I think I finally started to enjoy being a mom, at least a little bit, when my daughter was about 1 month old. Before then, I confess it was the most stressed I’ve ever been in my life. She cried non-stop from colic, I was severely sleep deprived, and I actually weighed less than I did before I was pregnant because I didn’t have any time to eat.  But once she was 1 month old I finally was rewarded with that first “real” smile, you know, the non-gas kind, which made it seem worth it. She has two huge dimples and a really wide face so she truly looked like a Gerber baby; a cherub. Where that cherub was from remains a question because she definitely wasn’t an angel baby. Haha.

My husband and I would sing to her almost daily, everything from nursery songs to Stone Temple Pilots. One morning I was singing to her and she just started babbling back. But it wasn’t her normal babbling that she did throughout the day. This was a specific babble that she does while being sung to, like a trill almost, and she would go up and down the scale. It’s really funny to watch because she’d belt out an off-key note and hold it while her eyebrows came together, like she’s REALLY concentrating on the note, or maybe she was just trying to poop, who knows. She would always “sing” whenever my husband or I would sing to her. But she also would babble a lot throughout the day, like she was talking to you about everyday stuff. Some of my friends’ babies weren’t really babbling much yet, so this was one area which she seemed to do early.

As a parent of a baby, my newest interest became baby poop. The amount, the frequency, the consistency, the color, etc. When they send you home from the hospital with your baby they want you to pay attention to poop, and I don’t think you ever stop paying attention to it!  If you were to put two very new mothers together, especially breastfeeding mothers, the conversation would quickly turn to this subject. Her poop was mostly the standard watery, yellow, mustard-seed poop that breastfed babies produce. But every now and then she’d have dark green, mucousy poop, and there would be tiny (and I do mean tiny) streaks of blood in it. It scared me to death! The doctor said that babies sometimes can have a little tearing from pooping so frequently, or that it could be a sensitivity to something I was eating. They said that dairy is usually the culprit, so I cut back on my dairy intake again. It seemed to help.

Unfortunately, she still didn’t sleep. She was sleeping a little at night, but naps were pretty much non-existent. I didn’t know about schedules or anything at the time, so I wasn’t aware about trying to put her on one. She fell asleep in her bouncy seat when she was tired during the day, and when she did sleep it was only for maybe 20-30 minutes. I always thought that the only thing young babies did mostly was sleep, at least that’s what everybody told me and what was portrayed on some episodes of the TV show Bringing Home Baby, but not my daughter. She never slept. That’s why I never had time to eat, cook, clean, or do anything else. This was another area where I tended to get a little jealous of my friends’ “easy” babies, versus my little diva.

I was still successfully breastfeeding, which I was really proud about considering how hard it was for me. I think it paid off because when she went to her 1st month check-up at the doctor, she was in the 95th percentile in height/weight at 11 lbs and 23 inches. I didn’t realize how big she was until the doctor laughed and said that she’s considered a huge baby, but not to worry about her being an Amazon Woman when she’s older because they can’t tell that until children are about 2 years old. That didn’t  reassure me much, but at least she wasn’t overly small. I’d rather her be a big baby than an overly small baby. The only issue that her height/weight presented to me was clothing. It killed me inside that she was only able to wear some items once, or not at all, because she quickly outgrew everything. This child had gorgeous outfits that people had given her, but she couldn’t wear a lot of them. I’m dealing with the mental torture of that by holding onto them and hoping that if I ever have another child that it will be a girl. This way I’ll feel like the clothing was used more.

My daughter’s colic was driving us crazy, so my husband and I would frantically run around the house to do the few things that would help calm her, if only for a few moments. The first thing we found that helped was rocking her while she was in her bouncy seat. We would bounce the seat with our foot constantly (she didn’t like the vibration option of the seat). The minute we stopped or walked away from the chair the wailing would begin, so we’d take turns. The other thing that would help a lot was me singing to her. Not just any song, though. It had to be “Meet Me In The Tower” by the band Ours. Is it a coincidence that this was the song I would always play to her using earbuds while she was still in my belly? Who knows, but this song made her stop crying instantly. Maybe it’s the high pitch “head voice” I would use while singing it, or the sound of the scale, but I like to think it was the song itself because my girl has an ear for talent. haha. She would sometimes quiet down from hearing the song “Dizzy,” also by Ours, but Tower was definitely the favorite for her. The problem with both of these “colic-solving” methods is that I would constantly have to rock or sing, otherwise she would keep crying. And I didn’t have any time on my hands as it was.

It was then that I discovered my favorite baby invention EVER: The cradle swing. I’ve heard people say what a great product it was and how I HAD to register for it while pregnant, so I got one at my shower. Even though most people don’t seem to use it until the baby is a little older, I was ready at 3 weeks. It was like instant heaven and I would happily put tons of money into D batteries if it continued to work as well as it did. We used the side-to-side cradle option of the swing, which she seemed to like best. This was the Fisher Price Ocean Wonders Aquarium Swing and it gave me the silence that I longed for. When she had to get the 1st round of immunizations at 1 month old, once we got home she cried worse than she has ever cried before. My husband and I were really upset and scared and didn’t know what to do, so he put her in the swing as a last resort. She instantly quieted down and fell asleep. The only issue with the swing was that it wasn’t a permanant solution since we couldn’t pack up the swing and bring it to a store or anywhere else because it wasn’t really portable.

I started looking online for colic cures, and I read that a lot of people swore by this one book, “The Happiest Baby on the Block” by Dr. Harvey Karp. I got it at the library, and I’m so thankful I did. He’s known for “the 5 S’s,” which are Swaddle, Side, Shhh, Swing, & Suck. I’ve read about a few of those methods before, but they never worked for my baby when I used each method individually. It’s the specific combination of them that brings on a baby’s “calming reflex” and the book explains exactly how to turn it on. It actually worked on my baby! So many people are turned off from swaddling when their baby fusses the first few times from it, but within a few days of it, my baby LOVED it. She would even put her little arms down straight for me as I was wrapping her. I liked using the pre-made, SwaddleMe wraps the best since she couldn’t kick out of it. The main reason I loved swaddling so much is that it allowed me to get sleep. For the first time ever, she finally slept 5 hours straight at about 8 weeks old. Before swaddling, she would have reflex movements where her arms or legs would kick/move, which would wake her up, so wrapping her up prevented this. I highly recommend swaddling, and I used it until my baby was about 4 1/2 months old. As for the “Shhh” step, I never realized how loud you’re supposed to “shhh” until reading the book. You’re supposed to do it REALLY loud, like a vaccum cleaner, which seems weird and counter-productive, but it works. Oh, and even though I was breastfeeding, I did use a pacifer for the “Suck” step since my daughter was nursing okay. (I actually started her on a pacifer at 2 weeks because I couldn’t take the crying and the pacifer made it more dealable). My only regret is I wish someone would have told me about this book sooner, like while I was pregnant. I may have gotten more sleep earlier on. The best thing about the 5’s, is that you can use them while you’re out and about. If you’re baby starts screaming at the store, pick her up and start swinging her back and forth (like REALLY swinging her) while Shhhing really loud. If you have a colicky baby, I strongly suggest you read the book and at least try swaddling for a week. If all else fails, repeat the mantra that I would say over and over again:  it’s only for 3 months or so and that’s such a small amount of time when you look at the big picture. It will be over soon. Good luck!

After about 3 days of being home from the hospital, my daughter would start to cry constantly. Yes, I know that babies do cry and that’s expected, but she would cry inconsolably and nothing would get her to stop except for eating, and then once she was done eating she’d immediately start back up. At first I thought it was because I was still trying to get used to breastfeeding, and that maybe she was just having a growth spurt, which is when babies want to eat non-stop for maybe up to a week. But after the 2nd week of this she still continued to cry and cry and cry. I thought maybe it might be gas pains, because that’s what my mom suggested, and my baby seemed to never burp no matter how much I tried to burp her. So I bought some of those infant gas drops, Mylicon, which other parents I knew swore by. I eagerly put the dose in my baby’s mouth and waited until the heavenly bliss of silence set in. She kept crying. I next tried to do these infant massage techniques that I read about, which are supposed to help babies with gas and to calm them. I did all the famous strokes, such as the “I love you,”  and the “around the clock,” but that only helped during the actual massage. The second I stopped she would start screaming again. Oh let me explain her cry. It wasn’t the normal baby cry like I would hear from other babies. She had this really really loud, piercing cry that you could hear outside and down the street. I’m not exaggerating. Our neighbors were walking outside and they said they could hear the baby from 7 houses down, and we had all the windows closed. This child is LOUD. You can’t even tune her out. We had many names for it: the cat cry (because she sounded like cats do when they fight with each other), the banshee wail, the shriek. And my daughter’s name became, “The Diva.” The nights were horrible. She still didn’t sleep and I had to feed her every 2 hours, so sleep didn’t exist for us. She would just cry all night long.

I wondered if she could be allergic to my breast milk, so I looked online and I read that some babies can be sensitive to certain foods that the mom eats. It seemed that for most people the culprit was dairy products, so I cut that out to see if it made any difference. It didn’t. When I brought her to the doctor for her check-up, I asked about the crying and they said it’s probably gas and that I just have to wait until her digestive system develops more. They gave me a list of foods that I should avoid, which are most likely to cause gas in babies through the breast milk. I actually laughed when they showed me the list. Were they serious? The list had about 40 items, and I think every possible food known to man was on this list. What was I supposed to eat? It seemed very hypocritical to me because they say you should eat healthy when breastfeeding, but the only thing I was allowed to eat was basically meat and pasta. No vegetables, no fruit, not even ketchup. What a joke. Regardless, I tried following it as best as I could, but I didn’t see any difference in my baby’s crying.

What was wrong with my child? I thought maybe this was just how all babies are, since I never had experience with babies before. But after seeing some of our friends’ babies who were born around the same time as ours, I realized that our daughter was definitely different. These other babies were quiet majority of the time, and when they cried from hunger or a dirty diaper they let out this little yelp, which sounded pretty pathetic compared to my daughter. My daughter cried majority of the time, and was quiet for maybe a few moments in the day and that’s all. Her crying times outnumbered her quiet times. I was jealous of the other parents and babies. Not only was I jealous, but I was mad and disappointed, and that made me feel like a crappy person. A year ago I was  trying my hardest to get pregnant and have a baby, and I was given the miracle of actually getting pregnant when I thought I couldn’t, so why was I complaining?! I felt ungrateful and that in turn made me feel even more horrible. Her inconsolable crying would make me cry because I didn’t know how to help her. The worst part was not the crying itself, but the fact that I couldn’t help my daughter with whatever it was that was making her cry. I was a bad parent, even though all my good intentions were there. I thought maybe that I shouldn’t have had her to begin with. Don’t get me wrong…I never wanted to harm her or myself or anything like that, in fact I would have done anything for her to help her, but because I felt so powerless, I thought I might have made the wrong decision in wanting a child so bad. Not to mention I was still really down about not having my natural labor go as planned. Could anything with this pregnancy/baby go right? My parents, in-laws, and friends would try to come over and help, but the baby would scream non-stop for them also. And the only thing that made the situation worse was their “advice,” which was basically everything that I tried already, so I would just get angry. I felt like I couldn’t bring the baby anywhere, and I hated that because our friends would get to bring their babies to restaurants and stores. The few times I tried to go out with her, I got stares from people wondering why I wasn’t doing anything to stop my child from crying. She could go hours without stopping, every day. I believe that her constant crying is what gave me the Baby Blues. I felt so helpless and upset all the time. Motherhood wasn’t fun at all. I actually missed work.

Finally, the doctor said she could be categorized as having Colic, since by their definition, it means crying for 3 hours, at least 3 times a week. And they said there wasn’t anything I could really do except wait for it to end, which usually happens when the baby is around 3-4 months old. This was the point when I started to research colic and what I COULD do to help my baby (and my husband and I) because not doing anything was NOT an option for me.