What If Your Baby Never Stopped Crying?

We acknowledged the traditional custodians of the land we're recording on today. My entire world literally.

Just imploded in those first months, just thinking what the fuck have I done? There was no newborn bubble. It was a This has been the biggest mistake of my life. I can't believe I've done this.

Yeah, we are back. Did you miss us?

This is your favorite podcast back in your ears Every Wednesday, Eat, Sleep, Shit, Repeat, a wildly unhinched podcast about the madness that is motherhood and everything in between.

I'm Kelly McCarran. What a stunning introduction. I'm Kiri Cels and it is bloody glorious to be bad. We really appreciated all of the lovely messages from our shitters who were like, how am I supposed to cope without you? And we weren't really coping without you either, So we made it swift and short, and we are back better than ever with a much tighter show.

Unlike Maya Nus, which is really upsetting me at the moment. He used to resemble a nice, tight bitch and now it looks like a.

Deflated burger bun. I didn't approve that, yew.

Also, you have confirmed that it does now look like that it does. Later on in the episode, we will get into the meaty topic of the week, what to do when your baby won't stop crying. But first now, in our last episode, we did ask the shitter is about what they thought about us doing our weekly peek and Pit, and the response was overwhelmingly positive.

It was unanimous. Please do not stop.

Everyone was saying, I love it. They make me feel more normal. I love hearing about your lives. Those were the general responses. So we shall keep it in, of course, but we thought it might be.

Good to actually take turns in it so that we cut down on our waffling, because boy, ome boy, can we waffle. It's very easy for us to sit down and record hours and hours of content, and somehow it needs to get cut down, and we must must think of our lovely editor, Maddie, who does the most, because she really does. So Key, you kick off this new format, give us your peek and Pit of the week, and in honor of this new season, please make sure that the peak is very good and the pit very great.

It's so interesting because you haven't gained weight, and most people with an underactive thyroid, the way that they figure it out is because they've gained a lot of weight in a short period of time.

Yeah. I think it's probably because I am gluten and torran and a pescotarian, my diet tends to be on the healthier side quote unquote healthy. That makes sense. But what happened is that this meant to be coincided with Rue having her two year sleep regression. And of course, of course it did because I'm meet, I'm meet, and I just have the words luck in the world. And

I also want to acknowledge to anyone listening, but mainly to you, that being impatient it isn't just a learned behavior that you think that you've learned from your mom. It is a very normal human reaction. Yeah, every single person feels impatient at times. My grandma used to always say patience is a virtue. Patience is a virtue. So I know that when you're feeling like that, nothing can really make you feel better or like you are a

Yeah, Charlie. On that weekend, he goes, he had her all day and I went out and had lunch with a girlfriend and came back and everything, and as soon as I got through the door, she was just crazy again. He was like, she was finally. She was fine when you weren't here, and it's when you're here that she this bad behavior comes. And I'm like, but I'm the main person who looks That's why why can't she just be nice to me? Because she trusts you, yeah so much.

You are her primary caregiver. You do spend the most amount of time with her, so she.

Feels safe to let her freak flame.

Whenever people say that to me, I'm like, great, thanks, But it's so true. That is where they feel the most comfortable to really just unleash every single thought, emotion, feeling that they have sometimes when Lenny walks through the door, He's been fine all date daycare. Luke picks him up, Fine, fine, fine in the car, babbling away, walks through the door. I can hear him going, where'smummy, where's mummy? And he sees me and then he just loses it. He literally

Yeah, And for me, I'm like, shut up, Yeah, you just got here. I'm excited to see you, and now that excitement has gone, Like.

I was so excited to see you, and now I'm like, can you go back to daycare right now?

Why did they get lovely? Lenny? And I get feelings? Lenny, that's a lot.

But yeah, it's so normal. And you are nothing like your mother.

I know you haven't fucked off overseas. You're already beating her. I know we're going overseas, but we're taking her. So where are you going? We're going to Europe for our honeymoon. Okay, is this the peak? Are we moving into the peak? No, we haven't even planned it yet. We haven't brought our tickets. We've just decided good friend getting married, so we thought we'd just do it. It was always a plan, but we're meant to do it with that Ruber. Now we're

Every time, I'm like, she's the biggest shitter or she just loves to be a shitter. And it's just so beautiful because it's an enclosed area that you sit in afterwards with the gate and the kids can kind of run somewhat wild, and you can sit together and have like your tea a cake.

They've got little gluten free cakes that I get every time. We can have a conversation, like actually get through a conversation.

Trapped, not trapped, but they are in close and close is the word I was looking for.

You have to join to go to run time, So I've started getting picture books for her each week so that she can read them, you know, for the two weeks, and then we take them back. So I don't know. I think it's a mixture of just like the regularity of it, because we did have swimming, but my swim school closed down, so then Thursdays we're kind of just

I recently asked a girlfriend who's got a new baby how she was going, and she responded that she was great, and she said she shared some cute picks. It was in a group chat and started talking about other stuff, and then I separately messaged her to say something like, Hey, I'm not trying to be annoying. I'm just checking in, Like, you know, I'm right here if you need anything, you don't need to pretend that everything's fine, like something along those lines. And she was like, oh my god, love

And I guess as well. In my mind, I'm like, how could you be fine? Yeah?

How could you be coping with a newborn as a new mum and just be fine?

Yeah?

So obviously, then when she confirmed that she was fine, I was like, oh, okay, that's really good, But also just highlighted to me how alone I feel in my experience as a new mom with a newborn. So I wanted to do an episode for anyone out there who has a baby who doesn't stop crying, because maybe then you will feel less alone and know that it's not just you. You aren't doing anything wrong, your baby isn't broken. You unfortunately, have just been dealt with the shit.

Stick when it comes to the baby bubble, as smug people with nice babies refer to that fourth trimester.

Oh my goodness. Honestly, when people would say to me like, oh, isn't the baby bubble so precious? Oh, soak up every minute of that baby bubble, I wanted to smack people that said things like that because it makes me very anxious when I hear newbornes cry and other people will be like, oh my god, you're so good at babies because I immediately grab them. But it's actually because I get so anxious that I need that baby to stop crying. Yeah, even when it's not my baby. So there was no bubble.

This is the biggest mistake of my life. Yeah, well, it was really traumatic and I am still asking you why you've decided to quit therapy. Well I haven't. I've just got to find a new therapist. Okay, good good, I'm glad, I'm glad. All right.

Let's first discuss, though, what my baby won't stop crying actually looks like. Because, of course, babies cry.

I knew that.

Yeah, I know that they could cry a lot. But Lenny was on an intense mix of prescription drugs for the first week of his life, so he really only fussed when he was hungry. Yeah, and then maybe the first two weeks were okay in terms of crying. He wouldn't really let us put him down. But on reflection, then that's perfectly normal as well, because he'd only recently been horribly exited from his lovely cozy what this is?

Do you know what the three three rule is?

So they defined colic as crying for more more than three hours per day, for more than three days per week, and for longer than three weeks in an infant who is otherwise well fed and healthy. And I remember seeing that and I'm like, oh my god, as if babies can scream for more than three hours a day, I just thought that is ludicrous. You'd go mad if your baby was screaming for three hours a day.

Well yeah, and.

Lol, I bet my future self, who dealt with fourteen hours on average per day of unrelenting screams, would gladly take those three hours.

Yeah, I mean, if we only knew what was in stall. I do get really sad every time you talk about this because I just didn't realize how about it was.

Well, I don't think that I talked about it that much, or I think I probably made jokes because that's my way of coping with things.

But yeah, it's a very isolating place to be, and I think that's what is so triggering for you. When people have newborns and they say that they're doing well, how come I'm the only one that's been through this experience within our social group. Yeah, that's what I really struggle with.

It's not that I want anyone that I love or anyone to have my experience. It's just that I want to feel less alone, I totally in my own experience, or better yet, I wish that that wasn't my experience. Yeah, yeah, I wish that I did have a different time. Yeah, newborn baby, bubble whatever, Yeah, I get them call it so. Keith, obviously, you had through a couple of months three months after I had land. So what do you remember about my experience while you were still pregnant.

I remember that you would share on little bits here and there on socials, but I don't think you ever really opened up until much later about how bad it was. The hours that he cried was the thing that shocked me the most because I was like, it sounds made up. Well yeah, I mean it sounds made up, maybe yeah,

Meanwhile, animals come out and they're like, go on, run away. Ours come out and they're like, we don't know how to shit yet.

Could have done with a few more months, to be honest exactly, And we all got that like little concoction from the weird like pharmacy thing. It actually did work, to be fair. But then I thought about the two run ins I had with two of the mother's grew girls who only came really to the first one and never came back, and we had like selfishly assumed that

It was either two or three weeks old. I don't remember which one exactly, but I remember the night that he woke up from the newborn. And a lot of babies do this where people get lulled into a false sense of security for the first couple of weeks, they're still asleep, yeah yeah, and then they wake up and this is when the proper pterodactyl began.

Ohterdacy. Yeah.

So it was a Friday night. We had had dinner and then it just begun out of nowhere, and it was the proper pterodactyls screaming, and it went on for hours, hours and hours, and nothing would work. And Luke and I were just taking it in turns, yeah, because like, how do you deal with this infant that you don't even know you've just met them screaming at you. So we would just passing back and forth every half an hour, forty minutes, try whatever we could within that time, and

You can't get fired from this one, though, but you can't, even though when you're doing that bad of a job, you really should. But you weren't doing a bad job. He has just been a tricky baby.

Yes, and we will get to that, because I think that's so important to acknowledge to anyone that's in that at the moment.

But I didn't know that not the time.

No, he screamed all day every day unless we were walking outdoors. He liked the fresh air, and so a couple of weeks postpartum, I was so slim. Yeah, and I remember people being like, oh my god, what's your secret to losing the baby?

Wait?

And I'm like, Oh, just have a baby that never stops crying. This is like why you should never comment on someone's body unless well, no, you just shouldn't comment. But I was like, oh, just have a baby that cries all the time. So you have to walk for hours and hours and hours a day. Yeah, because that's the only time that they're not crying. And then people would be like, oh, get the rocket and different things for the prem at home. No, No, it had to

And this was all day, all night. He did feed fine, didn't care if.

It was from the bottle of boob, and he generally passed wind solos are good.

Things, like yeah. Like, So it wasn't that he was yeah.

It wasn't that he wasn't getting enough food or wasn't whooing or something like that.

But my entire world literally just imploded.

And as I've talked about, I think it was in the mental health episode. I just spent those first months just thinking what the fuck have I done? There was no newborn bubble. It was a this has been the biggest mistake of my life. I can't believe I've done this.

Yeah, which is a horrible thing to admit, but that's how I felt, because this small person just screamed at me all the time, and nothing I did ever worked, and no one seemed to understand just how bad it was, just how defeating it was, just how isolating it was, and I was just so frustrated and exhausted. I know some people have really difficult babies, but then they sleep at night, which is still so hard, don't get me wrong, still so hard. I remember Rue went through a stage

He didn't sleep at night, so I dreaded the sun going down because it was kind of like, okay, round two, my second shift is going to start. But there's no one around anymore. You can't go outside and walk your baby around for hours. I've never felt so lonely.

And there really is no lonelier place than a mum at three am, when you're baby screaming, you haven't slept for days, you don't know when you'll sleep again.

And as a first time mum, I remember people would say it ends, it gets better. I promise you it gets better. I always found that very frustrating because when if you're a first time mum, you have no idea what to expect, you have no idea what the future holds. As a second time mom, if I had another baby, even if it was the same experience. I know that rationally, I could be like, hell, it ends, it's okay, this isn't forever. Yeah, it ends, and also do other things differently.

First six weeks.

Then other people would be like, get through the first twelve weeks, and then it became four months and then six months, and I.

Was like, but when.

So I just remember being in that dark pit and I wanted to leave so bad, Like that was when I was in the very dark place. But honestly, this sounds so unhinged. It made me very much, so I understand how people can get into such bad headspaces.

I was like, I can't leave him. He's horrible. No one else will take him. I remember saying this, yeah.

Because I was like, I birthed him, I have to look after him. No one else will look after this child. He's awful. Yeah, he screams all the time.

Well, it's a sleep deprivation that really gets you, right, because you just don't have any time to actually rationalize things well, yeah, and have a clear head. Yeah. I cannot believe with the amount of sleep deprivation that some new mums have, that they're allowed to take care of a baby. Do you know what I mean? Like, they shouldn't be allowed to drive, let alone take care of a baby. Back, let alone work, let alone work, because

All of my memories from that time are blurry, and all of the flashbacks make me very scared to even consider doing it again. People say, oh, we just laid in bed for a while and looked at each other and he cooed at me or she cooed at me or whatever, and I'm like, I didn't have that. He was always screaming, yeah, or sleeping, but even in sleep he had a scowl on his face because he was miserable.

Yeah. I wanted to take you through a list of all of the things that I tried over those okays, Yeah, to no success obviously, Yes, Okay, I'm still screamed, got it. I had a midwife.

She was kind of like a mental health midwife but also there to support the baby, and she would come once a fortnight and she was so lovely.

I really liked her, But.

I think that sometimes when you're getting these house visits from people, they're there for an hour and they don't really get it. Like she sort of was trying to teach me about sleep cycles and how as he's coming out of the deep sleep you really need to and she was showing me these things to try to tide him over into the next sleep cycle so he didn't startle himself awake and then scream. But I was like, wasn't actually helpful even though she was trying so hard.

He wasn't even getting to that point.

No, no, So I was on every single forum. I followed every single baby sooth on TikTok. The amount of videos that I have saved of like try this technique to get your baby to stop screaming in thirty seconds, I can probably get ninety percent of babies to stop screaming. Yeah, you're so good, Like I have got the touch because I have so many tricks up my sleeve from all of this research that I did. Yeah, couldn't get my own baby to stop screaming though I tried the Wilby's collic form.

Now that's what I was talking about before. That will be stuff. When I was like that concoction that you get from the pharmacists that you know that like weird chemists. You've got to go to a compntoun chemist. That's what I meant, the weird one. Yeah, not your regular one. Some people find it's so good but it works, and Charlie and I were just like some fucking magic, like what.

Is Oh, who knows what's in it? It didn't work for me, but of course yeah, but I still kept buying it.

And it's so expensive.

It's like thirty bucks a week plus shipping just for this stupid little bottle.

But if it works, you don't care. Yeah.

A really good piece of advice that someone gave me was throw money at the problem because now it's not the time to worry about money.

Yeah, you're surviving, you're trying.

Is so good, so it's not like going to debt or anything. But it's like if you've got money to spend on something, throw the money at the problem.

I tried the doctor golly winding method. I've never heard of this.

Okay, well let me tell you I can burp a child unlike no one else. I did so many other short courses and courses in sleep reflux colic. We had the Happy Baby Song, Half the Magic Dragon, and here Comes the Sun Gray repeat.

Yeah. Those are good songs.

There's science behind them that they work on a baby's but very painful to.

Listen to over and over again. They're social. One came on the other day and I was like, oh, yet it off, Get it off. He had a chiropractor and a kinesiologist. Gorse Burb from the non woo Woo Kelly, Non woo Woo Kelly.

When you are a parent struggling, you will try anything. You will woo woo, you will woo woo, you will woo woo the fuck out of your anti woo woop. So I would take him to his chiropractic kinesiologist. And I'm not kidding when I tell you that there are crystals waving involved crystals, crystals to stop your baby screaming, Kelly, using crystals to stop her baby from screaming.

It's like something that would never.

Ever happen, and me like looking over my baby being realigned. Also, just anyone that's playing along at home. Can I say a chipractor on a baby? It's not cracking, cracking God, No, It's actually very gentle and very effective. For some people. It can really help because babies can get you know, stuck or misaligned as they are exiting the womb or in whatever fashion they come. I have heard stories about chiropractice.

Doing God's work for newborns.

Right while I was still breastfeeding, I cut out night shade fruits.

What is a night shade food? Yeah? What is it? As a vegetarian, it's like all of my favorite no saw what is like eggplant would be a night shade? I'm pretty sure.

Egg plant, sweet potato, potato, corn like capsicum.

Yeah, there's not much left as the what am I supposed to be? If I can't eat Mexican? Because I also had to cut out dairy, like all of these things that I cut out.

He had an occupational therapist. She diagnosed him with reflux and a tongue tie. So we did zoom calls where she would take me through different exercises. So we do like all these different exercises with the baby Tatrot's help and sane, oh insane, plus working full time, remember, and not sleeping, Kelly, I had four different types of baby carriers. Yeah, and then the GP prescribed just the standard reflux medication.

I'm not going to say any drug name, but.

It's the one that you get if your child has reflux. They start off on a pretty conservative dose and they go up. Still wasn't doing anything, and at that point I took him to a pediatrician who diagnosed him with the worst god he'd seen in his career and severe cow's milk and protein allergy. So what's good gastrod disease. It's like the worst form of reflex you can get.

Oh my god.

So it's like then he ended up on what Charlie or Luke would be on in terms of medication, the dosage that's how I was free three times a day and prescription formula which actually works out so much cheaper.

Yeah.

Oh, such a win rue positive and it doesn't have all of the mean messaging on it either.

No.

No, after that, he still wasn't a great sleeper, but he screamed less and started hitting more of his milestees. So if you're listening to this and you have tears running down your cheeks because you feel like you're alone in this experience and you're not enjoying the newborn bubble that everyone tells you to enjoy, and you're questioning what the fuck you've done, I promise you that you're not alone.

Google. Thanks Google. So the two things that I will say is that push and advocate for your baby. You will get fobbed off because all babies cry. But trust me, not all babies cry all the time. There's a huge difference that isn't normal. And the problem is as well, babies like to gaslight because they're distracted when they're at the GP or the doctors. They often don't behave the way that they do it a little angel hush for.

Your baby, because your baby can't advocate for themselves. And it will end. And I know I said that. I hated when people said that to me, But it does, and you will get to a place where you're like, oh my god, you still have a lot of like trauma around it or PTSD, I don't know what the right word is, but it doesn't.

Yeah, it gets better. Do you have thoughts, Oh, I feel like I could have been a better friend in that moment for you. I feel like I didn't talk about it because I was so embarrassed, I know, And to be fair, like I was the last of my girlfriends I've said this before to have kids or one of the last, and they all started having kids in our late twenties, and it wasn't until I had my baby that they really opened up to me about how much they struggled, some of them in that newborn phase

I was like, oh, would you say about nine hours per day? She goes, no, it's higher, it's more like fourteen because she was spending a lot of time. And I'm like, oh shit.

Yeah, so if you have a baby that never stops coming as well, just if you are worried that you're a bad mum and it's something you're doing that is the biggest indicator that you're not a bad mum, and it's not something that you're doing. And I will say because I hate it when people say, oh, it's actually a blessing. It'll teach you empathy, it'll teach you this, blah blah blah. It's really shit luck that you it is, got a baby that was a bad baby. People also

Anyway, moving on to recommendations, I have two well ones for the new parents or any parent at all.

Every single parent needs noise canceling headphones. I think I've said this before. I will not stop shouting it from the rooftops. You need noise canceling headphones. I have the Bose bas Boss ones. We can link them in the show notes. I absolutely smash them. I lie on them, I chuck them everywhere. I wear them in the shower. They are Incredible'll not with the water on them, but like, if I'm not washing my hair, I like to listen to things in the shower. Why don't you just have

Even if they're not on, you can turn them on so they dull the noise. Yeah, okay, so the screams don't hit as hard. I use them even now. Sometimes let me walks through the dof He walks through the door and has a meltdown. I literally just go, ah, headphones on, noise canceling on.

So it just dulls it all a little bit. So I think he thinks that the headphones are potentially part of me and late to the party. But just a little bit of a light recommendation as well. Colin from Accounts if you need a new show, so good on Binge. Yeah, it's wonderful. So the unicycle, Yeah yours? How long have you been single? A while? I'm late to the party. I know it is so funny. Harriet Dyer Patrick Brimmel,

Oh my god, that is such a good recommendation. Also helpful given I'm like spend five hundred dollars on headphones.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

I hope this podcast has helped if you need it, or maybe it just helped you understand someone in your life that as a difficult.

Baby, spirited child, a spirited human. Share the pod on your socials. We would love that. Let us know what you think and what you want to hear. You can tag us at Kyris, at Kelly Underscore mccaren and at earssa dot pod. This episode was produced by myself, Kairi Cells, and Kelly mccaren, with audio production by Madeline Joanno. See you next week. Whoo Why