Colic: What it is and How to Treat It
Chances are when your baby was delivered he was crying. At the time it was music to your ears because you knew he was alive and well. And maybe for the first few weeks you handled baby crying pretty well since you know all babies cry and usually a pacifier, mommy’s nipple or a bottle could quell his fussy tantrums. But what if your baby wails uncontrollably for three hours or more at a time and nothing seems to keep him quiet? If this syndrome is happening in your household chances are your baby may have colic.
No word can strike fear in the hearts of parents more than colic. Most people have frayed nerves after only 20 minutes of a baby crying but colic is defined as a baby’s uncontrollable crying for more than three hours a day, more than three days a week for over three weeks. It occurs even when your baby has been well fed, is clean and has diaper changes regularly and otherwise appears to be healthy. Unfortunately doctors still aren’t sure what causes colic because everything else seems to be normal.
This frustrating condition usually starts to appear in the first few weeks after delivery and will normally go away after three months. Since there is no real understanding of what causes colic there is no simple cure for it. But that doesn’t mean you have to lose your mind listening to your baby wail.
Your first step in dealing with colic is to tag in a partner. Relax, you are not abandoning your baby or running away from a problem. Colic can drive even the most patient person to pull his hair out. Having a partner, a relative or a good friend step in and hold the baby for an hour or two so you can re-energize is the best thing for your own rattled nerves. This also keeps the baby in motion, active and cuddled, which are other suggestions for getting a wailing infant to calm down. Naturally you will want to try feeding and nursing the baby more to see if keeping his mouth occupied will cause his crying to stop.
Another suggestion is to either sing to your baby to see if a gentle, cooing voice will soothe his temper or to even provide background white noise that can often induce sleep in most children and even adults. This is not to suggest blasting a stereo to drown out his crying but rather provide a distraction that may turn his attention away for enough time so that everyone can relax.
No one technique will solve colic. Many doctors and pediatrics suggest trying a mix of cuddling, feeding, white noise and turns handling a crying baby to see if together it can’t maybe solve the problem. Colic is like a freak storm, it comes without warning, wreaks havoc and then leaves. If after three or more weeks your baby is still crying without cause then it’s time to call the doctor and find out if there may be an underlying problem you are not aware of.