Colic: small word, BIG impact

First published on Thursday 22 September 2016 Last modified on Tuesday 22 December 2020

Colic. Such a small word. But if your baby is colicky it can have a very big impact on your life as a new mum or dad.

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One mum describes what it's REALLY like to have a baby with colic.

"Colic.

Such a small word, it sounds like a hiccup.

My baby had colic.

That sentence doesn't sound so bad either, does it?

But the thing is, it WAS bad. It was exhausting, all consuming and so so tough.

I brought home a peaceful contented baby and in those first weeks we figured out how to feed, soothe and hold our tiny newborn.

Then, at about four weeks, the colic began.

One evening our baby cried with such volume and ferocity that we thought there must be something seriously wrong. She settled for a while after feeding but then screamed again soon afterwards. Her face was red and angry. She scrunched her little legs up in pain and her cries were piercing.

We rocked her, soothed her, massaged her little tummy, winded her, fed her, paced with her, put on the hairdyer which soothed her for a moment, rocked, shh-ed, soothed, paced again.

Nothing worked.

She screamed and screamed and screamed.

Nothing we did settled her for more than a few seconds.

She cried inconsolably from 6pm until midnight.

Then, as if all her fight, she would sleep.

We stumbled to bed, too, feeling as if we'd been hit by a metaphorical tidal wave; shell shocked by what had just happened.

It was with relief that we had a relatively settled night and woke up to a happy smiling baby.

Until 6pm the next night.

And so it continued."

Seaching for a 'cure'

"I went to see my health visitor and wept as I told her what was happening. She said she thought my baby had colic and suggested a few things to try: Infacol, Colief, putting my baby over my knee and rubbing her back, warm baths, a sling.

The words that rang most true though were,

"When your baby has colic you will try a hundred and one ways to soothe her. By all means try them all. By the time you've exhausted them all 12 weeks will've gone by and the colic will have gone."

Wise words.

Words that we didn't quite want to believe but that would become truth.

From that day on you could set your clock by our baby's colic crying. It started at six pm and went on until midnight. Each night. Every night.

We tried all the things the health visitor suggested. None of them worked.

The killer was that come 6pm each evening we were both pretty shattered. It wasn't as if we were approaching the colic hours feeling refreshed and ready for battle.

We always hit them at our lowest ebb.

By the time the colic crying started we were always hungry, knackered and pretty worn out. Yet we always had another six hour stretch to get through.

It was heart breaking seeing our baby in pain and so upset. Yet it was also really tough to be with her for six hours while she cried.

We took turns to have breaks, finding that after two hours we needed a bit of space.

Then at 12 weeks, just like the health visitor said, it was like someone pulled a 'colic' plug and it all stopped, just as suddenly and as inexplicably as it had begun.

All in all we'd been through 8 weeks of colic. That sounds like quite a short time - especially in the grand scheme of things.

Living through it night after night felt like an eternity.

But for anyone going through it KNOW that it does end and there are things you can do to get you all through."

Colic: small word, BIG impact

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