oliv: contents of my summary page are as follows:
Without wishing to jinx the huge progress Li'l Bhaji has made over the past few weeks, I thought it might be helpful to other parents of colicky babies to compile a list of things we've found helpful and have enabled us to survive.
The babe has been settled during the day for a while now, had settled evenings for 4 evenings in a row, and last night (for the first time in ages) slept with only two wakings for feeds and settled back easily. He's still a fairly high-needs baby and lots of work is needed to encourage him to get plenty of sleep, but I feel (touch wood) that we are out the other side of the worst of the colic symptoms.
Anyway, here's what we found useful. I hope it helps some other parents out there too. It's turned into a rather mammoth posting, didn't realise just how much we had tried over the last few weeks, so over to the extended entry section if you're interested...
MEDICAL
- Cranial Osteopathy - I can't stress enough just how good this has been for Li'l Bhaji. Many of the other things we tried didn't start to have any effect until after the second treatment (for example, white noise and motion). However, I should point out that it's not a miracle cure - he's still hard to settle, just streets away from the unconsolable crier he was. It's also not cheap. We've had three sessions (and will have one more in a few days time) which cost £32 for the first session and £25 for follow up sessions. If you go down this route, try and get a recommendation for a good osteopath who has plenty of experience with babies and young children. If you live near Worcester UK I can thoroughly recommend Peter Jones .
WEBSITES
-
Mumsnet is a great place to unwind and chat to other parents dealing with similar issues to you. There's been a great colic support thread on their message boards recently which has been extremely helpful and reassuring.
-
Colic Calmers - Dr Levy's Corner is one of the better FAQs I've found about what colic is.
FEEDING
-
I'm exclusively breastfeeding Li'l Bhaji, but he does have one bottle of expressed milk every evening. If you're formula feeding you may find this even more helpful: the Habermann Feeder . This bottle is specially designed to minimize air bubbles and is also easier for special needs babies to feed (I think it's supposed to more closely mimic how babies breastfeed too, gently dripping the milk through as they suck rather than give a constant flow).
-
The trick of getting a good burp. I'm currently collecting different burping methods and work my way through all of them in turn over about 5-10 mins just to make sure. I'm constantly amazed at just how many burps I can get out of one small baby! Here are the ones that worked for us:
a) Sitting upright on my knee with his chin held in my hand to keep him upright, rubbing his back in a circular motion with my other hand.
b) Leaning over my shoulder holding his bottom in one hand, rubbing his back in a circular motion with the other hand.
c) Lying across my legs on his tummy, rubbing his back in a circular motion with one hand (this one is his favourite - keeps emitting pleased little grunts and squeeks while I do it... very cute!)
d) Lying on his back while I bicycle his legs to help any airbubbles already in his digestive system out the other end!
-
Before each feed, I give him a squirt of Infacol which is supposed to help group all the air bubbles into bigger ones in his tummy, thus making it easier to bring up wind at the end of the feed.
-
I also suspect that there might be a little bit of reflux contributing to my babe's discomfort, so I try to keep him upright for about quarter of an hour after a feed just to make sure he has a headstart on the digestion process before he gets the excitement of kicking around on a mat or having toys thrown at him by his older sibling...
-
The jury is out on whether changing your diet while breastfeeding makes any difference to colic symptoms, but I did find that drinking orange juice did affect Li'l Bhaji for up to a day afterwards. Removing it from my diet helped us. I also added probiotic drinks to my diet as it was suggested that might also help the babe's tummy - there's certainly research that suggests that probiotics in the mother's diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding can significantly reduce the chances of the baby developing allergies - either way, it certainly doesn't hurt. Sylvia has also reminded me that multi-vitamin supplements in mum's diet can also be a common culprit and thinking about it, I've been forgetting to take them recently, so that's likely to have helped!
-
Spacing feeds when breastfeeding. Obviously it's important to feed the baby when he/she is hungry and not to space them out too far as this can affect milk supply and your baby's health. However, lots of frequent small breastfeedings are likely to contain more foremilk than hindmilk which apparently can make baby much more gassy. Something to do with the majority of the lactose being in the foremilk.
CALMING
-
I found the humble dummy to be a life saver. For us it broke the crying/more wind/more pain/more crying vicious cycle and helped us get a more settled baby. However, we are quite restrictive with its use though, which we hope will make it easier to wean him off later and will avoid bad sleep associations. We use it for:
a) quieting down during evening crying spells to save our eardrums.
b) calming before naps, but removing just as his eyelids start to droop drowsily. He may then jolt awake again, so rinse/repeat until he's happy to relinquish the dummy and sleep by himself.
c) delaying a feed for 5-10mins while having to see to older sibling.
-
Nelson's Teetha Granules are a homeopathic remedy for teething pains and colic. We give a dose an hour before bedtime (6pm), then a follow up dose next time he wakes for a feed (10/10.30pm). It does seem to calm him down and help him settle a little easier. Either that or the foaming in the mouth shocks him into submission!
SLEEP
-
White noise is ideal for masking out household sounds for an overtired/overstimulated/very jumpy baby who needs to sleep. We use two(!) white noise generators: a Peter Jones 0 which makes womb sounds triggered by crying or by the bear being thumped and has a 5 minute cut off and a Peter Jones 1 sound enrichment device which has lots of repetitive white noises to choose from (Li'l Bhaji's favourite is the heartbeat sound) and has a 30 minute cut off. However, cheaper solutions include the noise from a fan, washing machine or tuning a radio into static between stations.
-
Giving baby a comforter or "lovey" to make him feel secure when Mummy isn't in the room. We bought Peter Jones 2 - a cross between a dolly and a blankie which you wear in your bra the night before to get your scent on it and then give it to the babe the next night/nap times to cuddle. Li'l Bhaji likes his best with the fabric nestled up against his cheek. I would recommend getting two of whatever you decide on - they get pretty manky and it's nice to be able to pop one in the wash!
-
Routines have worked really well for us to ensure there's reassuring structure in his day to prevent him getting too overstimulated or overtired. We use a blend of Peter Jones 3 tempered with the wisdom of Peter Jones 4. I know routines get rather a bad press these days, but I think the trick is not to get too hung up about the exact timings and use it as a "typical day" to coax the baby towards. The other routines that are important are the things you do at bedtime and naptime to give the right sleep cues to your baby, i.e. doing things in the same order each time help to make him or her feel secure. Not a quick fix, but over time does make a difference to keep bedtimes and naptimes calmer and more pleasant for everyone.
-
An hour before his main bedtime sleep, I take him upstairs for his final feed in quieter surroundings while Akra looks after Akra Jr. This hopefully avoids Li'l Bhaji getting too overstimulated before bed.
-
We have started to prop the cot up slightly at one end using some books, again to help with reflux that we suspect might also be affecting Li'l Bhaji. The slight slope hopefully minimizes the pain of heartburn.
-
A really great book recommended to me (by Jane, thanks Jane!) is Peter Jones 5 by Elizabeth Pantley - it has lots of different ideas to help your baby get to sleep which you can choose from depending on your parenting style and the needs of your baby. Very useful with very young babies or colicky babies where you really want to avoid extended crying.
TIME OUT FOR YOURSELF
-
This is down to personal preference, but I found that to get a bit of space for me and some individual time for my older son that it was vital for me to encourage Li'l Bhaji to sleep in his cot in his own room during the day whenever possible. I think he probably gets a better sleep away from the main living areas too, as being such a jumpy baby he jerks awake at the slightest sound - not exactly fair on a three year old to expect him to creep around a sleeping babe.
-
During long crying sessions where nothing helps, we left him safely in his cot for 10-15 mins to cry while we took a deep breath in another room before going back to the fray! Not ideal, as more crying creates more wind, but if you need a break then better to take a break.
-
Lots of treats like alcohol, chocolate & icecream! This is so not the time to start the diet.
-
Peter Jones 6 to help relax either during rare moments of baby sleeping or when Akra had responsibility for half an hour or so.
-
Another really good way to relax and unwind if you can get 15-30mins to yourself is Peter Jones 7 - and it's doing your body good too!
-
If you're going to be rocking, walking or otherwise keeping a grumpy baby company in the evenings, you may as well do all that in front of a good film. I can recommend Peter Jones 8 as an excellent online DVD rental service. No late fees, no fuss.
-
An alternative way to carve some "me" time out of all this baby care is reading during the late night feeds. Junk paperbacks that you can easily read in fragments are probably the best choice - I find Peter Jones 9 to hit the spot, but I realise they're not everyone's cup of tea.
-
An essential colic survival tool which doesn't really fit into any other category is... a calendar - to mark of all the days you've got left until that magic 2/3 month watershed where colic disappears!
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS
-
A ride in the car. A mixture of noise, motion and sitting more upright in a cosy position makes going out for a drive a nice sleep inducing option. However, as this wasn't always successful for us and we were so sleep deprived to make driving probably not the safest idea, we left this for "nothing else has worked" occasions.
-
Outing in the Pram. Again the motion can help send a stubborn sleeper to slumberland. However, not always successful for us and bundling a grumpy 3 year old out along for a potentially very long walk at the same time wasn't always practical.
-
One for the daddies: walking up and down the room with baby in the "Tiger In The Tree" hold - this is where baby lies along your arm with his tummy in your hand and his head in the crook of your elbow, just like a lazy tiger languishing along a tree branch! I never quite managed this as Li'l Bhaji is a very long baby and he never felt that secure when I did it, but Akra got the knack. So my advice is to give baby to Daddy to do the walking and escape out to the pub...
THINGS WE DIDN'T TRY OR DIDN'T WORK FOR US BUT WHICH MAY WORK FOR YOU
-
A lot of people swear by carrying the baby everywhere in a sling. The rocking motion soothes them and they're constantly near you, your smell and your heartbeat. However, I was desperate to have some "separate" time, my elder son also desperately needed my attention, and I never got on with slings. I guess I'm just not the attachment parent type. However, if this is your first child or your older children are fairly amenable, then it's almost certainly worth a try.
-
On the same principle of movement being soothing, many people swear by baby swings - one of those little seats that have an automatic swinging motion so you don't have to do the rocking yourself hence saving your arms. However, it's worth noting that for safety purposes you shouldn't leave a baby in one unsupervised, so probably only worthwhile for while you're eating/so you can have a break close by in the evening and not suitable for catching some shuteye of your own. They also take up a fair bit of floorspace.
-
Swaddling is supposed to be a very effective way at calming a young baby down (diagrams on how to swaddle are in most good baby books). However, in our case Li'l Bhaji appeared to hate it and would thrash all his limbs wildly around until he'd broken out of the swaddle.
-
Mumsnet 0 have come highly recommended to me - the drops are put in some of the baby's milk before the feed to help pre-digest some of the lactose. However, as we are breastfeeding it's a little bit faffy to use, so we put it in our "if all else fails" list. We never got that far!
-
Mumsnet 1 can be used from 1month+ and some people seem to think it's more effective than infacol, but to be honest, I haven't looked into it that carefully - we stuck with the infacol.
-
Baby Yoga or Baby Massage might help relax your baby when he's feeling uncomfortable. Haven't got around to trying it myself - mainly because Li'l Bhaji is a bit of a sicky baby, fitting it in far enough after a feed and far enough before his sleep/next feed is just too difficult.
-
Some people find cosleeping is the answer for them, giving the baby the reassurance he/she needs to settle better. However, this wasn't for us.
-
Change Formulas. Not really applicable for us, as we're breastfeeding but some babies do better on different types of formula - might be worth an experiment if you are formula feeding.
-
If you do a search on the internet, you'll find a million and one things you can try cutting out of your diet if you're breastfeeding including dairy, caffeine, alcohol, cabbage, spicy foods, and fizzy drinks. However, if you're not careful you're not going to end up with much left that you can eat! Probably not advisable without a proper dietician's advice, or if you do want to try then just cut out one thing at a time for 48 hours and if there's no improvement you can safely add that back into your diet.
-
I've heard good things about the herbal remedy Mumsnet 2. Although it says 6months+ on the packaging, apparently there's dosing instructions for 0-6month olds inside, which seems a little odd. Might be worth investigating.
Phew that's the lot. Well done if you managed to read the lot, I hope you found it helpful. If you find something else that works, please pop it in the comments - you never know, it might help someone else too!