Overcoming “colic” our success story

I have been hesitant to post this because it almost seems too good to be true. Ridlee is 7 weeks old and since 2 weeks she has definitely met the requirements for “colic”. She is our 5^th child, but the first with colic. Every night starting around 6:30 her witching hour would begin, sometimes lasting until 1:30 but not earlier than 11:30. Each night I tried everything to comfort her. She refused to nurse unless absolutely starving, refused to take paci, hated to be rocked, hated her swing, hated the car seat, wormed her way out of my ring sling screaming, and cried almost non-stop.  The only thing that seemed to work was me bouncing on the yoga ball with her for hours. If I stopped for a second she would scream. My back was killing me by the end of each night. When she finally went out for the night, she slept great. I cosleep and she lay right next to me only waking maybe two times to nurse. During the day, she was a normal baby. She was happy, smiling, cooing, nursing on demand, only crying for normal issues and not for long at all. Each night by the end I felt like a failure. I would ask Steven for help and let him take her for 10 minutes only before feeling so guilty that I had to take over. I felt it was my duty to comfort her.

This past week I went into research mode to figure this thing out, at least for her. I am a fixer by nature. Being a therapist only makes it worse. I know each baby is different. But I was going to figure hers out. With the help of my midwife I came up with a game plan and literally within 24 hours of putting it into action I had a new baby, or my happy baby anyways.

Here is what worked for us:

1.       Got rid of everything cow’s milk. While I have tried this here and there, I admit I struggled with accepting it to blame because, well this being my 5^th child, I never had issues with my diet affecting them before.  This meant also giving up my daily coffee, being I only drink lattes. This has by far been the hardest part.

2.       I replaced my good ol’ trusty ring sling with a Moby wrap. She literally fought so hard when crying she would start coming out the bottom of my sling. From the moment I put her in the Moby it’s been heaven. I admit I wear it most of the day. I am short so the length of the fabric can be tedious to undo and do over and over again. But worth it. She might whine a bit at first but soon cozies up and is fine.

3.       My midwife owns a natural shop that has an apothecary (also got the Moby there too).  She sells tinctures of all kinds made by another local herbalist/midwife. She recommended this one tincture called Children’s Tranquility. The main ingredients being catnip and chamomile. Both of which, after researching, are found to help ease colic. Many sites even explain how to make catnip tea for babies. The tincture literally is one tiny drop per 5 pounds. Being she is only 8.5 pounds I only gave her one drop when she starts crying at 6:30. And that’s it. No more any other time.

And that’s it! It’s been 4 days and no issues since starting this. I can’t say if it’s one specific thing or a combo of all three. But I am not going back on one to see. Tonight was the ultimate test, because it is the night I work the latest seeing clients. Steven wore Ridlee in the Moby and she did cry a little more than she does with me, but still not her colic cry. And when I got home, she quickly calmed and went to sleep nursing, instead of fighting me, which she has done in the past. She is even sitting quietly on me as I type this, awake and just looking around. Again I know all babies are different, but I wanted to share my experience that some cases can have happy endings.  Just don’t give up trying.