Baby uneasy after feeding

How to Calm a Fussy Baby: Tips for Parents & Caregivers

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Here are ways you can try to comfort a crying baby. It may take a few tries, but with patience and practice you'll find out what works and what doesn't for your baby.

Swaddle your baby in a large, thin blanket (ask your nurse or child's doctor to show you how to do it correctly) to help them feel secure.
Hold your baby in your arms and place her body on their left side to help digestion or stomach for support. Gently rub their back. If your baby goes to sleep, remember to always lay her down in her crib on her back.
Turn on a calming sound. Sounds that remind babies of being inside the womb may be calming, such as a white noise device, the humming sound of a fan, or the recording of a heartbeat.
Walk your baby in a body carrier or rock them. Calming motions remind babies of movements they felt in the womb.
Avoid overfeeding your baby because this may also make them uncomfortable. Try to wait at least 2 to 2½ hours from the beginning of one feeding to the next.
If it is not yet time to feed your baby, offer the pacifier or help your baby find their thumb or finger. Many babies are calmed by sucking.
If food sensitivity is the cause of discomfort, a change in diet may help.

For breastfed babies: Moms may try changing their own diet. See if your baby gets less fussy if you cut down on milk products or caffeine. If there is no difference after making the dietary changes, resume your usual diet. Avoiding spicy or gassy foods like onions or cabbage has worked for some moms, but this has not been scientifically proven.
For bottle-fed babies: Ask your child's doctor if you should try a different formula. This has been shown to be helpful for some babies.

Keep a diary of when your baby is awake, asleep, eating, and crying. Write down how long it takes your baby to eat or if your baby cries the most after eating. Talk with your child's doctor about these behaviors to see if their crying is related to sleeping or eating.
Limit each daytime nap to no longer than 3 hours a day. Keep your baby calm and quiet when you feed or change themr during the night by avoiding bright lights and noises, such as the TV.

Checklist for what your baby may need:

Here are some other reasons why your baby may cry and tips on what you can try to meet that need. If your baby is…

Hungry. Keep track of feeding times and look for early signs of hunger, such as lip-smacking or moving fists to his mouth.
Cold or hot. Dress your baby in about the same layers of clothing that you are wearing to be comfortable.
Wet or soiled. Check the diaper. In the first few months, babies wet and soil their diapers a lot.
Spitting up or vomiting a lot. Some babies have symptoms from gastroesophageal reflux (GER), and the fussiness can be confused with colic. Contact your child's doctor if your baby is fussy after feeding, has excessive spitting or vomiting, and is losing or not gaining weight.
Sick (has a fever or other illness). Check your baby's temperature. If your baby is younger than 2 months and has a fever, call your child's doctor right away. See Fever and Your Baby for more information.
Overstimulated. Try ways to calm your baby mentioned above.
Bored. Quietly sing or hum a song to your baby. Go for a walk.

Why parents & caregivers need breaks from crying babies:

If you have tried to calm your crying baby but nothing seems to work, you may need to take a moment for yourself. Crying can be tough to handle, especially if you're physically tired and mentally exhausted.

Take a deep breath and count to 10.
Place your baby in a safe place, such as crib or playpen without blankets and stuffed animals; leave the room; and let your baby cry alone for about 10 to 15 minutes.
While your baby is in a safe place, consider some actions that may help calm you down.
Listen to music for a few minutes.
Call a friend or family member for emotional support.
Do simple household chores, such as vacuuming or washing the dishes.
If you have not calmed after 10 to 15 minutes, check on your baby but do not pick up your baby until you feel you have calmed down.
When you have calmed down, go back and pick up your baby. If your baby is still crying, retry soothing measures.
Call your child's doctor. There may be a medical reason why your baby is crying.
Try to be patient. Keeping your baby safe is the most important thing you can do. It is normal to feel upset, frustrated, or even angry, but it is important to keep your behavior under control. Remember, it is never safe to shake, throw, hit, slam, or jerk any child—and it never solves the problem!

More information:

Responding to Your Baby's Cries
Colic Relief Tips for Parents
A Parent's Guide To Safe Sleep
Remedies for Spitty Babies
Abusive Head Trauma: How to Protect Your Baby

Last Updated: 3/21/2022

Source: Crying and Your Baby: How to Calm a Fussy or Colicky Baby (Copyright © 2016 American Academy of Pediatrics)

The information contained on this Web site should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician. There may be variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

Baby Cries After Feeding: What Should I Do?

Medically reviewed by Karen Gill, M.D. — By Chaunie Brusie on October 3, 2018

My daughter, the “crier”

My second daughter was what my oldest fondly referred to as a “crier.” Or, in other words, she cried. A lot. The crying with my baby girl seemed to intensify after every single feeding and particularly at night.

It was those hellish hours between darkness and dawn when my husband and I would take turns walking around the house with her in our arms, praying and, mostly in my case, sobbing because we couldn’t console our baby.

I didn’t know it then in my sleep-deprived state, but my daughter’s crying after feedings wasn’t that uncommon. In combination with her frequent spitting up, it was pretty much a classic textbook case of colic.

Colic

Colic, in technical terms, simply means a “crying, fussy baby that doctors can’t figure out. ”

OK, so that’s not really the definition, but in essence, that’s what it boils down to. The British Medical Journal (BMJ) lists one criterion for colic: A baby that cries for at least three hours a day, three or more days a week, and is under 3 months old. Check, check, and check.

There isn’t one single known cause of colic. Even the actual clinical incidence of colic, estimated by BMJ to be around 20 percent of all babies, can be tricky.

Acid reflux

One of those causes of crying after feeding and spitting up in babies is actually acid reflux. This condition is known as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) if it also causes significant symptoms such as poor weight gain.

When my “crier” daughter was 5, she frequently complained of her stomach hurting and as a result, had to undergo a series of testing with a gastroenterologist, a doctor that specializes in the GI system.

At our first appointment, the very first question he asked me was if she had colic as a baby and if she spit up a lot, to both of which I practically shouted, “Yes! How did you know?!”

He explained that acid reflux or GERD can manifest as symptoms similar to colic in babies, stomach pain in school-aged children, and later as actual heartburn pain in adolescents.

While many infants spit up, fewer have actual GERD, which can be caused by an underdeveloped flap between the esophagus and stomach or a higher-than-normal production of stomach acid.

In most cases, a diagnosis of infant reflux is simply based on your baby’s symptoms. If your doctor suspects a severe case however, there are several different tests that actually diagnose infant reflux.

Testing can involve taking a biopsy of your baby’s intestine or using a special type of X-ray to visualize any affected areas of obstruction.

Food sensitivities and allergies

Some babies, especially breastfed babies, may be allergic to certain food particles that their mothers are eating.

The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine notes that the most common offender is cow’s milk protein in the mother’s milk, but even a true allergy is very rare. Only about 0.5 to 1 percent of exclusively breastfed babies are thought to be allergic to cow’s milk protein.

The other most common culprits, according to the ABM, are egg, corn, and soy, in that order.

If your baby is displaying symptoms of extreme irritability after feedings and has other symptoms, such as bloody stools (poop), you should speak with your healthcare provider about getting them tested for allergies.

Aside from a true allergy, there’s also been some evidence that following a low allergen diet while breastfeeding (essentially avoiding those top allergy foods, such as dairy, eggs, and corn) may be beneficial for infants with colic.

Strict elimination diets can have their own risks, so speak with your doctor before significantly changing your diet.

In our situation, I found that dairy, caffeine, and certain seeded fruit exacerbated my daughter’s crying and spitting up. By eliminating those foods and substances from my diet, I was able to help lessen her discomfort.

If you have a baby with colic, you might want to try anything at all to help ease your baby’s crying. If you’re curious to see if your diet has any effect, you can start by logging your food in a food journal and writing down your baby’s reactions after each meal.

Next, you can eliminate one food at a time and see if reducing your intake of certain foods seems to make a difference in your baby’s behavior. If you hit on one you feel helps your baby to cry less, this does not mean they will not be able to eat that food in the future.

Just be sure to keep in mind that a true allergy is rare. Also, be sure to monitor for any additional symptoms, such as blood in your baby’s poop.

Gas

If your baby is crying a lot after every feeding, it may simply be a buildup of air swallowed while eating. It’s thought that bottle-fed babes in particular may be more prone to swallowing a lot of air during a feeding. This can trap gas in their stomachs and be uncomfortable.

In general, breastfed babies swallow less air while eating simply due to the way they eat. But every baby is different and even breastfed babies may need to be burped after a feeding.

Trying keeping your baby upright after a feeding and burping gently from the bottom of their back and up through the shoulders to work the gas bubbles up and out. Also check out this illustrated guide to burping a sleeping baby.

Formula

If your baby is formula-fed, swapping out the formula you use may be a simple solution to a crying baby after feedings. Every formula is a little bit different and certain brands make formulas for more sensitive baby tummies.

If you decide to try this, talk to your baby’s pediatrician about whether an elemental formula would be a good choice to try for a week. If you try one different brand and you see no change in your baby’s fussiness, continuing to try different brands is unlikely to help.

Takeaway

Colic, along with a few other common conditions, might be the culprit if you too have a “crier” on your hands.

If your baby doesn’t find relief after dietary changes or additional burping, then make an appointment to see their doctor.

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Chaunie Brusie, BSN, is a registered nurse with experience in labor and delivery, critical care, and long-term care nursing. She lives in Michigan with her husband and four young children, and is the author of the book “Tiny Blue Lines.”

Last medically reviewed on October 3, 2018

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Baby
06 Months

How we reviewed this article:

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ABM clinical protocol #24: Allergic proctocolitis in the exclusively breastfed infant. (2011). DOI:
10.1089/bfm.2011.9977
Harrel MC, et al. (2015). Is there a correlation between maternal diet in breastfeeding mothers and infantile colic? DOI:
10.1097/01.EBP.0000541032.94135.ca
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2018). Infant reflux.
mayoclinic. org/diseases-conditions/infant-acid-reflux/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20351412
Rosen LD, et al. (2007). Complementary, holistic, and integrative medicine.
pedsinreview.aappublications.org/content/28/10/381
Saavedra MA, et al. (2003). Infantile colic incidence and associated risk factors: A cohort study. .
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14502331
Sung V, et al. (2014). Treating infant colic with the probiotic Lactobacillus reuteri: Double blind, placebo controlled randomised trial. DOI:
10.1136/bmj.g2107
Symptoms & causes of GER and GERD in infants. (2015).
niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/acid-reflux-ger-gerd-infants/symptoms-causes

Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available.

Current Version

Oct 3, 2018

Written By

Chaunie Brusie

Edited By

Nizam Khan (TechSpace)

Medically Reviewed By

Karen Richardson Gill, MD

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Why does a baby cry - an article in the newspaper of the EMS clinic "On Health"

— The simplest answer to the question about sedatives is definitely: no. Parents should not use painkillers, sedatives, herbal “bye-bye”-fees and other means to calm the baby. In any case, until it was recommended by a neurologist after a comprehensive examination. Giving a sedative to an infant is like hiding your head under a pillow when the alarm goes off: it won't stop time and you'll be late for work anyway. You need to try to understand your baby, make sure that his most basic needs are met, and only then proceed to the exclusion of more complex and rare problems.

Try to remain calm and act only in the interests of the child

Up to three weeks of age, the most common cause of constant crying of a child is banal malnutrition. A common mistake of parents is the desire to stick to the schedule when breastfeeding in the first month of a child's life. A baby can suck out 150 ml of milk in three minutes, or maybe 20 ml in an hour, and a nursing mother is not able to understand how much has been eaten by the sensations of "emptying the breast". With free feeding in the first month, record the dynamics of the baby's weight gain. When feeding on a schedule, conduct a series of control feedings with measurement of body weight before and after feeding, so you can make sure that the amount of one feeding is sufficient. If the baby's crying stops instantly as soon as you give the breast, this is absolutely normal.

What to do if the baby cries even after you have changed the diaper, tried to feed, picked up? If this happens often and the mother does not succeed in calming the child for more than an hour, you should consult a doctor. It is not always obvious to parents, especially good ones, in what order to seek medical help: should I call an ambulance or go to see my pediatrician in a couple of days, or maybe it’s better to grab the child and the CHI policy and rush to the nearest city hospital? Try to remain calm and act only in the interests of the child. Here are some tips to help you.

If the baby cries and cannot be calmed for more than two hours, call emergency services. Pre-measure the baby's temperature, check for rashes on the baby's body, and remember if there was a stool within the last 12 hours. Also make sure you have enough breast milk for a single feed. Report this information to the emergency services
If a child often worries , sleep is short, but there is no monotonous crying-crying for more than two hours, then this can be dealt with on your own, and then with the help of a doctor at a clinic appointment or by calling him at home. The better prepared you are for your consultation, the more productive it will be. Things to do before the consultation:

Determine breastfeeding volume by three to four checkweighs before and after feeding
See if there is a connection between baby crying and feeding. When does the child worry and cry - immediately after eating, during feeding, an hour later, etc.?
Recall the circumstances in which anxiety and frequent crying appeared: vaccination, errors in the mother's diet, starting to use or changing formula?
Note accompanying symptoms and their relationship to crying: regurgitation, constipation, frequent stools, flatulence, appearance or increase of skin rash
Assess the change in stool frequency and consistency
Observe whether restlessness and crying persist after passing stool or flatulence
Find out if there is an effect when placing a gas tube or a glycerin suppository.

The task of a pediatrician when complaining of frequent and prolonged crying of a child is to determine why the child is crying, whether he has any disorders (including digestive disorders) and what kind they are - functional, that is, this is a conditionally normal condition associated with the growth and development of the body or a reaction to changes in external (primarily nutritional) factors, or it is a pathology that must be suspected, diagnosed and treated.

Three types of crying

Experts say that babies have three types of crying:
- Basic . This is, in fact, a means of communication between the child and others. This cry is intermittent, smooth, the sounds are not sharp.
- Angry . This is how babies cry when they really don't like something or they really want something. In this case, parents may notice how the child's facial expressions change. He roars loudly, confidently, mostly on the exhale. Angry crying is usually the longest.
- Painful . With his help, the baby reports that he is in pain. At the same time, he screams to a screech, with piercing notes until he exhales completely.

Baby cries after feeding: what to do?

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content

My second daughter was what my elder affectionately called "the herald". Or, in other words, she cried. A lot of. My little girl's crying seemed to get worse after every feed, especially at night.

It was those hellish hours between darkness and dawn when my husband and I took turns walking around the house with her in our arms, praying and, mostly in my case, crying because we couldn't comfort our child.

I didn't know this at the time in my perverted sleep state, but my daughter's crying after a feed was not unusual. Combined with her frequent spitting, she was a classic textbook case.

Colic, strictly speaking, simply means "a crying, unbearable child whom doctors cannot understand. "

Okay, that's not exactly a definition, but that's basically what it boils down to. The British Medical Journal (BMJ) establishes one criterion for colic: a baby who cries for at least three hours a day, three or more days a week, and is younger than 3 months old. Check, check, check.

There is no known cause of colic. Even the actual clinical incidence of colic, which the BMJ estimates is about 20 percent of all children, can be misleading.

One such cause of postfeeding crying and spitting up in babies is actually acid reflux. This condition is known as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) if it also causes severe symptoms such as poor weight gain.

When my daughter "Callers" was 5 years old, she often complained of stomach pains, and therefore she had to undergo a series of examinations by a gastroenterologist, a doctor who specializes in the gastrointestinal tract.

On our first date, the first question he asked me was if she had colic as a child and did she spit up a lot, we both practically screamed “Yes! How do you know?!"

He explained that acid reflux, or GERD, can manifest as colic-like symptoms in infants, abdominal pain in school-age children, and later, true heartburn in adolescents.

While many newborns spit up, fewer of them actually have GERD, which can be caused by an underdeveloped esophagogastric flap or increased-than-normal stomach acidity.

In most cases, the diagnosis of reflux in newborns is made simply on the basis of your baby's symptoms. If your doctor suspects a severe case, there are several different tests that actually diagnose infantile reflux.

Testing may include a biopsy of your child's bowel or a special type of X-ray to visualize any affected areas of blockage.

Some babies, especially those who are breastfed, may be allergic to certain food particles their mothers eat.

Extract The Breastfeeding Academy notes that the most common culprit is cow's milk protein in breast milk, but even true allergies are very rare. It is estimated that 0.5 to 1 percent of exclusively breastfed babies are allergic to cow's milk proteins.

The other most common culprits according to ABM are eggs, corn and soy, in that order.

If your baby shows signs of extreme irritability after feeding and has other symptoms such as blood in the stool (fig.), you should talk to your doctor about having an allergy test.

In addition to true allergies, there was also evidence that after breastfeeding a small amount of allergens (essentially avoiding those foods that are major allergens such as dairy, eggs, and corn) may be beneficial for infants with colic.

A strict elimination diet can have its risks, so talk to your doctor before making any major changes to your diet.

In our situation, I have found that milk, caffeine and certain seeds increase my daughter's crying and spitting up. By eliminating these foods and substances from my diet, I was able to reduce her discomfort.

If your baby has colic, there are some things you can try to help your baby cry. If you're wondering if your diet is working, you can start by keeping a food diary and recording your child's reaction after each meal.

You can then eliminate one food at a time and see if cutting out that particular food affects your child's behavior. If you click on one that you think will help your baby cry less, it doesn't mean he won't be able to eat that food in the future.

Just be aware that true allergies are rare. Also, be sure to watch for additional symptoms, such as blood in your child's stool.

If your baby cries a lot after each feed, it may just be air he swallows while eating. It is believed that formula-fed babies may be more prone to swallowing large amounts of air during feeding. This can trap gas in the stomach and cause discomfort.

Typically, breastfed babies swallow less air during meals simply because of the way they eat. But every baby is different, and even breastfed babies may need to be bitten after feeding.

Try to keep the baby upright after feeding and gently push him up and down over his shoulders to let the gas bubbles go up and out. See also this illustrated guide to burning a sleeping baby.

If your baby is breastfeeding, changing the formula you are using may be an easy solution for a baby who cries after feeding. Each formula is slightly different, which is why some brands offer formulas for more sensitive baby tummies.

If you decide to try it, talk to your child's pediatrician about whether it would be a good choice to try elemental formula for a week. If you try a different brand and don't notice that your child's fussiness doesn't go away, trying different brands probably won't help.

Colic, along with several other common conditions, can be the culprit if you also have a "crier" on hand.

If your child does not feel better after dietary changes or additional weaning, make an appointment with the doctor.

Share on Pinterest

Chauni Bruzi, BSN, Registered Nurse with experience in obstetrics, intensive care and long term care. She lives in Michigan with her husband and four young children and is the author of Little Blue Lines.