when colic comes a calling…
While I was pregnant with my second child, I told myself a story about what postpartum was going to be like. I was an experienced mom of a toddler and had been “through it all”. My husband was working for a new company that allowed him to take 3 months of paid maternity leave, so he was going to be home with me. Postpartum this time around was going to be a breeze, a vacation almost! My husband and I spent time talking about the long walks we would take with the new baby, how we would give each other time to work on personal projects during maternity leave, and how easy sleep would be now that I was a certified sleep consultant.
The first two weeks after my son was born were pretty magical. He was born in October, but the weather was unseasonably warm. We spent many sunny afternoons nursing on the front porch and enjoying a mild breeze. Art slept almost all day, waking only to nurse. He was a snuggly, sleepy little angel. And then we hit the end of week two and it was like a bomb went off in our house. Suddenly Art went from napping two hour stretches to napping for about 40 minutes. When he wasn’t sleeping or napping he was screaming; earsplitting cries. He was extremely gassy, oftentimes his belly would be rock hard, and he would be arching his back in pain. I felt totally lost as to how to console him. Oftentimes there was nothing I could do but swaddle him as tightly as I could and rock him, while holding a pacifier in his mouth until he would finally pass out. Then he would wake up and we’d repeat the whole scenario.
It broke my heart when we were trying to eat dinner and he would be crying, and my toddler would say “it’s too loud mommy!”. It broke me to see him in pain. I started to do any and everything I could think of to find a solution to my poor collicky baby. In this series of blog posts I’ll share with you all the things our family tried to help our collicky boy, some that worked, and some that didn’t. I’ll talk about the products, practices, and medical interventions we tried.
While it has gotten easier, Art is 4 months old now, and he is still a difficult baby. Everyone told me colic goes away by 12 weeks, but we’re still experiencing phases of inconsolable crying. I have to remind myself “it’s not forever, it’s just for now”. If you’re in the thick of it too, I hope you’ll follow along on this journey with me!
