[Ekaterina Agievich]

Hi Emma,

Thanks for the reassurances 🙂 It’s not easy accepting that something that seems to hurt your child might just be a normal phase.

We’ve been to see our midwife (who’s awesome) and she said the baby, while being generally healthy and gaining weight nicely (and growing fast… she’s a tall slim baby, and I often wonder if her height is also contributing to all this), seems to have some muscle tension in her back from the particular circumstances of her birth (we had a totally failed induction and she was not able to descend at all for many hours until the decision was finally made to perform a c-section). She said that’s likely why the baby doesn’t like being held or swaddled – she wants space where she can stretch and relieve that tension, so we need to watch for her body language to know when she doesn’t want to be held. It may be that she was always uncomfortable, but only recently became old enough to do something about it.

That being said, she’s sleeping great through the night (and some days) and typically falls asleep in my arms when feeding (at least for a short while now until she starts squirming in her sleep), so it doesn’t seem the tension is too bad.

The midwife gave us contact info of a doctor who specializes in this issue (although I must add my husband and I don’t trust osteopaths, but this one is an MD and is only using very gentle touches, according to the midwife… the moment he starts twisting my baby’s neck we’re out of there). Hopefully this will bring her some lasting relief, although we’ll probably have to endure for a while as the closest appointment I was able to get is almost 2 weeks away (which is quite fast for Austria, actually, and sooner than the regular appointment we have with our doctor)

Thanks again for all the suggestions!

Kate

[Ekaterina Agievich]

Hi Emma,

Thanks for your suggestions!

I don’t think we have some serious health issue, tbh – she did fantastically in her tummy times since I wrote you, and she does turn her head from side to side on her own (e.g. changing position while sleeping in the crib). We bottle feed and she seems to be equally fine feeding on either side. She is quite gassy when we give her breast milk (much better with formula, but that’s another topic for our doctor who’s on vacation right now… and the midwife told us to get baby probiotics since I had a c-section), and that may be what’s spoiling her mood, but she already had that trouble before this recent change in behaviour. I’m wondering, though, if the way I hold her is what’s causing her pain in the moment, because she’ll be fine for a few minutes, even fall asleep, then suddenly start squirming and crying, like she’s trying to change position to something more comfortable but can’t do that yet (but again, could be trying to get rid of gas). I’ve watched a ton of videos on holding babies, but still don’t have a clue if I’m doing anything wrong and why suddenly now 🙁

Also regarding the purple crying, that’s even more confusing. She did use to have these periods every evening for more than a week, and then sleep through the night (waking up to feed every 3-4 hours) and sleep fine throughout the day too, then a couple days ago something changed, she started sleeping through the “witching hour”, then wake up to quickly feed and then settle for the night… then eventually wake up at 6-ish and be generally unhappy and mostly just catnapping throughout the day, so that we’re really struggling to find the right time to get her interested to play (since she’s mostly either eating or crying when awake). The best time seems to be when she’s on the changing table looking at high-contrast pictures for a while during a pause in diaper change.

Upd: today has been the worst day yet. Despite the fact that she again slept on me a couple times (and seems to have figured out how to turn her head when she sleeps with her belly on my chest, so I guess there should be no issues with stiff neck), slept during morning stroll and napped in the crib a couple of times, she pretty much screamed since morning the rest of the time, and we weren’t able to calm her down enough to take her on her evening stroll (which is when I get my time off since it’s my husband who takes her…). I’d understand if we had the witching hour, but we’re having a few witching days in a row now and nothing seems to help 🙁 e.g. she absolutely hates being swaddled (and it’s currently a bit hot for it here in Austria)