*Disclaimer: if you've not had a child who
suffered from colic, this post may come across as cold or selfish as I talk
about the difficulties the parents of colicky babies face. Be assured that I
love my baby very much and that the purposes of this post are not to say
anything disparaging about him, but rather to describe the difficulties I've
faced recently and to hopefully help (if only by commiserating) someone else
who may be going through the same thing.
If you have been around me in the last 8 weeks, chances are you've heard me
complain about Harrison's having colic. (You would also know about Harrison's
colic if you live within a 3 block radius of our house--the kid's lungs are
very strong!)
What is colic? Well, let me tell you, since I've basically become an expert by
frantically looking up internet resources in every spare minute. Colic is
intractable crying that occurs in about 25% of babies. It generally starts
around 2 weeks and begins to wane around 3 months. Doctors often use Wessel's
criteria (also called the rule of three's) to diagnose colic: the baby cries
for at least three hours, three days per week or more, for at least three
weeks. Some folks guess that colic is due to upset stomach issues while
others attribute it to a method of coping with the stimulation of life outside
the womb (they call it the '4th trimester'), but as of yet the cause is
unknown. And without a known cause, there is no cure, of course, so the crying
just goes on until the baby outgrows it…or until you go insane.
Does that sound miserable? It is.
Colic is no joke, y'all. One day a few weeks ago Harrison cried for 4 out of 5
hours that we were awake before noon. Add to that the fact that I
haven't slept through the night in about a million years and you've got a major
problem.
Anyway, in case someone out there reading this post is looking for some company
for their misery, allow me to enumerate some of the worst features of colic.
1. The noise
Oh the noise, noise, noise. There have been studies done on the sound of babies
crying and do you know what they found? Crying stresses people out. Literally.
Cortisol levels actually increase at the very sound of a crying baby. This is
your body reacting to the sound like it would react to an intruder, a danger, a
fright--as a threat. Your heart rate increases, your breathing speeds up, and
your head pounds. If you think I'm being dramatic, go ahead and search Youtube
for a video of a baby crying, then listen to it on full volume right next to
your ear (because this is where you're holding the baby as you try to soothe
him). How do you feel after 1 minute? 5 minutes? An hour? It's miserable.
Somehow that sound crawls into your brain and stays there, jumbling all
thoughts except for that one pleading 'please stop crying' over and over like a
Gregorian chant. It even affects your ability to tell time. I started timing
Harrison's crying sessions when the colic started to try and determine if I
could figure out any patterns. What I found instead was that time stops when
your baby is crying. At times I could've sworn that he had been crying for
hours and it had only been 3 minutes. Sometimes I'd allow myself to put him in
another room to cry on his own for 5, 10, or 15 minutes while I composed myself
again--those minutes flew by! In these past few weeks I've even had phantom
crying episodes where I thought he was crying but went in to find him
peacefully sleeping. I have probably lost half of the hearing in my left ear
over this (he prefers to be held on that side). The noise is an assault in
itself.
2. The isolation
When you have a baby who's suffering from colic, your first instinct is to
hibernate. In the safety of your own home, the crying is horrible, but at least
it's not embarrassing. But let's say you have to get out-- let's say you have
nothing to feed your 2 year old because you haven't left the house in a week
and so you have no choice but to go to HEB. Then let's say that right when you
get to the very back of the store that your baby starts a full-blown atomic
colic fit. Well, if you're like me, then you'll be that crazy lady crying next
to the hot dogs in HEB with your toddler yelling about lunchables and your
infant turning red with anger like some kind of Incredible Hulk gone wrong.
Abandon ship, leave the cart and the groceries, exit the store, retreat--retreat--retreat.
And back into isolation you go (after stopping at Sonic or Mcdonalds for food
for the toddler--you're crazed, but you’re not a jerk). The crazy thing is,
while you feel like you should never leave your home again until the child is
twelve or thirteen, the HEB situation is the exception, not the norm.
Annoyingly, most of the time you take the baby out he will act perfect or sleep
the whole time and people will look at you like you're insane when you describe
the incessant crying spells that you've grown to dread. So my advice is to get
out when you need to or want to, but keep an eye on the nearest exits lest you
end up making a longer walk of shame than is absolutely necessary.
3. The accusations
To be fair, there aren't many people who make accusations outright, but
sometimes well-meaning folks say things that sound like accusations of poor
parenting to my noise-scarred ears. The reflex response someone has when you
tell them your baby has colic is to say something like: "Have you tried
----? It worked for my cousin's sister's boyfriend!" They're only
trying to help, and I do grasp that, but to me it sounds like this: "You
totally missed it! If you had been paying attention, you could've fixed this a
long time ago." Another typical response: "Yeah, my daughter
was just like that." If you don't shudder as you reminisce about your days
in the throes of colic, then your baby didn't have colic, ok? She just cried
once or twice when she was hungry. That's different.
Let me suggest some more supportive responses in case you find yourself in a
conversation with someone like me. Great response: "What have you tried so
far? Are you looking for something else to try?" This one is great because
it assumes that as a mom you naturally would have spent hundreds of dollars,
several trips to the doctor, and a significant chunk of your phone's data plan
searching for solutions to help your child. It also asks the mom if she even
wants to think about more treatments right now. Sometimes it can start to feel
like there's a lot of snake oil out there and not many real treatments.
Another good one: "I'm so sorry. That's really hard. I don't know much
about it, but I do know that it's temporary. It will end." That little
phrase 'it's temporary' is my mantra right now. Someday the colic will go away
and I will have my little boy instead of my little boy with colic.
4. Not knowing your son/daughter
This is the one that makes me cry. The absolute most difficult and horrible
thing about colic is that it doesn't allow you to get to know your baby. Colic
is an eclipsing disorder that covers over your baby and hides his personality
from you. That is cruel. In a way it reminds me of how you feel about your
child when he's still in the womb--you love him but you don't know who he is yet,
and you're dying to find out. Except that in the womb you can take solace in
the face that he's supposed to be in there, that he's comfy and warm, that he's
happily growing strong enough to meet you one day soon. With colic you
experience that same overwhelming desire to know your son as a mother should.
To know how he likes to be held on his left side and that tummy time makes him
mad and that he makes funny faces when he poops but instead you only know that
he's expressing sadness or fear or anger with all this crying and you just
can't know why or how to help him--or anything else about him, really. Even in
the quiet times you're afraid to do something that might set off another fit,
so you peer at him from afar instead of pressing your face next to his. You
encourage him to sleep when he's happy instead of keeping him awake to stare
into his blue eyes. You hold him and try to comfort him but make no progress
and have to set him down to take a break rather than feeling the sweet relief
of being able to calm your child. It's not fair. It doesn't feel good. It's not
what you pictured when you dreamed of this child. And that is hardest part of all.
5. Wondering: Is something wrong?
One of the biggest issues with colic is
that you can drive yourself crazy wondering if you are missing something that
might be causing the crying, something medical like reflux or some kind of pain
condition. When you ask the doctor about
this, she will ask you a bunch of questions to try and discern what could be
going on. This will be an exercise in
futility.
Dr: Does he cry after feedings?
Me: Yes
Dr: Does he seem upset when he spits up?
Me: Yes, he cries when that happens
Dr: Does he cry if you make him lie down
flat on the ground?
Me: Yes
Dr: What about if you keep him upright for
feedings?
Me: Yeah, he cries then, too.
It’s like a terrible, terrible real-life
version of the boy who cried wolf…when you cry all the time, how can we
determine when you really mean it? In
your moment of more rational thinking, you realize that all of his symptoms
exactly fit the diagnosis of colic and that other than driving yourself crazy
with worry, you have nothing to fear.
Shortly after thinking these rational thoughts you will return to
worrying, haha. Such is life.
So that's my list of the most horrible things about colic. If you're going
through it yourself, I'm so sorry. It's really hard. Hang in there. It will
end. It will end. It will end.
As for us, in the past two weeks I’ve
started to feel like Harrison is gradually coming out of this haze of colic and
becoming more and more like a normal, albeit high maintenance, baby. And I love that, you know? I can finally start to know who he is. He loves to be held. He likes bath time, but not for too
long. When he smiles, he does it
completely—bunches up his big, fat cheeks and gives it everything he’s
got. I love that boy, and I know we’re
going to get through this together. And I’m
not even going to hold this against him.
(Except for extra hugs and kisses.)
