Witching Hour?? - Covington,KY

Yep very normal! I wore my babies, cluster fed them, tried not to pull my hair out lol! It only lasted maybe a couple-4 weeks with mine (if that long).

Oh man, I remember those days! Have you tried swaddling him? We used this technique (Happiest Baby on the Block--is the book I think by Dr. Harvery Karp). Anyway, he recommends using the 5 S's. Swaddle, side, shh, suckle and swing. It worked really well for our daughter.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1876715/soothe_a...

Hi there. Hang in there. It will get better! We went through the same thing only it was from 6 to 10 with us. Around 5:30 each day I started to break out in a cold sweat in anticipation of what was coming. Now, the phase was pretty much over for us by 8 weeks. I did notice a marked difference (for the better) when I cut wheat and dairy out of my diet. My friend had to do that with her daughter and she tipped me off. Perhaps your little one has a food sensitivity? If you want to try it you can message me for gluten-free snack and meals. It will help you lose the baby weight, too.
-Jackie

He's young...
are you sure it is not anything else?
Gas?
Hunger?
Him being too hot or too cold?
An infant does not have a fully developed neurological system yet.
Colic?

Are you nursing or Formula?
If nursing, do you have enough milk production? If not, a baby will always still be hungry and cry/fuss because they are hungry.
Is he latching on properly? If not, he will not be getting enough intake either.
My friend, had this happen with her baby, and these were the problems with her baby. ONCE her baby WAS getting enough feedings and intake... then her baby slept MUCH better and was not fussy.

Also, he is hitting 12-weeks old... this is a "growth-spurt" time... and they need extra intake, will get hungrier more and more often. In order to keep up with and keep pace with their growing and developmental changes.
Are you feeding him on-demand? Babies need that.
From here on out... every 3 months will be a "growth-spurt" period...

Is he napping? Babies/kids also get like this because they are over-tired or over-stimulated.

7-10:00pm is a LONG witching-hour.
My kids, had that... but only in the early evening. It did not last that long as your baby.

A great book is: "what to expect the first year" which you can get at pretty much any bookstore or online.

All the best,
Susan

Sounds like your son may have colic. Does the crying happen every night at the same time? My son (who is now 15) went through the same thing. You could set your watch to the start and stop of his crying session (7p-11p) We tried many things, some worked and some didn't. If your son takes a pacifier, you could put a little mylicon (gas relief medicine) on it and see if he will take the pacifier. Swaddle him tight in a blanket, hold his tummy tight against yours. The method we tried near the end of the weeks of crying was to lay him on his tummy on a hot water bottle (obviously not too hot!) and that worked tremendously. It seemed like a little pressure against his tummy really helped. His colic lasted until he was about 3 1/2 months old (although it felt like longer!) There were a few times that I had to put him down and take a breather from the crying. Hang in there, "this too shall pass!"

It's been a long time since I have had to deal with this, but my oldest was like this for several weeks. Going for a walk or giving him a warm bath were the only two things that helped. Of course, whenever either was over, the crying started again! Good luck.

ok after reading the other answers i realized my withing hour is different that your situation. our Toddler witching hour is 5-7pm.
we just cross our fingers and say a pray that the two hours go quickly! LOL.
since our daughter in older she is 2.5 we sometimes let her have her meltdown and than when she is done, she usually feels better and moves on. depending on my mood, if she is in full meltdown, throwing herself on the floor mode, I will either ignore her (which usually works) and she stops or I will just cuddle her and watch her fave show with her.

My son didn't do it regularly, but my sister's 3 children all did. My pediatrician warned me about it too, so it is very common in that age. Have you tried swings, swadling, a product called "gripe water" (it helps with digestion, that might help. You can find it at Walgreens.), try putting her in the car seat on top of the dryer when its on, maybe a warm compress on his belly, or pushing his legs up to his belly to help let out some gas. Or maybe get a sling if you don't have one. I know vacuuming seems to calm some babies! Good luck! I would also, have a glass of wine with the witching starts to help deal with it:)

A. V.

Swaddling and cuddling to sleep worked best for my parents. My daughter never acted like that when I was around but there was no hope for my parents. It was earlier in the day but lasted about 2.5-3 hours as well. My mom would swaddle her and walk around or rock her and she eventually turned this time into nap time. It took about 6 weeks for her to settle into the nap routine, but she did grow out of it.

Babies at that age are absorbing everything because they don't have a filter system in their brain to tune things out yet. As I'm sure you can imagine it drives them to the edge.

They also say that babies sometimes get like this when they are about to learn a new "trick"; encourage any milestones he is getting close to accomplishing and maybe that will relieve some frustration. My daughter was sitting up at 5.5 months and about that time is when she stopped having a witching hour.

It was tough for my parents, and they didn't have the risk of PPD. Keep your spirits high and ask for help/a break when you can!

Hi S.! Like Lisa, our witching hours were from 5-7 and I used to wear my son in the sling, take him for a walk, give him a bath or just carrying him around the house. My little one loved to sit outside on the porch with me, he in his car seat carrier and me in a chair. He just liked to look around and hang out. Also my son really liked to go in the automatic swing around that time of day. It's a hard time of day - your exhausted, he's exhausted and hubby's usually not home from work yet to help out. I can't remember how old he was when that time of day stopped being so hard. Maybe 4 months? I think getting into a routine helped a lot. Good luck!!

3 hours is a veeeeeeeery long witching time! Like others suggested, he may still be hungry! If you are breastfeeding make sure he's nursing longer on both breasts before you put him down. My son who's now 5 months, use to get really hungry around that time, so I made sure I took all my time to nurse him, burp him, change him, swaddle him, then put him down. I have started using the pacifier when he was close to 3 months. It helped a lot! I have also noticed that my baby likes to sleep in the dark, so no lights were on or he would just screaaaam! Now he's much better, it takes much less efforts to put him down to sleep! I guess you should just keep trying different things until you meet all his needs! Good luck!

Good advice so far, also consider an infant swing. It is like a bassinet on a swing..

You've gotten a lot of good advice. I agree with the poster who said it may be a food sensitivity. My daughter had colic until I cut dairy out of my diet (I was breastfeeding.) Our pediatrician believes that dairy and soy are the most common foods to get reactions from infants, and I've had a number of friends have success with much less crying when they changed their diets. Unfortunately, the formulas that don't have dairy and soy in them are also the most expensive.

This happened with my daughter too. A ride in the car would sometimes help. It stopped at 3 months--almost magically. This was still a 'hard' time of day for her, but we didn't have 3 straight hours of non-stop crying every night anymore. Good luck! You will get through this.

Many babies do this. Mine started at about 3 weeks old and would SCREAM from 6-12 every night. The only thing that stopped it was nursing as much as possible (except if I did it too much he ended up puking) or putting him in his car seat and swinging it back and forth with enough force to get it up about chest level!
My best advice is NURSE NURSE NURSE and pop him in a sling and keep him close. That's all they really need:)