tips for a colicky baby

Your baby is perfect, well almost, if they would just stop crying.  It's a new mothers nightmare to have a perfectly healthy baby and not know why or how to make their fussy colicky baby comfortable.  I have lived through a baby with colic, and can tell you that it gets better, and you will barely remember how bad it was in the beginning.  But looking back there where some things that helped out with the fussiness, and consoled my baby more throughout her tough times.  Here are the things that worked for us:

What is colic?

Colic is when you have an inconsolable baby that cries for long periods of time or is fussy during parts of the day, usually after feedings.  They usually have a large distended stomach, gas problems, foul smelling poopies, and are irritable, restless, and just plain uncomfortable. 

There cries are frequent, loud, ear piercing, and high pitched.  They might arch their back, fling their arms back, and stiffen up while crying to the point where it is impossible to cradle hold them.  It is hard to get them to calm down, or stay happy for long periods of time seeming like you are having to work constantly at keeping them content.

The causes can be a number of things including gas, over stimulation, allergies, acid reflux, and air intake or bubbles from eating or crying. 

Does it go away?

From what we read on, and gathered from out pediatrician, yes it usually always simmers down within a couple months of birth, usually completely gone by 4 months, but can sometimes last to 6 months depending on the severity. 

In the meantime, be patient, get support, and know that your little one will get through this, and so will you.  It is ok to have bad days, it's ok to feel overwhelmed.  Make time for yourself, take a deap breath and relax.  Take it day by day, or sometimes hour by hour.  If you ever do feel like you are about to loose control, put your baby down in a safe place, walk away and take several minutes to get yourself back together before going back to your baby.  And remember, your not alone, about 25% of babies fit the definition of colic!

Things we personally did that made our daughter more comfortable:

My husband and I swear by gas drops.  They were the number one thing that seemed to make her burb good, and cleared some of the gas up.  Gas drops are safe for infants from day one, and can be used in every bottle.  The store brand works just as good as mylicon too, and half the price!

Special bottles.  We've tried just about all the new name brand bottles out there for both of our daughters, and only one seemed to work right.  The Dr Brown bottles where the only bottles that our little one was able to latch onto right.   The constant air flow allowed her to continuosly suck without colapsing the nipple or getting air bubbles into the bottle.  The only downside to them was the cleaning of all the extra parts.  But well worth it.

The right blanket for swaddling.  We used the thermal waffle blankets because they had a little stretch to them which enabled us to get that swaddle a little tighter making her feel more secure.  This was the only way our daughter would sleep for the first 4 months of her life.  She had to be swaddled tightly with her arms down. 

A swing, and vibrating bouncer allowed us to take showers and wash bottles.  It didn't work for long, but did the job so we could have some free hands for several minutes!

After about 1 month we switched formula to enfamil gentilease which had smaller broken down proteins and 1/5 of the lactose of normal formula.  This was probably one of the best things we did for her because within one week her stomach was less bloated and she was more regular with bowel movements.

Ways we calmed her:

Holding her was almost always a must for her to be content and even that wasn't good enough, so sometimes we had to be creative with things.  We used the blow dryer, the vacum, the vent on the top of the stove, took car rides, rocked her, sang to her, hummed.   Sometimes, clapping, or making weird crazy never before made noises would distract her and make her calm down,  other times soft massages would work.  It was always something different, but it all got better.

Our outcome:

Our youngest daughter that suffered from colic was born at 39 1/2 weeks, she started geting colicky around 3 weeks, and it was tough.  So tough that looking back, I really can't remember probably because I was so sleep deprived and restless myself.    Her colic starting improving at around 2 months and was completely gone by 3 months.  It just started tapering off, where there would be more good days than bad, and then no bad days at all.  But I can proudly say that we lived through it, and she is now a very happy content 6 month old baby.