Stop Colic Cold!

Okay, so it's settled: your baby has colic. She screams all day and all night for no apparent reason, throwing up all over the place as if she was possessed, waking you and your spouse up every half-hour, and wouldn't be comforted for anything! She just seems to hate life (and you), cursing out the world, and out to get revenge for something.

You try rocking her, shushing her, singing, rubbing, bathing, car riding, playing soft music, anything you could think of. You sit the little rascal on the dryer hoping that the vibration would shut her up. All of your efforts failed. The doctor tells you to just deal with it, because she would eventually out-grow it. Friends and family keep giving you useless advice, all the books you've read just tell you that your child is normal and everything would be fine, and leaving your baby to "cry it out" just seems to make things worst. You feel powerless, as if God was still punishing you for that thing you did in middle school that you forgot about.

Yes, you've tried it all, dang it! You were even tempted to drug your baby with sleep medication, but you didn't want to be responsible for any future addictions she might have. So, you did what Carrie Underwood sang about and let "Jesus take the wheel."

Have you ever consider that perhaps the real problem is not so much the colic as it is your efforts to comfort your baby? No, I'm not saying that everything's your fault (well, at least the colic part isn't), but I do believe that we contribute more to the problem than we realize. Stay with me now!

Before I go on, let's first look at the definition of colic. At first, it was believed to be a digestive problem, but now doctors just don't know what causes it. It's define as excessive crying for unknown reasons that last about three hours a day, three times a week for three months. Colic usually is over with by the time the child is six months if not sooner. Yes, it could be a very traumatic time for parents, even scary when you don't know why your baby is acting so horribly.

But keep this mind, parents: although the problem isn't obvious, babies do not cry for no reason. It's frustrating for both you and your baby since the baby can't talk and you're left with guessing. Your baby is troubled by something, so don't think that your baby just lost her mind or that she's just trying to be difficult.

So as a man writing about colic, my approach is not gear towards emotions, trying to feel out your baby, trying to think what the baby is thinking, etc. When you're sleep-deprived and on the verge of losing it, you need to get results. So I have here some suggestions that you should seriously consider when dealing with so-called colicky babies. Tough times call for tough measures, and instead of just living with the burden, let's try to get rid of it!

Babies cry for several main reasons: pain, hunger, sleepiness, over stimulation, discomfort, and being too cold or too hot. Let's go over each of these main problems.

Pain. Gas could cause a bit of pain in babies. Babies have a bit of trouble getting the gas out themselves, so they need us to either rub or pat their backs. The gas would either come out as a burp or a fart (and sometimes a little more than a fart). I actually rubbed my daughter's back by placing her on my lap, and man, that did wonders. She would burp, fart, poop, throw up and everything in that position!

Your baby's digestive tract is still developing, and since it has never processed food before, it needs a little time to get broken in. So, your baby may have problems digestion milk or formula, which may cause some pain.

Constipation would definitely cause pain. If you baby's boo-boo is a bit harder than usual, then it's constipation. If she's pooping more frequently but in less quantity, as if she's pooping bits and pieces every few hours, then she's constipated. Her doody should be nice and soft.

If you don't think it's a digestive problem, then strip your baby down and look her up and down to see if there's anything that could be causing some pain, such as hernias, bruises, insect bites, heavy rashes, etc. Remember that your baby's head may still be sensitive, so if you're always rubbing on it, putting head bands and hats on it, etc., you might be annoying the heck out of her.

Hunger. When was the last time you fed the sport? A good sign of hunger is when your baby is pounding on her stomach, as if she was saying, "Get in my belly!!" If you're breastfeeding, then your baby would get hungry quicker than formula-fed babies.

Sleepiness. Babies sleep a lot if you didn't notice. So, if you've been keeping your baby up all day, playing every sort of game there is with her, then she might be hinting that she's had enough. So put away the board games!

Over stimulation. Your baby is still getting used to a lot of things, so her nerves are pretty delicate. If you're living in a place where you have everything going on at once, having all the lights on, turning on all four of your television sets, blasting the music, and always having more than 12 people in the house at one time, then your baby's head is spinning so fast that she'll go into a freak-attack.

Some babies might be a bit too sensitive. Having all of the lights on might get her started. Too much talking and singing might get her started. Playing with her too much could be overbearing. Your baby needs her chill time too.

Discomfort. Do you have that diaper on so tight that she can't feel her legs? Does she sleep on her back or on her stomach? Many parents report that their babies cannot sleep on their backs. Yes, the SIDS thing, we all know about it. Sleeping on the back has been said to be linked to SIDS. The truth is, nobody knows what truly causes SIDS (otherwise, it wouldn't be called Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), and there are many other factors both known and unknown that contributes to this things. So, if your child is always waking up more times than she should, try different sleep positions to see if there's a difference. If there is, then you and your spouse would have to do what you both feel comfortable in doing as far as sleep positions go.

Car seats, snot in the nose, nasty diapers, these little things could cause some discomfort. Cradling too tightly, shaking too much, laying on their stomach or backs, being naked, taking baths, changing diapers or clothes, being tickled, teething, or just being touched a certain way, etc. At this young age, every little thing could be a big thing for babies.

Temperature. You don't have to bundle your child like a burrito all the time. Your baby may be hot! You don't always have to put them in both a onesie and a sleeper, with socks and hat on, and packaging them in a swaddler. If you haven't noticed, babies generate a lot of heat, so they would probably be naturally warmer than you. I would notice that my daughter would just get warm for no reason and she wouldn't be sick or over clothed. She just generated a lot of heat, so we had to be careful in how we dressed her during the day and the night when she sleeps. In the same way, you probably should put more on your baby besides a diaper. So, if you're the nudist type and want to teach your baby those same values, consider training her in the naturist lifestyle later when she could better regulate her temperature when she's naked.

Rule out emotional problems. Babies have not yet experience all the drama in life that you have to get any sort of emotional problems. She's not having boy troubles, mood swings, confusion, depression, or any of that other stuff you see pharmacists advertise on T.V. everyday. Your baby is not cursing you out, doesn't hate you, is not going crazy, or anything else that your spouse experiences with you. No, your baby is not ticked off at the world like you are, she just has a need that hasn't been met yet, so to get what she wants, she cries. So far, it's the only way she knows how to ask for stuff.

Now start evaluating your comforting techniques. When babies start to cry, what is one of the first things you do to calm them down? You pick them up, and if that doesn't work, you start to rock them. If that doesn't work, you start shushing them. And if that doesn't work, you start singing. Yes, and if that doesn't work, then you give the baby to somebody else.

At night when you're trying to put your baby to sleep, what do you do when your little bundle of joy (and sorrow) starts acting up? You start singing, rocking, reading, patting, or even try feeding. Letting her cry it out is driving you up the wall because she won't be quiet. Whenever my daughter started crying at night and my wife's efforts to comfort her failed, I took my daughter to the living room, rocked her while walking around, and it always put her to sleep -- until she wakes up again fussing, and I would find myself walking around with her again. Goodness, I can't keep walking around with this girl because I get tired too!

So, what do you do to fix the problem? Or could it be fixed? Well, let me say that in order to start fixing the problem, you should first stop trying so dang hard to soothe your baby! Take very small steps so that you could easily find the source of the problem. When you're rocking and rolling your baby and throwing them up in the air and singing off-key to them, all you're really doing is stressing both of you out and the problem never gets solved.

So, let's begin. Let's start out with night fussiness when your baby goes at it forever and leaving you with two hours of sleep. When she starts fussing and you know that all of her physical needs has been met, then cut off all the lights, all the radios, televisions, and block out everything that could give her any stimulation. If it's a full moon, close your blinds, and in addition, cover your babies eyes so she can't have anything to look at. Do not rock her, sing to her, shush her, talk, coo, or anything. Next, swaddle your baby so that she can't swing her arms and legs, which gives her move stimulation. Give your baby a pacifier if she'll take it (and she doesn't, then do what me and wife did and force her to take it -- believe me, she'll thank you later). Now hold the baby in place. If you must rock, do it very lightly, not roughly.

When she's quiet and at peace, place her in the crib or bassinet, but continue to hold her in place. Then quietly await for her to go to sleep. If she's in an uncomfortable position, she will not go to sleep or she won't be sleep for long, so put her in a position that's comfortable for her. Trying to train a baby to sleep in a certain position is almost a losing battle.

When she wakes up for a feeding, only feed her. Don't start playing with her! She needs to learn that when the lights are out, play time's over. Feed her quickly, don't change her diaper unless you absolutely have to or if you could do it tactfully without waking her up, and don't talk to her. No interaction whatsoever! And if possible, cover her eyes when you're feeding her just in case her eyes open. If she gets easily stimulated, then you'll have to battle with her once again. Unless you live in the sticks during a cloudy day and you don't believe in electricity, it will never get completely dark in your house, so you could still see things. If she has nothing to look at, she'll go right back to sleep.

Now let's go during the daytime when she starts acting up. Assuming that all of her needs have been met, turn off everything. Stop doing the dishes, close the blinds a bit, and hold her still. Even try putting her down just in case she wants to be left alone. That was the case with my daughter. One time while we were at a friend's house in New York, she was screaming up a storm. But when we put her down, and she almost immediately went to sleep.

My suggestion is to pay attention to the little things. Giving babies grip water, making stupid noses, burning gas by taking them for a country drive, walking around with them are all nothing more than distractions. Babies could be momentarily distracted from the real problem, but they would eventually realize that their true need hasn't been met, so they'll resort back to crying and screaming. Stop trying to distract her, because all you're doing is trying to put a muzzle on her. That's why we have pacifiers.

As a last resort, if all fails, then you could pull out your "secret weapon." Now, I don't advise anybody to do this unless they're self-controlled and know what they're doing. Remember that babies do eventually get tired, so when you can't seem to make that baby happy, then here is when you'll force her to be simply content and to make yourself happy.

When I got tired of always walking around with my daughter trying to put her to sleep, I resorted to putting the famous "sleeper hold" on her. My wife hated my tactic, but it worked every single time. First of all, I decided that I wasn't going to try to please this baby if I keep getting worn out. I decided to really put on my father's hat and became tougher on her. If she won't stop crying, then I would make her stop. This tactic would probably be best handled by dad than the mom, because we dads aren't as sensitive and emotional as moms are.

What I would do is to hold my daughter against my chest (not crushing her), cross my arms over her back so that I could restrict her from moving her arms and legs. I would sit still and would let her cry and struggle with all of her strength. She would be very agitated and would fight like a gorilla, and farting loud too (so if she had a gas problem, it was gone). After a few minutes, she would give up and go to sleep. She would be sleeping good, too! It would make my wife cry to either see or hear me putting the hold on my daughter, but she has to admit that we would get peace in that house afterward. It actually relieved a lot of stress from me, especially since I had my wife get uninterrupted sleep in the living room while I fought with the baby at nights.

One time, while my wife took over for me around 4AM, she fed our daughter and tried to put her back to sleep. I learned later that day that my daughter never went back to sleep! She was up from 4AM to around 9AM. My poor wife! I told her that I would have never let that baby stay up for that long. If it was me, that baby would have been sleep, so I decided that I would return back to doing complete night shifts while my wife did the day shifts. I would stay with my daughter at night while my wife gets well rested in the living room. Ain't I a good husband??

After doing this sleeper hold move a few times, my daughter eventually got the hint and started sleeping a lot longer at nights. She is even trained to the point where when the lights are out and I put her down, she prepares to go to sleep. She's only 5 months, and now she is smiles and sunshine, independent, full of personality, and has good muscular definition in her body, and is almost able to crawl! Perhaps the crawling part resulted from me choosing not to pick her up all the time and letting her cry it out so she could solve her own problems.

Yes, yes, many moms hate hearing their babies cry. I definitely understand, especially after knowing how helpless babies are. It's as if they're crying for help, like they're saying, "Please, please hold me, somebody! I'm scared!" But you see, that's where the dads come to push you moms out the way so they could deal with the situation. If my daughter really has nothing good to cry about, then I honestly wouldn't care how much she wails. Sometimes, babies just have to work it out, because there is only so much you could do. One of the best ways to comfort babies when all else fails is to leave them alone. Your comforting efforts might agitate them.

Now what about trust? Would babies actually learn not to trust you if you don't come a-runnin' every time they cry? How do you know when your baby doesn't trust you? Does she just sit there hungry wondering if she should cry or not? "Hmm...well, mommy didn't give me my bottle quick enough the last time, and her response times are getting longer and longer. How do I know that she won't just not show up when I cry this time?" Babies can't reason like we adults can. We don't know what's going on in a baby's mind, but what we do know is that as long as they have a need, they ain't going to keep in it. They will cry and not be ashame, no matter how many times we deny their request.

When there is just no obvious reason for a baby to cry like she was insane, what else can you do? Sometimes, you have to look the baby in the eye and say, "I'm sorry, but I can't help you. You have to fix this one on your own." Leave the baby in the room, step outside, cut on the T.V., and just chill out. Believe me, you're baby is not hurting when she cries.

Overall, though, solving the colic problem is up to you. You know your baby better than anybody else, so try to figure out what could be wrong rather than throwing in the towel and buying all these products that promise to solve colic. Sometimes, the best tactic is to let the problem work out itself, and it will. When it does work out, your baby will be much more enjoyable to be around. Remember, colic can be beat. You just have to be tough enough to step up to the challenge.