Your Baby Has Colic

The first week I was home with my baby girl, my mom was there helping me every moment, and I was on pain killers for my c-section. I was a pretty happy new mommy. Then, my mom went home. The next few weeks were complete and utter horror for me. Here's what happened.

The second week my dear daughter and I were home alone together, she would never stop crying. We were having some trouble breastfeeding, and she wanted to eat every hour for at least 45 minutes. I was feeling trapped, and very lonely, and I was in a ton of pain from trying to get used to the breastfeeding. One day going into her third week of life with me, she literally would not stop crying for a straight 11 hours. I called my sister in tears. I had put my baby girl in her crib, shut her door and went outside and just started crying. I didn't know what to do for her. I had tried feeding her, changing her, I checked her temperature, she was fine, I changed her clothes thinking they were uncomfortable, I tried leaving her alone... nothing worked. My sister came over that night at 11pm and rescued me. As soon as she picked up my dear daughter, she stopped crying. Then I started crying again! I felt like a failure as a mother, I couldn't take care of my daughter, I thought I wasn't feeding her enough, or holding her right. Really I felt like the worst mother on planet earth. So I made an appointment with her doctor. She couldn't find anything wrong with my daughter so she called it colic. The next few weeks, everything stayed the same.

I stuffed everything down my daughter's throat the doctor told me to. Colic tablets, and gripe water galore, nothing seemed to ease her. I went in to my doctor for my postpartum check up and just broke down with her. She gave me a hug and told me that she thinks I might have postpartum depression. So she starts me off on an anti-depressant.

Now I'm a happy singing playing cuddling glorious mother I always thought I could be, and my baby is the happiest baby on the block. She knew there was something wrong with me before I did.

Now I'm not implying that every baby diagnosed with colic is just a result of a depressed mother, but just don't forget to look at the whole situation.