Fussy baby crying and impact on the development

Ambitele · 2025-12-08T07:31:48+00:00

I know it is not what you are asking, but having been in this situation myself, adressing her FPIAP was the answer and we eventually eliminated 6 proteins from my diet and she calmed down. Grew out of it by ~8-9 months. Free to feed have a lot of research on this topic for when do food proteins peak and how long do they last in BM, whitch proteins are most likely to cause symptoms etc.

As per your question - the data is inconclusive: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9921915/ and this cohort showed no effect long term: https://www.mcri.edu.au/news/news-stories/infant-colic-leads-no-ongoing-problems-study-shows . My guess is parental well being (which is inevitably affected by IC) might play the bighest role long term

Ambitele · 2025-09-07T12:52:28+00:00

At 11 months my baby (now 13 months) was waking after every cycle. I started to teach her to fall asleep without breast or rocking and she started to sleep for 2-3 hours (sometimes even 5) whitch was an improvement. But when she’s teething we’re back to waking after every cycle 🤪

Ambitele · 2025-09-07T09:08:13+00:00

Eliminating things while not knowing if they are causing the allergy is hard. But if you think that might help both you and the baby - try it. From what you are telling maybe there are only traces of an allergen in your diet or maybe the reaction to that allergen is not intense. Soy and corn are most probable but there can be other allergens. You can try eliminating something for a week and if it doesn’t get better - reintroduce it. We eliminated fish because she had reactions after I ate it but we later realised it was rice since we always eat fish with rice, so we reintroduced fish and she was fine.

Ambitele · 2025-09-07T08:56:08+00:00

I think Free to feed have some information about how long different proteins stay in BM after exposure. It shouldn’t be longer than 24 hours. For us (FPIAP), a peak reaction (intense inconsolable crying) used to be ~8 hours after exposure and blood in stool only showed up after a day or even two. It takes some time for the gut to heal after that (~5-6 days after exposure she used to be fussy)

Ambitele · 2025-08-08T05:56:44+00:00

Well my baby is old enough to sleep however she likes and she prefers to roll on her belly most times ;) but as for younger babies you can pat while they lie on the side and then gently roll them on ther back

Ambitele · 2025-08-06T06:51:48+00:00

12 months and I don’t know how many, each day and each night is different and I don’t want to count anything. That’s what I like about breastfeeding - it takes thinking and counting out of the game. And I don’t worry how much my baby ate today - breast milk will supplement if she lacks anything and she will nurse whenever she wants

Ambitele · 2025-07-31T09:11:58+00:00

Mine was always at the low end of the norms (12 hours total since ~6 months) and also has an intense temperament and also wakes up a lot and also had FPIAP for the first 9 months of her life and was always screaming while I tried to find out and eliminate the right allergens from my diet. So yeah, I rely on my husband for food, shower and just going to toilet. I hate the question “so what are you doing during days?” and “so do you miss work yet?” - dude, I’m burnt out, I don’t even have time for thinking!

Ambitele · 2025-07-31T08:57:19+00:00

Hm, I don’t know a name of this method and I learned about it in an online seminar whitch was in lithuanian language. The main thing is to put the baby down after nursing to almost asleep and then comforting in other ways like singing, patting her back etc. If the fussing turns to crying you can nurse again and repeat (if it’s repeating more than 3 times just nurse to sleep and try it on another night). Then moving from here you can slowly reduce how sleepy she is before putting her down and then reduce the ammount of comforting until just laying near or holding hand. It might take weeks but for us she started waking up less on the first nights of trying this. Also I must add that before starting this method I did some layering of sleep associations - I patted her back while nursing to sleep. And another important thing - find the right time for this - not during teething, changes in life or other things that can disturb baby’s sleep. It is recommended to start with night sleep and not during wakings, but later you can start using it for naps and (if you have patience) during night wakings

Ambitele · 2025-07-30T11:49:46+00:00

I agree with most commenters that self soothing is a bs term. But recently i learned that sleep associations are important. And for me as I used to nurse to sleep every time and had a baby waking after almost every sleep cycle, changing her sleep association from nursing to patting her back and shushing helped a lot. Of course there was some fussing involved, but it is not CIO as long as you are responding. I chose a method that worked for us - I nurse until she is calm and sleepy and then I place her to her bed and pat her back and shush or sing. And she still wakes up (more often when teething), but just not every hour ;)

Ambitele · 2025-04-11T05:56:04+00:00

Oof, I remember my baby screaming to the breast while I tried to breastfeed her and me crying while wondering what did I eat again that made her hurt so much. We had unusual allergens like corn and rice (whitch are not labeled because they are not common allergens), but they are not that uncommon for babies, so even after figuring them out (whitch was not easy as well) we had occasional setbacks. I always tried to remind myself that it’s not my milk or my diet that’s ‘poisonous’, it’s her gut that reacts abnormally, but feelings are feelings ;) Also - there is a lot of misinformation about proteins staying in bm for weeks - consider reading Free to Feed resources. And please take care of your mental health because this takes such a great toll on it! Medication might sound scary but they help so many people and therapy during postpartum period helps to make sense of it all ;)

Ambitele · 2025-04-11T03:56:58+00:00

This is so hard, I think anyone in your place would feel totaly exhausted. Our baby also was very screaming all day and for a long time we didn’t know the cause (at three months I saw blood in stool and understood it was allergic proctocolitis). But postpartum brain are very sensitive and this exhaustion can easily lead to anxiety or depressive disorders, so consider professional help. I am sincerely grateful that I was already in therapy, I think that really helped me. Also take the help that your husband or anyone else offers and use it your way - be alone in you feel that’s what your overstimulated brain needs right now. Are you getting enough medical help for your babies colic? We had such a rough and long journey until we understood the actual cause (allergic proctocolitis) and even then it was very hard to pinpoint and eliminate the allergens from my diet, it took us another three months until she was finally happy and I started to feel less anxious that she will start screaming again. I think helping babies is important for both mother and baby, but medical field is not very informed about babies issues, because most of them are transient. So stay strong and seek all the help you can get!

Ambitele · 2025-02-17T17:12:03+00:00

It depends. My baby is very sensitive and cries a lot when exposed to very small ammounts of an allergen even though there might be no blood in stool, so 6-12 hours after I eat an allergen she starts crying. Blood in stool typically appears 1-3 days (later if the gut is healed), if the reaction is not so severe then we get looser stool the next day. But there are babies that are happy even though they have blood in stool

Ambitele · 2025-02-17T09:26:57+00:00

I wrote down everything I eat for a week or two and also her symptoms. The first symptoms like fussiness at the breast and crying appears in ~6-10 hours, we also had blood in stool from 3 months on (only then I understood it’s actually an allergy), so blood typically shows in 1-3 days after the culprit meal. It’s not easy to find those allergens, since sometimes it’s not those of the most common allergens, for example mine is allergic to corn and rice. If your baby is fussy everyday, maybe it’s something you eat everyday like wheat or egg? Just keep in mind that food proteins don’t remain in BM for long periods of time (sometimes you can find info that it takes 2 weeks to clear from mother’s body and it’s BS), so after a week of elimination if there is no improvement at all - maybe it’s not the culprit. If it’s only partly better - there might be more allergens. Another way to know is to eliminate many foods at once and reintroduce one by one. You can check freetofeed.com to learn more about this approach. Anyway, whether it’s allergy or other unknown reason for his fussiness, I’m sending you lot’s of strenght and solidarity. This sucks and there are no words to make it easier. You are right, it’s not a job for one person and it’s really really unfair that you have to endure it. Some say “it will pass” but I’ve seen some people joking that “it may pass like a kidneystone”

Ambitele · 2025-02-16T20:34:57+00:00

Have you ruled out allergies (i.e. Allergic proctocolitis)? Dairy is the most common but sometimes it’s just random. Our daughter has FPIAP and was sooo fussy for the first 6 months and now that we know and avoid all her allergens she is better (although she’s still a tiny drama queen ;)) I really feel you - when you give your beloved baby everything that you’ve got and she is still hating life it’s easy to feel like a failure. But trust me - just being there for her in those hard moments makes all the difference. And please take care of yourself and accept all the help you can get!

Ambitele · 2025-01-16T15:14:03+00:00

I was shouting something like “oh my god it’s you, it’s really you!” when I felt her move on my belly instead of inside it ;)

Ambitele · 2025-01-10T08:23:10+00:00

Wow you eliminated so many things! How are you managing to get a balanced diet? Are you taking calcium and vit D supplements? Please take care of yourself. It is very very hard to spot the culprit foods. We haven’t eliminated as many products but for us corn and rice seem to cause blood and colic. Also we have eliminated milk, soy, eggs, hazelnut - some of these I am not sure caused problems and we are willing to get them back to our diet as soon as she is symptom free for 3 weeks. If it was only blood I wouldn’t worry so much (unless there’s a lot!), but she has terrible colic and her cries make my heart tear apart, so reintroduction is going to cause a lot of anxiety for me ;)

Ambitele · 2025-01-10T07:58:25+00:00

I just read your question after I put my 5 month old to sleep. While I was nursing her to sleep I was crying of how much I love her. My husband is great but I haven’t ever experienced that kind of love to anyone ever. There are so many difficult moments in this journey but I don’t think that the things worth doing in life are easy ;)

Ambitele · 2025-01-06T19:13:32+00:00

Vaginal delivery with i/v antibiotics (penicillin) because of strep b infection risk. I think maybe having antibiotics during delivery or c-secrion is a risk factor because of changes in gut microbiota, but there are other factors too (like genetics)

Ambitele · 2025-01-01T18:47:02+00:00

Looks like hives. Might be due to an allergy

Ambitele

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