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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that people are lying when they say BF babies do not get colic

75 replies

ErikaMaye · 26/12/2009 02:22

weeps in desperation Infacol not working. Colief not working. Have tried everything. Can I have a magical cure please, oh wise MN?? sleep deprived ramblings

OP posts:
MaggieAnFiaRua · 26/12/2009 10:34

no you're not lying and no yanbu!!

i breastfed both of my children for over a year, but jaysus i hate people who give mums grief for giving their baby a bottle!!!! fuck off-- take a step back

MaggieAnFiaRua · 26/12/2009 10:35

oh yeah subtitles a good one. i watch tv with subtitles for years!

iamaLeafontheWind · 26/12/2009 10:59

Walking in a sling, calms them down & helps with your fitness (I had to repeat this grimly to myself when walking in the cold at 10pm).

CaptainNancy · 26/12/2009 11:05

Nothing worked on my first one I'm afraid. Try and get as much help as you can from others- any break you can get is good.
2nd baby- no caffeine, fennel tea, no OJ, no dairy, sling lots... he had no colic, but could be he wasn't going to have it anyway.

It's hard, and you have my sympathy, but it WILL pass, things will get better.

serenity · 26/12/2009 11:10

All mine did this like clockwork and were bf'd. They'd hit 4 weeks and then we'd have hysterical evening crying fits until around 12 weeks. DS1 was the worst because I had no idea what to do, how long it would go on, or how to cope. FWIW, I think it's a developmental thing (infacol, gripe water had no effect for me, but felt like I was doing something!) it just seems so odd that so many babies do exactly the same thing at exactly the same age!

I coped with DS2 and DD by counting down until 12 weeks (although hated 'wishing away' them being tiny babies) and trying to really enjoy the nonscreaming bits!

MrFibble · 26/12/2009 11:11

My DD had fearful colic. I tried all sorts of things but the thing that worked was cutting egg out from my diet. It turns out that she has an egg allergy. She's now 6 and still gets skin flareups if she eats too much egg.

Hope it gets better for you soon. I've been there and it's not fun but it will pass eventually. Make sure you get a break and get away occasionally as it will help with your sanity levels.

sunburntats · 26/12/2009 11:13

fucking liers all of them.
Mine was 5 weeks till he was 14 weeks, screaming his tree off, me rocking like a nutter not knowing waht to do...infacol did nothing. Compltely breast fed.

Desperate and very dark times, HUGE sympathies.

MrsSantosnotSanta · 26/12/2009 11:23

DC1 bf and awful colic
DC2 bf and none

Used the vacuum cleaner to soothe her. Put earplugs in while it was really bad just to take the edge off the dreadful noise while I held DC1. Tried baby massage and cranial osteopathy too - not sure they helped other than feeling I was doing something.

If you have anyone who can take the baby for a bit to give you a break that would be good but not all of us have someone to do that.

It is an unhelpful myth that you have heard. Anyone who actually knows anything about bf will confirm (AFAIK) that bf or bottle fed babies are equally likely to suffer from colic.

Poor you I hope things pick up soon.

FolornHope · 26/12/2009 11:24

i dont belive in alternative therapy shit BUT cranial worked a treat for ds2

i had (at the time) undiagnosed pneumonia so was feeling pretty dire!!!

smugmumofboys · 26/12/2009 11:29

My ff DS1 had it terribly. What seemed to work for us was cranial osteopathy. Whether it really worked or we did it just as he was coming out of it anyway, we'll never know.

Might be worth a try? My midwife was quite pro iirc.

MaggieAnFiaRua · 26/12/2009 12:07

i believe in giving cranial osteopathy a go if it's free. if you have to pay for it you'll end up with colic.

ThumbleBells · 26/12/2009 12:19

Erika - sorry you're having a tough time - suggestions are:
drink fennel tea yourself and give cooled fennel tea to baby in a bottle in between feeds
do as others have suggested and cut out dairy as much as poss, plus spicy foods
fingertip tummy massage, gentle, in a clockwise direction, starting from just above the right groin and going up to ribs, across middle and down to left groin. Do this when baby does NOT have colic - it will be too sore when the colic is in full flow.
most important but costs money - cranial osteopathy with someone who specialises in babies - it can work wonders.

Good luck, email me if you want to (thumbwitch)

peacocks · 26/12/2009 12:24

have a tip for soothing squawking but not necessarily colic squawking

you know the rocking and the walking that you have to do, well I found that bouncing up and down on the bed helped

like, holding really tight and they bounce (gently lol) with you not up and down against your body

just like rocking in a crib except they're against your body but not moving against your body

hocuspontas · 26/12/2009 12:33

Erika - hang in there!

bf dd2 screamed from birth till about 8 weeks for what seemed like 24 hours a day.

Others held her, rocked her etc while I wept in a corner.

Our saviour was a tape of white noise. This originally just calmed her but after 2 months just switching it on sent her to sleep immediately!

Lol at subtitles! I'd forgotten about that!

LeninExcelsis · 26/12/2009 14:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sparklycheerymummy · 26/12/2009 14:32

think we re just heading towards the drkness that is colic....or bad wind. ds is 2 weeks and seems to cry when awake...... he is bf and 10lb 13ozs now so maybe he just genuinely hungry. so far swaddling ad quietness helps. he is very attentive..... constantly looking at shadows an d faces and think he gets over stimulated. i have no idea why they get it........ does anyone actually know the cause...... is it something i have done while pregnant??!!

LeninExcelsis · 26/12/2009 14:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sparklycheerymummy · 26/12/2009 15:00

so glad i found this thread..... am looking to contact la leche league...... not something i thought i would ever do but really want to continue....... am going to try hand expressing the first gush of milk as the first bit tends to come really quickly for him and it squirts him in the face!!!!

LeninExcelsis · 26/12/2009 15:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Mishy1234 · 26/12/2009 15:40

YANBU, of course bf babies get colic!

This may have already been suggested, but have you tried the 'tiger in the tree' hold. You kind of lie your baby across your forearm with your hands around the tummy area. You don't put a lot of pressure on their tummy, just the natural pressure from their bodyweight sometimes helps.

You have my sympathy, it's absolutely miserable but it does pass.

issysmilkbottle · 26/12/2009 15:42

we're in the middle of this too at the moment, we're trying the low stimulation method at the moment, busy day = colicky dd....

Good luck!

BouncingTurtle · 26/12/2009 17:41

Yes they are indeed lying.

Poor you! Hope you have some good ideas here!

JemL · 26/12/2009 19:04

apparently, BF babies get worse colic than bottlefed babies because the amount of air they take in while feeding is in smaller gulps - makes it harder to wind out of them than big gulps babies tend to get from a bottle. As you can probably guess DS1 had horrendous colic!

Nothing made any real difference, unfortunately, just waiting for it to pass. Good luck!

BlauerWeihnachtsengel · 26/12/2009 19:53

DD1 had horrific colic until she about 12 weeks old. Basically she alternated feeding and screaming, interspersed with an occasional nap from sheer exhaustion. Her record was 30 hours with no sustained sleep. Luckily DH was off work at the time so we were able to divide it up into shifts, but we were still wrecked by the end of it. It's the main reason there's nearly 4 years between the two DDs - it took us that long to get over the trauma and realise that not every child is so extreme (and indeed DD2 was more placid).

Techniques tried:

little drops in bottle, infacol-like stuff - useless
fennel, aniseed and caraway seed tea (v. popular in Germany for tummy troubles - drunk by me in stupendous quantities, don't know if it had any effect, but at least it encouraged me to drink enough liquids for the milk production
baby massage, we went on a course - didn't seem to have any effect
walking round in very tightly-bound cloth sling - v. effective but v. tiring
singing made-up songs in aforementioned sling - even more tiring
bouncing up and down on gymnastic ball - favoured by DH at 3am while watching all-night news - v. effective while it was going on but led to immediate screaming when it stopped, probably due to overstimulation.

This was 11 years ago, and nobody mentioned a possible dairy intolerance back then. I would definitely have tried cutting out dairy if I had known, although DD seems to tolerate it fine now.

Best of luck with sorting it out. It will come to an end soon, when your screaming monster will be replaced with a gurgling angel.

MumNWLondon · 26/12/2009 21:13

DD (BF) had it and we found that that overstimulation was a major contributing factor - colic stopped when we started following gina ford as closely as we could.