At 5 weeks old, {on July 21st to be exact} our normally content, happy baby started screaming at the top of his lungs. It scared us to death!! It lasted for about 45 minutes...I tried rocking him, bouncing, jiggling, singing to him, feeding, giving him a paci, snuggling, etc. Nothing helped! I was crying my eyes out & didn't know what else to do. He finally ran out of gas and fell asleep.
The next night around the same time, the crying episode happened again. It was just so strange to us because all day long he was this lovely, happy baby then just when Daddy got home he fell apart. It was so stressful!! There were a few times that he would stop if we took him outside under the fan or turn on the vacuum cleaner. The pediatrician said the colic should go away by the time he turns 3 months old, and sure enough the day he turned 3 months old the colic stopped!!! I am so glad this was just a phase!
We knew it was about to start when we saw him poke his bottom lip out. Bless his heart!
The next week was great and started to feel normal...we actually went out for dinner a few times! Then, all of a sudden, our very happy baby started screaming again! This was definitely a different scream than when he had colic. After the second night of having this "screaming fit" I called the pediatrician and he said it is what is called the "Witching Hour!" This "screaming fit" is worse than colic. He would get so worked up that he would turn red and start sweating. He refused every attempt at soothing and didn't want any of the lovely things we offered! During this time I would wind up in tears from the stress, it's not easy listening to your baby cry and not be able to do anything to stop it. I just continued to hold & rock him until he finally fell asleep. After about one week I finally figured out what to do to help soothe him...I had to cradle him in my arm with his right arm around my back, his left arm on my chest and his tummy to my tummy, his paci in his mouth and pat his bottom while rocking him then he will eventually go to sleep. Sometimes he would fight me at first but he eventually gave up :) It was so bad that everyone dreaded 7:00pm because we all knew what was coming!! After researching, I learned that this happens because he is super, super tired. Which made sense because he was only cat napping and not taking good long naps. Thankfully this too was just a phase and only lasted about 6 weeks {almost 5 months old}...once he got on a good nap schedule the screaming fits just stopped!
