It is certainly distressing when there is colic in infants and there are no perfect colic cure for babies with this condition. Just last night I experience my baby who didn’t want to sleep and tried several various ways to sooth the baby and console him to sleep. It wasn’t easy and for some infants who has colic there isn’t any perfect colic remedies available.
I did a quick check while my wife was trying to console baby, the crying was so loud that my sister-in-law and mother-in-law woke up and tried various ways to sooth baby.
What is colic?
Apparently one out of five babies get colic and there is no pre-determine pattern as to which babies get colic and which don’t. It was just unfortunate that my baby fell into the colicky group of babies.
The long standing view of baby colic is that there is wind in the stomach while other researchers disagree because there are also babies who don’t have wind that are also having infant colic. My pediatrician says that it is also the period when the intestinal function starts to function more actively causes discomfort in baby. But no researcher still has found the actual causes of colic in infant. The word colic is derived from the word colon and perhaps as a conclusion from practitioner that the intestinal function has something to do with baby colic. Well whatever the cause all we parents just want a remedy because the crying is deafening loud!
Colic seems to develop around two weeks of age, in my case the baby was about six weeks old, and will last till about 12 weeks of age. So looks like we got bear with it for the next several weeks till it goes away naturally.
Colic Cure
There is no perfect colic cure and you need to find your own way with your baby. Initially my mother-in-law use some mint oil and rub on baby tummy it helps some but it didn’t work. My wife tried feeding but the baby was not hungry. So I tried carrying him walking around, the gentle swaying of the walk soothe baby. I switched on some lights because my baby likes to look at lights and these sort of help him to calm down. It takes awhile before he stops crying and it may or may not work the second time round. Some of the colic remedies I found online include:
- Hold your baby and walk or dance around with him or her. Babies need lots of contact and like the movement. (Which seems to work for me)
- Carry your baby in a front sling or backpack. (which is same as above)
- Try using a baby swing.
- Sing softly and talk to your baby. (Switch on some gentle music if you don’t want to sing, seems to work)
- You may want to change your baby’s position by propping him or her up, so he or she can look around more.
- Try to soothe your baby with continuous noise or vibrations from household appliances like the dishwasher, vacuum cleaner or washing machine.
- Take your baby for a car ride or a walk in the buggy. (The car ride was used by one of our friends, but I find that may be rather unnecessary)
- Give your baby a dummy to suck on.
- Bathe your baby – the warm water may be comforting.
(info source: BUPA http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/infant_colic.html)
Another suggestion was to use the 5 S’s – Swaddling, Side / Stomach position, Shhh sound, Swinging gently, Sucking (breast or pacifier). When used in combination it would help to reduce colic when it happens. Some of these suggestions from Wikipedia are similar to the colic remedies provided by the BUPA website. So try your combination and see which ones work for your baby colic.
Whatever it is, as a parent you must remain calm even though your sleep is disturb and emotional stress that comes with so that you avoid doing something drastic or getting angry. Incidents of baby shaking happens because the parent couldn’t take it anymore. If this is the case a comical suggestion was to stuff your ears with cotton and leave the baby to cry it out till baby fatigue, which may not be advisable but would be better than getting stressed and emotional and doing something rash.
Sometimes you could try to figure out what caused the colic in infant in the first place. Could it have been something disagreeable in the baby milk, acid reflux, infection, or other inflammation? In my case it seems too much playing and stimulation led to baby being a little hyperactive and not wanting to sleep, which perhaps led to overfeeding on mother’s part which then led to wind was a possibility. So will have to watch and observe whether reducing such activity before sleeping time at night would help or not, will have to see.
Colic in infant is distressing to the parents and yet there is no foolproof colic cure. You just have to try out the various colic remedies above and see which ones and which combination works for you.
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Related posts:
Colic in Infants and Colic Cure
Jaundice in Newborns and Jaundice Treatment