Fussy Babies
In many ways, a fussy baby may be worse than having a colicky baby. At least with a colicky baby you generally know that your baby will be screaming from 6pm to 9pm, or whatever hours you have been “blessed” with, and that there is probably nothing you can do about it. With fussy babies, that isn’t the case.
Fussiness can come at anytime of the day. It can be intermittent or at times last all day. With fussiness guessing what is wrong with your baby and helping them feel better can take hours to accomplish. It isn’t always an easy answer. A fussy baby will generally not cry, but make little and constant growling/groaning type noises. Enough to catch your attention and let you know something is wrong, but not enough to pinpoint the problem after you have learned to understand your baby’s different types of crying.
Reasons Fussiness May Occur
There are many reasons that your baby might be fussy. These include, but are not limited too:
There are probably 100 other reasons why your baby is fussy. But what can you do about it?
What You Can Do
Much like when your baby is colicky, it might be hard, if not impossible to find something to help your baby not be fussy. You can start by making sure they are clean and comfortable, trying to feed them, taking their temperature and upon your doctor’s recommendation, Tylenol if they are running a fever. If your baby recently got shots you know that it is probably discomfort in their legs, and you can massage them where they gave the shots. If he seems to be stuffy along with the fussiness you can attempt to bulb his nose.
If none of that works it could be that your baby has a gas build up in his belly, or is having an allergic reaction to the lactose in your milk or the formula he is getting. If you are breastfeeding, talk to your child’s pediatrician. They may advise you to cut the dairy products from your diet, and see if that helps your baby, or they may have another suggestion.
While everyone agrees that breastfeeding your baby is the best for your baby, if you are giving your baby formula you can look into changing your baby’s formula. There are formula’s in the store specifically designed to help relieve fussiness and gas in your baby, like Gentlease with Lipil from the Enfamil family of products.
If your baby’s fussiness is keeping you both up all night and you can’t figure out why or what to do about it, be sure to ask your baby’s doctor at the next well-check.
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