How We Battled Colic and Won

Our son looked like an absolute angel when he was born. That peace shortly ended, however, and we found ourselves faced with a newborn that was absolutely impossible to please. My husband and I would burp, change, and feed to no avail - the wails would go on and on.

We didn't know what was wrong with our baby. We took him to our pediatrician only to be told that such behavior was normal. Someone suggested that our son may have colic, but his pediatrician assured us that there was no such thing. Despite her advice, I went ahead and tried purchasing gripe water (a homeopathic remedy for colic) and giving it to him. Sometimes it seemed to work like magic, but a few minutes later he would start crying again, and we could not afford to provide all the gripe water that it would take to keep him content. Not to be defeated, I tried making our own gripe water out of the various teas I saw recommended on the internet: peppermint, chamomile, catnip, etc. None of these worked at all.

Since his tummy would get tight sometimes, I thought that perhaps it was gas. That was when I purchased simethicone infant drops (such as Mylicon) and tried administering these to him. While they helped sometimes when he was crying due to a stubborn gas bubble, they still didn't stop the periods of time where he just writhed, cried, and screamed for hours on end for no apparent reason. It was then that I read that arching his back may be a sign of acid reflux.

That was when I started mixing formula with breast feeding. I tried every formula out there that was marketed for gassy babies or babies with acid reflux. While I did settle on Enfamil Gentlease because it made him less likely to be gassy, I still wasn't able to stop the unexplained crying fits.

After the passing of some time, I came to suspect that our son was crying because he had what I nicknamed "information overload". He was a very emotional and curious baby that soaked up as much as he could of everything around him, and it seemed like when he had particularly stimulating days, the crying fit he threw in the evenings would be worse and last a longer period of time. Since I had read that newborns liked things that simulated the womb, I started trying womb simulation techniques to make him feel at home.

At first, we just tried one technique at a time. We became pros at swaddling, bouncing, and rocking him. I gained a large collection of music that seemed to help calm him. After a month, we started offering him a pacifier. All of these methods worked... for a while. But eventually he grew tired of all of them and the crying went on.

One day it occurred to me to try combining all of the methods I had learned to provide him a more complete simulation of being in the womb. When he started crying that day, I swaddled him, gave him a pacifier, and then put him in his swing with some of his favorite music playing. It wasn't long before he fell sound asleep. I wondered what we do if he grew tired of this method too, but he never did - it continued to work effectively day after day. I added changes to the routine - some days I would rock or bounce him instead of putting him in his swing, or turn on the vacuum cleaner and place it nearby instead of playing music (which is considered white noise). Despite these changes, our son still would calm down every time. I even started to use this method to keep him calm during feedings, since often the sight of me getting my breast out for him sent him in to frenzy. I received criticism for the method we were using:
"You're going to spoil him!"
"It will take forever to break him out of using his pacificier!"
"You shouldn't let him sleep in the swing!"
"Babies like to be free and move about! They don't like to be bundled up!"
"That music is horrible! Why on earth do you play it? Turn it off!"

When our son was three months old, a book was given to me by the name of The Happiest Baby on the Block. It was written by the pediatrician Harvey Karp. This book explained that there really wasn't such a thing as colic, and the reason why some babies cried unexplainably was because they were "born three months early" - that is to say, they just weren't psychologically ready to face the world. He went further to explain that some babies became easily irritated and/or overwhelmed, and these were the babies that often got pegged with the term "colicky". I also found out for the first time why we never hear of babies having colic in the past. I was then shocked to find that this pediatrician recommended a method that was extremely similar to what I and my husband had learned to do in order to calm our baby's crying. He not only recommended a similar method, but had a wealth of tips to make our swaddling, bouncing, rocking, and other actions more effective.

I wish I had come across this book when our son was younger. It would have saved us so much heartache, tears, and frustration. Now I try to make sure I recommend this book to any new parent I come across. Many of them have found it to be as much of an invaluable tool as I have. The advice contained with in it truly does make your baby "the happiest baby on the block" - and helps you to understand the psychology of your precious newborn's mind, making bonding easier and more possible than ever before. If you are about to or have just added a new addition to your family, this is a book you don't want to miss from your bookshelf.