Hello there,
I am hoping that someone will be able to give us some advice as we are at our wits end at the moment and do not know where to turn.
Since Wednesday our DS has not been himself. He is 6 1/2 months old and is one of the happiest babies you have ever met - that is until Wednesday night.
After his night feed at 6:30pm we put our DS to sleep (the same as every night), and he fell immediately asleep until 2 hours later where he woke up screaming and nothing would console him. He kept on arching his back and bringing his knees up - although now the arching his back is more common than bringing his knees up. He did not sleep all of Wednesday night only getting a few minutes every so often when he fell asleep on my chest before he woke up screaming in pain again.
On Thursday morning we went to the doctors, when we walked in our DS was full of smiles and clapping his hands - The doctor examined him and said that he could not find anything wrong with him and that we should just give him paracetamol and monitor him. Through the day he was ratty due to the fact that he had no sleep but would not be put down in his cot and just started screaming. We got through the day with play and entertaining him. After his 5pm dinner - 3/4 of a jar of veggies/protein he settled down for about half an hour before starting to scream. He dirtied his nappie which was quite soft and runny and screamed most of the evening.
We contacted the out of hours doctor and went to go and see her. Again when we walked in there he was full of smiles, clapping hands and saying dada. The doctor put it down to a mild case of a stomach bug and said that we should cut out his food for 12 hours and just feed him milk - which we did.
On the Friday during the day he seemed quite happy and content although would still not go to sleep in his cot and would only fall asleep sitting on our lap or lying across our chest. By the evening he started again only drinking 3 oz of his bottle and refusing any more. Again we called the out of hours doctor and went to go and see him.
This doctor suggested it may either be a stomach bug or a milk intolerance and prescribed a soy formula - He told us to keep off the other formula and see how it goes. By this time it was 9pm at night and there were no pharmacies open and no shops that stocked the soy formula. We got home and DS was screaming with hunger as a last resort he we gave him 5 oz of his usual formula which he was quite content with. 15 minutes later her started screaming and arching his back and would not settle.
By 3:30am we could not take this anymore and took him to the emergency room where we saw a doctor who says it may be a case of reflux and prescribed him Gaviscon - She said that it did not sound like a milk intolerance and that we should try the Gaviscon and go back to them on Wednesday.
We eventually got home at 6:30am and DS was exhausted and we were able to put him down for 1 hour before he woke up crying. We gave him his usual 8oz bottle with the Gaviscon in it and he has not settled since.
Yesterday he was at least happy throughout the day, but now things seem to be getting worse.
We do not know what to do and are going onto our 4th day without a propper nights sleep.
We are hoping that you will be able to give us some suggestions on on what to do. We have elevated his mattress in his cot but will still not go down in it.
Thanks for reading and for listening.
Paula - Mum to Thomas - 12 July 2005