40 answers

Help with Colicky Baby

Hey Moms,
You guys always have the most creative ideas so I thought I'd ask for some help. My daughter is 4 weeks old and suffering from colic and has been since she was a week old. Some nights not so bad just 7 or 8 til 10:30. Other nights her head spins and my husband and I want to pull each other's hair out (7 or 8 til 3am). She is exclusively breast fed. I have changed to switching from regular milk to lactose free milk which helped with my son. That helped 2 nights and were back to before. I bought he "happi tummy" band and that worked one night. We've tried different holds, some work temporarily then were back to square one. We've tried Milacon with every feeding. We've tried gripe water. We've tried having her sleep in a car seat, a swing, a bassinet, and a glider. I do hear her intake some air when she feeds sometimes but try to burp her and get burps but obviously not enough. So my questions are: Any ideas how to not let her intake so much air when she feeds? And I'm looking for creative but tried and true ways you swear worked for your kids to get rid of the colic. I'm forever in your debt.

1 mom found this helpful

What can I do next?

Featured Answers

I would go with the book Happiest Baby on the Block. It worked wonders for my colicky first and my refluxy second and third. I also used the cd For Crying Out Loud for all of them if they needed calming down. The crazy loud vacuum cleaner and blow dryer sounds really helped. Good luck. We all know that this too shall pass, but it's really hard until it does!

1 mom found this helpful

I sympathize - my firstborn had terrible colic when he was a baby - people don't understand who haven't been through it! We had luck with the Dr. Brown bottles...the white noise worked well, too.

More Answers

Been there done that. When my son was very young we went through the same thing. I watched everything i ate, we took him to a chiropractor, tried message, warm packs, you name it we tried it. He was such a good baby other wise. But when we took him to our doctor I got an eye opener. There was nothing wrong with our son, there was nothing wrong with what I ate, it was my nerves causing the colic. I said what?? I am not nervous, this mom thing is great. My son was such a good baby. As we talked he asked me a number of questions and it turned out I suffer anxiety. I did not believe him but I could not see it or understand what he was talking about. So at 4 months I decided to stop breast feeding instead of addressing what the doctor had said. My son is now 19 years old but back about 4 years ago I started have server panic and anxiety attacks. My Dr. (not the same dr.) said you have probably been suffering from anxiety since you were a teenager and it just has started to really surface. I could not believe what she was say. I now think about the fact that if i would have listen to the doctor 15 years earlier I could have continued to nurse my son for a lot longer. I now take medication and the problem is solved.
So discuss with your doctor about your stress level because now I know that we as mothers can pass our stress to our babies through breast feeding.

Just a thought.
S.

2 moms found this helpful

Hi K.!
I feel your pain!! My daughter (who is now 18 months) sounds exactly like your daughter. On her worst nights, she'd be up screaming non-stop from 6 pm - 4 am, unless she was constantly nursing, and even that didn't always work. I wish I had a magic cure for you, but I don't. What we did find helped the most was using her swing in combination with white noise. We'd put her in her swing and than play a CD we purchased that was simply a recording of a vacuum cleaner being run. We'd crank the volume up and put it on repeat. This did seem to help some; she'd even fall a sleep for half-hour stretches at a time. Other times, I had to run the actual vacuum cleaner (plus side to that: very clean carpets!!). Hang in there. Colicky babies are so tough (I'm due in 2 months with my 2nd, and I'm just praying he's not colicky, too!!). Just to give you hope ... my daughter outgrew her colick by around 2 months, and from that point on, she has been a happy, contented little girl and a WONDERFUL sleeper (12 hours a night, straight through, since she was only a few months old). So, colikcy newborns don't equal difficult babies or bad sleepers. Just try to hang in there and wait it out. This, too, shall pass! :-)

2 moms found this helpful

Hi K.. Colic is not always caused by something. My daughter was colicky and it had nothing to do with any medical/formula/breastmilk/feeding issues. Some babies are just colicky for no reason whatsoever. And, unfortunately, we could not get rid of the colic -- she just simply had to outgrow it. I know this is not the news you want to hear...and I hope some of the other Moms' advice is helpful to you. But if the other advice doesn't help, please know that there is nothing "wrong" with your baby!

It was a very trying, disruptive and relatively unhappy time...but it does end. We did find some help to temporarily stop the constant crying by using the 5 S's approach from "Happiest Baby on the Block," and by letting her sleep in her swing.

Our Pediatrician told us, "When you bring her in for her 4 month check-up, she will be a completely different baby." And she was! It was as if one day around 3 1/2 months old, she woke up happy and the colic was gone -- never to return again!

Best wishes!

2 moms found this helpful

K.,

you poor thing! I feel so bad for you! I guess she'll out grow it. poor momma, and baby. i always give fussy baby a nice warm bath.. and swaddle em good after that. maybe a calming cd... car ride? god bless you guys... If people are willing to take a night shift for you to get some rest take them up on it! it usually is over by 3 months.

D.

1 mom found this helpful

K., I feel your pain!! My 2nd daughter, Marianne, was colicky for 6 months!!! I thought I was going to pull my hair out and go screaming into the night. It was AWFUL! She only responded to me singing "You are my Sunshine" over and over and over in her ear. I tried everything but nothing helped. If there is a lucky side to colic, she was colicky during the day so I at least got to sleep. I was conviced people ran and locked their doors when they saw us coming. She HATED the carseat and we finally hit what worked with her swing, BUT only going side to side, she hated the front to back motion. Have you tried that? I also developed something I call the "Marianne bounce", Standing up, I faced her outward with one had under her bottom like a seat and the other blocking her chest area from falling. And we walked, and walked and walked.

If it helps at all, she is an AWESOME little girl and by the way....she loves to sing.

Let me know if any of that works or if you need to vent I've been there, the guilt I felt for wanting to run was incredible.....but we love out kids screaming or laughing. BEST OF LUCK!

1 mom found this helpful

My 1st son had colic, caused in part from acid reflux. We had him on Zantac and, eventually, he grew out of the reflux and the colic.

My 2nd son is now 3.5 months old and is also colicky, although he does not have any digestive/medical cause for it. He simply craves the feeling of the womb. Like a few others recommended, I HIGHLY endorse the book "The Happiest Baby on the Block" by Dr. Harvey Karp. I was pretty skeptical about it, but his techniques REALLY work.

Assuming that the baby is not hungry, wet, bored, or has a burp, the techniques in the book I am very confident, will soothe any baby to sleep. Basically what we do for my son is as follows... When we notice that he is becoming tired I immediately swaddle him VERY tightly, with both arms straight down by his sides so that he can't wiggle free. Most of the time the simple act of swaddling him calms him 90% of the way down. I pick him up in my arms and cradle him, holding him tightly against my body. Then I go into the bathroom and turn on the exhaust fan (his preferred source of white noise) -- our bathrooms all have separate switches for the fans and lights, so the bathroom is nice and dark. While holding him I rapidly twist my torso from side to side. Most of the time this is the motion that soothes him and lulls him to sleep. If not, I also have found success with doing variations of bouncing. I do 3 gentle bounces with my knees, and then a deep knee plunge...and repeat until he's quiet. I usually do not need to have him suck on a pacifier or bottle for him to go to sleep, but some babies do need to suck as well.

Once he is calm, I continue the calming motions for a few minutes to help him get into a deeper sleep. If I am putting him down for the night, I then go into his room and turn on a fan (aimed at the wall -- not at the baby), and lie him down in his crib. If I am just putting him down for a nap, I put him in his Fisher Price cradle swing and turn the sound feature to the crashing waves sound.

I was SOOOO stressed out by his colic before I read the book and implemented the techniques, especially since my husband does not get home from work until late every night and I am usually the one to put both our kids to sleep.

I'm sure the techniques in the book will work! GOOD LUCK TO YOU!

1 mom found this helpful

I would go with the book Happiest Baby on the Block. It worked wonders for my colicky first and my refluxy second and third. I also used the cd For Crying Out Loud for all of them if they needed calming down. The crazy loud vacuum cleaner and blow dryer sounds really helped. Good luck. We all know that this too shall pass, but it's really hard until it does!

1 mom found this helpful

Read, re-read, and then read again Mom LK's post!

We took our son to the doctor and had him all checked out for reflux, disease, you name it. We fed breastmilk. I changed my diet. I stopped eating this and started eating that. We swaddled, we swung, we shushed, we side-laid. We used Mylicon drops. We burped til we heard the thunderous belch. We had him sleep on an elevated wedge. We started chanting special ritual rhythms (I'm just kidding...)

I think you get my point that we tried everything under the sun - and not just once of twice, we gave several shots at each technique - and nothing really seemed to quell the colic except for TIME.

Everyone said that around 12-14 weeks the colic would just stop like turning off a switch. I started counting down. And, what do you know? Just like that it stopped. No rhyme or reason.

We lived 14 weeks with ALL DAY crying so my heart totally goes out to you. Keep doing the best you can to try to soothe your baby but also make sure that you are taking time our for yourself (without the baby) so you don't go insane.

The people who scold you and make you feel badly saying things like "You're doing something wrong! Babies don't cry for no reason at all!" well, don't listen to them! Just know that although you may feel trapped in your own nightmare, it will end and things WILL get better.

Hopefully something will work for you and I HOPE and PRAY it does. But if not, know that in time it will eventually cease.

Good luck - colic is plain cruel for a new baby and parent.

1 mom found this helpful

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