How Long Does Colic Last in Babies?
Colic usually begins between the second and fourth weeks of life, peaks at about 3 hours a day by 6 weeks old, and generally stops by 3 to 4 months — though the American Academy of Pediatrics notes it can last until 6 months in some babies. The pattern is a hill, not a plateau: it gets worse before it gets better, and then it goes.
(Infant colic is what follows. Colic in horses is an equine abdominal emergency on a scale of hours and belongs to a veterinarian, not to this page.)
The timeline
| Age | What’s typically happening |
|---|---|
| Birth to week 2 | Ordinary newborn crying, 1 to 4 hours a day |
| Weeks 2 to 4 | Onset — crying starts clustering and getting harder to stop |
| About 6 weeks | Peak, around 3 hours of crying a day |
| 6 weeks to 3 months | Gradual, uneven improvement |
| 3 to 4 months | Colicky crying generally stops |
| Up to 6 months | The outer edge the AAP still calls possible |
StatPearls describes the same arc from the clinical side: onset between weeks two and three, a peak around 6 weeks, and resolution “by the age of 12 weeks” or “between 3 and 4 months.”
Why sources give slightly different end dates
You’ll see 12 weeks, 3 to 4 months, 5 months and 6 months quoted, and none of them is wrong — they’re answering different questions. Twelve weeks is when the majority of babies are done. Three to four months is the practical range families experience. Rome IV sets its diagnostic boundary at symptoms starting and stopping before 5 months, which is a criterion for calling it colic at all, not a prediction. And the AAP’s six-month mention is the tail of the distribution.
If you’re in it, the useful number is six weeks — because past that point, the trend is downward.
How long one episode lasts
Within a day, colic tends to arrive in a block rather than spread out: typically one long stretch, most often in the early evening, that resists the soothing that works fine at other hours. The AAP puts the peak of that regular fussing at about three hours a day. Which hours, and why they cluster, is covered in what time of day is colic worst.
What “it’s ending” looks like
- Episodes get shorter before they get less frequent
- Soothing starts working again — the same rocking that did nothing at 5 weeks begins to help
- Whole days get skipped, then most days
- The baby becomes more socially responsive overall, smiling and settling more easily
None of this is linear. A bad night in week ten doesn’t mean the improvement was imaginary.
If it hasn’t ended by four months
That’s the point to go back to the pediatrician rather than keep waiting. Persistent crying past the expected window can mean something other than colic — and reflux is the most common thing it gets confused with, since it peaks later and follows a different rhythm. See colic vs reflux and the full sign list in colic symptoms.
Go sooner, not later, if the crying comes with fever, forceful vomiting, blood in the stool, refusal to feed, or poor weight gain — the three things Rome IV requires to be absent before crying is called colic.
This content is informational and does not replace pediatric evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment.
Frequently asked questions
Does colic end all at once or fade out?
It fades. Most families describe the hard stretch getting shorter first, then less frequent, then skipping days entirely — and only in hindsight can they name the week it stopped. A baby who goes from three hours of screaming to none overnight is unusual enough to mention to the pediatrician.
Was my baby born early? Does that change the timing?
Count from the due date rather than the birth date. A baby born at 34 weeks tends to hit the crying peak around six weeks of corrected age, which lands about a month and a half later on the calendar than parents expect.
Will the second baby have colic too?
Not necessarily. Colic doesn't run in families in any reliable way, and the range StatPearls gives — 3% to 28% of infants — is wide precisely because the condition isn't well predicted by anything measurable.
My baby cries a lot but only for an hour a day. Is that colic?
By Wessel's criteria, no — that's under the three-hour threshold. By Rome IV it might still count, since that framework asks about recurrent prolonged crying without an apparent cause rather than a stopwatch total. Either way, an hour of daily fussing in a thriving baby is within normal newborn behavior.
Sources
- Colic — American Academy of Pediatrics (HealthyChildren.org)
- Infantile Colic — StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf (National Library of Medicine)
Written by Lucas Silva · Reviewed by Lucas Silva · Updated on August 14, 2026