely to happen again when you’ve already experienced it once.
For moms who had a difficult first baby, what was your second baby like? Did you have similar issues, or was the experience completely different? If your first had reflux, colic, or a dairy allergy, did your other children have it too?
I would love to hear your experiences, good or bad. I think hearing real stories from other parents might help ease some of my worries. ❤️