Hello,
I am writing because I have tried just about everything and things just seem to be getting worse. I have read Tracy's book, read this board countless times, and Max just doesn't fit into any of these categories. We found out Max had colic at 3 1/2 weeks when he was up crying from 7PM to 11PM every night. The doctors can't agree on if he has infant reflux and now at 4 1/2 months, Max's sleep problems have compounded and are getting worse. He has been wonderful during waking hours, but as soon as we even create any sleep enviornment he turns into someone elses baby. :twisted:
He has every possible sleep problem. He screams loudly for the first 20 to 30 minutes we put him down (and about 1 1/2 hours in the evening now) no matter what method we use. PU/PD makes him more frantic with kicking and screaming, P&S just cause more irritation and he HATES to have his arms swaddled. Swaddling his legs doesn't work because he's too strong. The only way I can get him to calm down is to lean on him and hold down his legs and arms and let him scream for 20 to 30 minutes. He cries himself to sleep at every nap time. After the 20 to 30 minutes of screaming and wakes up at 5, 10 and 45 minutes. I try to pat him back to sleep quietly. Each time is met with screaming and irritation. He gulps in so much air that he gets gas and then wakes up from gas pain in between. He won't take a pacifier (we've tried several times) and he starts to chew on his fingers nervously because he doesn't know how to suck on them yet.
He does not sleep through the night, as a matter of fact, he wakes up at 8:30PM, 9:30, 10:30, 1:00AM, 2:00AM, and 4:00AM most nights. Each time he screams and has horrible gas. I've stopped feeding him at night and just tried to calm him, but it takes upwards of an hour to get him back to sleep sometimes. It just seems he can't make that transition from wake to sleep.
He is breast fed and I do my best to burp him to decrease the gas, but the crying only makes it worse. I have cluster fed, spread the feeds out to decrease the lactose quantity, grouped the feeds together
We have tried everything. We'd taken activity down to the bare minimum during the day, added dark shades to his room and removed any distractions, he is on the 4 hour EASY plan, and we are following it to the best of our ability. We make sure he's only up for 1 1/2 hours and then it's down for a nap.
I've taken him to the doctor several times and they tell me to let him cry it out. Well, we tried that and it was a nightmare of 2 to 3 hours of crying.
I'm desperate for sleep and I'm panicked because I have to go back to work soon.
Can any provide some assistance? Am I missing something?
