A Commenter Saves The Sanity Of Father Of Screaming Newborn Baby After Doctors Fail Him

I never expected the first few weeks of becoming a father to feel so overwhelming. My wife and I were exhausted, confused, and constantly worried about our newborn son, who seemed to cry almost nonstop. From the moment we brought him home, he would scream for hours, especially during the evening and late at night. We tried everything we could think of. We fed him, changed his diaper, rocked him, walked around the house with him, played white noise, and held him against our chests. Sometimes he would calm down for a few minutes, only to start screaming again. I knew newborns cried, but this felt different. I started wondering whether something was seriously wrong with him. My wife was struggling too, and neither of us was getting more than a couple of hours of broken sleep each night. We contacted our pediatrician several times because we were becoming desperate for an explanation.

Every time we took our son to the doctor, we were told some version of the same thing: newborns cry, babies have gas, and we needed to be patient. The doctors checked him and said that his weight was fine and that there were no obvious signs of illness. While I was relieved that they weren’t finding anything dangerous, I also felt increasingly frustrated because nobody was actually helping us understand why he was screaming so much. One doctor suggested that he might have colic and told us that it would eventually pass. We followed every suggestion we were given, but nothing seemed to make a difference. At home, I started becoming afraid of nighttime because I knew what was coming. There were moments when I would sit on the floor beside the crib with my head in my hands while my son screamed and my wife cried from exhaustion. I loved my child more than anything, but I was reaching a point where I felt completely helpless. I was ashamed to admit how badly the situation was affecting my mental state.

One night, after another exhausting stretch of nonstop crying, I finally posted about our situation online. I explained everything we had tried and said that several doctors had dismissed our concerns as normal newborn behavior. I wasn’t looking for sympathy as much as I was looking for someone who had experienced something similar. The responses were mostly predictable. Some people told me to sleep when the baby slept, which was almost impossible because he rarely slept for more than short periods. Others suggested different formulas, feeding schedules, burping techniques, and baby products. Then one commenter asked a very specific question: whether I had noticed my son becoming worse after feeding or when we laid him flat. I suddenly realized that he often cried much harder after eating and seemed uncomfortable when placed on his back. The commenter suggested that I discuss reflux or another feeding-related problem with our pediatrician rather than simply accepting that it was colic. They also reminded me that if I became too overwhelmed by the crying, I should safely place the baby in his crib and step away for a few minutes rather than risk losing control.

That comment completely changed the way I looked at the situation. The next morning, I called our pediatrician again and explained the pattern instead of simply saying that our baby was crying constantly. We eventually had a more detailed conversation about feeding, positioning, and possible reflux. Our doctor recommended some changes and wanted to monitor our son’s symptoms closely. It wasn’t an instant miracle, and our baby still had difficult nights, but we finally felt like we had a direction instead of blindly trying random solutions. More importantly, the commenter’s advice about stepping away when overwhelmed helped me tremendously. I had been treating every cry like an emergency and believing that I had to make it stop immediately. I learned that sometimes the safest thing I could do was put my baby somewhere secure, take a few minutes to breathe, and then return when I was calmer. That realization took away some of the fear and guilt I had been carrying.

Looking back, I don’t think the commenter magically solved our baby’s problems. What they did was help me recognize that I needed to keep advocating for my child while also protecting my own sanity. Doctors can rule out serious problems, but parents are the ones who see what happens hour after hour at home. Our son eventually became much easier to soothe as he got older, and those terrible nights slowly became memories. I still remember sitting in the dark, listening to him scream and wondering whether I was failing as a father. I wasn’t failing. I was an exhausted new parent trying desperately to understand his baby. The experience taught me that asking for help isn’t weakness, and neither is admitting that you’re overwhelmed. Sometimes one thoughtful comment from a stranger can give someone the perspective they desperately need. For me, that comment came at exactly the right time and may have prevented those sleepless nights from becoming something much more dangerous.

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I can’t stand my newest daughter

I never disliked kids growing up. Yes, just like anyone else it wasn’t pleasant when someone’s baby at a restaurant would cry the whole time. But I never disliked the actual kid or baby for it.

Me and my Wife’s first daughter was awesome. I was a new Dad and felt that I didn’t really have to get involved too much. Don’t worry. Wife wasn’t having that shit and put me through Daddy boot camp. But my first daughter had reasons she cried and when you took care of them she calmed down. She cried when she went to sleep until she could self sooth. She cried when she needed a bottle. She cried when she needed a diaper change. If she cried it was always one of these things. I or my Wife would handle it and she’d be back to cooing and smiling.

My first daughter also had a really silly personality from very early on. She’s always been a very goofy kid. She cracks us up constantly. She’s always been very curious about her surroundings and always been very adventurous.

Fast forward four years.

We’ve discussed it many times. We love our first daughter, it’s been an absolute joy to raise her and see her grow into the silly sweet little girl she is. We decide she should have a sibling.

Both me and my Wife bonded pretty good to this new addition to our family during my Wife’s pregnancy. Seeing my Wife’s prego belly always brought a smile to my face and I could not wait to meet this little person. I felt confident about my abilities as a Dad and I wanted to know so badly, what is she going to look like? What will she be like? Will she have a similar personality to her sister? Will she be quiet and reserved like I apparently was as a baby? What kind of music will sooth her? Will she enjoy car rides?

I had so many questions.

Well, the day finally came. She was born. The moment she popped out, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I had tears of joy. She was born with a full head of hair. I snipped her umbelical chord. The doctors of course hurried her off to make sure she was healthy.

Once the emotions of seeing her born wore off, everything went south. She wasn’t cute. She looked like an 80 year old conehead. Her body was like a raisin with an ass with frog limbs attached. I attributed this to the fact that newborns in general just aren’t cute. All newborns just look like wrinkly little Benjamin Buttons. I told myself she’ll get cuter as she gets older.

About a week after she was born it began. The screaming. Yes, it was colic. So, again I told myself, this will pass. Just be patient. Give her the colic calm (I call all colic meds colic calm). Take care of her and before you know it, she’ll grow out of this phase and be wonderful.

But no. She did eventually grow out of it, but the constant screaming never stopped. The only thing that would ever get her to stop was being breastfed or a bottle. Breastfeeding was the only thing that would completely give us a short reprieve. With the bottle it was 30 seconds of feeding, then she would spit out the bottle nipple and scream for the 15 seconds it would take for her to realize that the nipple was back.

She would wake up and scream. Take colic calm then scream. Get breastfed and be quiet and calm. Scream while getting burped. Scream through diaper change. Take passy and be calm for like 5 seconds then scream because she didn’t have the passy. Scream for 30 more seconds until she realizes there’s a passy in her mouth. Sucks happily on passy and repeat this several times. Scream while getting walked around. Scream when sitting. Scream when inside. Scream when outside. Scream when getting baby talked. Get breastfed again and be calm. And the cycle would restart.

She just cries and cries and fucking cries. All while she didn’t get any cuter. She lost the newborn wrinkles and she’s grown a lot, but she’s still ugly af.

We take her to the Dr. She gets a clean bill of health. But nothing fucking changes.

Through all of this I have tried so hard to convince myself that I have a bond still. I love her. I want to take care of her. But I can’t anymore. She is an insatiable, screaming, soul sucking, meat slug. She’s a nightmare. I can’t even stand to look at her anymore. I feel anger and disgust at the very sight of her. The whole time I’m caring for her in my head I’m screaming “you suck, STFU, I hate you, you suck, STFU, I hate you”. I wish I could just hand her off to someone and never see her again. I would never wonder where she went or who she is. I don’t care. She fucking sucks.

I said much of this to my psychologist. I shit you not, she said “oh no!” and just moved on. Nothing. No advice. No focus, just on to other issues.

I’m just going to keep caring for her. Either she’ll change eventually, or I’ll just lose my fucking mind. I just keep hanging onto the hope that one day this will be a distant foggy nightmare. I now hope that I’ll remember newborn her as separate person to who she’ll be when she’s older. I hope I can bond again.

The First Few Weeks of Fatherhood Were More Exhausting Than I Ever Expected

I never expected the first few weeks of fatherhood to become the most mentally exhausting period of my life. When my wife and I found out we were having a baby, we spent months preparing ourselves for sleepless nights, dirty diapers, feeding schedules, and everything else that comes with having a newborn. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but we thought we were prepared. What we weren’t prepared for was a baby who seemed to cry almost constantly.

Our son was perfectly healthy when he was born, and there were no complications during the delivery. He was a beautiful, healthy little boy, and during those first few hours in the hospital, everything felt almost unreal. My wife and I were exhausted but incredibly happy. We kept looking at him and talking about how lucky we were. We had no idea that within a few days, we would be questioning everything we were doing.

The problems really started after we brought him home. At first, I assumed his crying was completely normal. He was a newborn, after all. We expected him to wake up frequently and need constant attention. But his crying seemed different from what we had expected. Sometimes he would cry for hours without appearing to have an obvious reason.

We would go through the usual checklist. Was he hungry? We fed him. Was his diaper dirty? We changed it. Was he too hot or too cold? We adjusted the room. Did he need to burp? We burped him. Did he want to be held? We carried him around the house. Sometimes we would try rocking him, walking with him, singing to him, or gently patting his back.

Nothing seemed to work consistently.

There were moments when I could get him to calm down, and I would feel a huge sense of relief. I would sit there holding him and think that maybe we had finally figured it out. Then ten minutes later, he would suddenly start screaming again. It became a cycle of hope and frustration that repeated itself every single day.

The nights were the worst. During the day, at least my wife and I could take turns dealing with him. At night, however, everything felt much harder. The house was dark, we were exhausted, and the smallest amount of crying felt incredibly loud. I would walk around the living room holding him while my wife tried to get a little sleep.

Sometimes I would spend an hour walking back and forth with him, only for him to start crying even harder. I remember one night standing beside the kitchen counter at around three in the morning, holding my screaming son while staring at the clock. I had been awake for so long that I couldn’t even remember when I had last slept properly.

My wife was struggling just as badly. She wasn’t only physically exhausted; she was emotionally drained. There were nights when she would start crying because she felt like she wasn’t doing enough for him. I kept telling her that she wasn’t doing anything wrong, but privately, I was starting to wonder the same thing about myself.

We decided to contact our pediatrician because we didn’t want to assume that everything was normal. I explained how much our son was crying and how difficult it was to calm him. The doctor examined him and told us that he appeared healthy. We were relieved to hear that, but we still didn’t have an explanation for what was happening.

At another appointment, we brought it up again. We explained that the crying was continuing and that it was becoming extremely difficult for us to manage. The doctor mentioned that newborns can cry a lot and suggested that our son might have colic. We were told that many babies eventually grow out of it.

I understood what the doctor was saying, but that answer didn’t make the situation easier. Knowing that something might eventually pass doesn’t help much when you’re sitting awake at three in the morning with a baby who has been screaming for two hours.

We tried everything people recommended. Friends suggested different bottles. Family members suggested changing feeding positions. Someone told us to use white noise. Another person recommended swaddling. We watched countless videos about soothing newborns and read articles late at night while our son cried in the background.

Some things helped for a few minutes, but nothing solved the problem.

Eventually, I started becoming afraid of nighttime. I would look at the clock during the evening and feel a knot forming in my stomach because I knew another long night was coming. I loved my son deeply, but I began associating bedtime with stress instead of rest.

The lack of sleep also started affecting my behavior. I became more irritable than usual. Small things that normally wouldn’t bother me suddenly made me angry. I wasn’t angry at my baby, but I was angry at the situation. I felt trapped inside a routine where nothing seemed to improve.

One night, after several hours of crying, I reached a point where I simply couldn’t think clearly anymore. I placed my son safely in his crib and stepped into another room. I sat on the floor and stared at the wall for several minutes. I wasn’t planning to hurt anyone, but I was scared by how mentally exhausted I had become.

That was when I decided to post about the situation online.

I wrote a long post explaining what had been happening. I said that my newborn was crying constantly, that we had already taken him to the doctor, and that we had been told it could be colic. I explained everything we had tried and admitted that I was reaching the end of my ability to cope with the situation.

I wasn’t expecting the internet to magically fix my son’s problem. Honestly, I mostly wanted to know whether other parents had gone through something similar. I wanted someone to tell me that I wasn’t a terrible father for feeling overwhelmed.

The comments started coming in. Some were helpful, while others were the usual generic advice. People told me to sleep whenever the baby slept, which wasn’t particularly useful because our baby wasn’t sleeping consistently in the first place. Others suggested different formulas, feeding schedules, burping techniques, and soothing methods.

Then one particular commenter asked me a question that immediately caught my attention.

They asked whether I had noticed if the crying became worse after feeding or when we laid our son flat. I read the comment several times. Suddenly, I started thinking about his behavior more carefully. I realized that he often became extremely upset shortly after feeding, and there were times when he seemed much more uncomfortable when we placed him on his back.

The commenter didn’t diagnose him. Instead, they suggested that I talk to our pediatrician again about the possibility of reflux or another feeding-related issue. They also reminded me of something even more important: if I ever became overwhelmed by the crying, I should put the baby somewhere safe and step away for a few minutes instead of trying to force myself to keep going.

That advice hit me harder than I expected.

I had been treating every cry like an emergency. I felt like a good father was supposed to immediately make his baby stop crying. If my son cried and I couldn’t calm him, I felt like I had failed. The comment helped me understand that sometimes the safest and most responsible thing a parent can do is take a short break while the baby is safely in the crib.

The next morning, I contacted our pediatrician again. This time, instead of simply saying that our baby cried a lot, I described the specific pattern we had noticed. We talked about his feeding, his behavior afterward, how he reacted when lying down, and several other details.

The doctor recommended that we monitor those symptoms more closely and discussed possible causes and adjustments with us. It wasn’t an instant solution. Our son didn’t suddenly become a completely different baby overnight, and we still had difficult evenings. But for the first time, we felt like we had something specific to investigate instead of simply being told to wait it out.

The biggest change, however, happened inside my own head. I stopped believing that I had to solve every cry immediately. If I felt myself becoming overwhelmed, I would make sure my son was safe and take a few minutes to breathe. Sometimes I would ask my wife to take over. Other times she would need me to take over for her.

Eventually, things slowly became easier. Our son started sleeping for longer stretches, and the crying became less intense as he got older. I can’t say that one internet commenter solved everything because they didn’t. What they did was give me a different way to look at the situation when I desperately needed one.

I still think about that comment sometimes. It wasn’t a dramatic medical breakthrough or some magical parenting trick. It was simply someone noticing a detail that we had overlooked and reminding an exhausted father that he was allowed to step away for a moment. Looking back, I realize how close I was to completely burning myself out. I also realize that asking for help doesn’t make someone a bad parent. Sometimes, especially during those brutal early weeks, getting through the night safely is already an accomplishment. My son is doing much better now, but I still wonder how different those first weeks might have been if someone had given us that advice sooner.