colic - help!

[Pilgrim]

Hey y'all,

Well, I've been in denial, but it seems that our sweet baby has colic. All day she's fine, but she cries for about 2 hours every night from about 8-10. It's so sad! We hold her in the "colic hold" and walk and walk and walk with her. She tones down from loud crying to soft intermittant fussing if we do this for her.

She's on a constitutional homeopathic remedy. What else can I do for her?

Thanks!

[WildIris]

Assuming she is breastfed, is it possible it's connected to something you eat at dinnertime?

[RootBeerFloat]

I can't say much for colic itself, but if it's a digestive issue, the first place I'd go is an elimination diet of major allergens. My dd had a really miserable infancy, and it was related to (we later learned) significant food sensitivities. Dairy and gluten are usually the major culprits. Especially since you already have one with allergies.

The other thing that occurs to me is that in Traditional Chinese Medicine, different organ systems are associated with different times of the day. You should do some googling on this and see what organ systems are associated with the time of the day where the screaming erupts. It could be a deficiency in this area. For example, my dd had a pattern of screaming and general sleep disturbance during two time periods in the middle of the night; these were the same time periods that cooresponded to the large and small intestines, as a result of her allergies.

[mellifluousmama]

Do you find at the end of the colic session she has a wet diaper? With dd1 we had sessions like this until i was learning about elimination communication and started understanding her body signals better. i found that there were always wet diapers by the time she settled down, when we started practicing EC this totally dissappeared. It would also explain why the colic position works as it is basically a position used all over for holding a child to relieve themselves.

From http://www.bucksinfo.net/recycleforb...ural-infant-h/

‘Colic’
NIH generally involves holding babies in the squatting position or similar, which research indicates is the easiest, healthiest position for humans to empty the bowel (Saeed 2002). It is possible that conventional nappy use and lack of toileting contributes to symptoms in babies described as ‘colic’. Accounts by parents using NIH suggest that colic symptoms (and sometimes reflux) are often noticeably reduced when they begin toileting their babies, and also that some of the previously ‘unexplained’ crying/fussing was actually the baby signaling a full bladder (Gross-Loh2007,http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ecuk/, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/elimin...antHygiene/)So if you have tried conventional colic remedies for your baby and they still have symptoms, you could consider trying NIH.

[Meg_s]

possibly dairy in your diet, gluten in your diet, or salicylates..

[Pinky Tuscadero]

Check out Dr Harvey Karp's book, The Happiest Baby on the Block. Lots of great info for settling babies and why they are unsettled in the first place. I highly recommend it!

[flapjack]

I'm there too. Whilst we do get fussing when River wants a poo, there's a different quality to his evenings- he just can't get comfortable. What's taken the edge off it greatly is avoiding caffeine, wheat, dairy, tomatoes and yeast. (His big trigger food is pizza. Having figured that out, I don't yet know if it's safe to try reintroducing the composite elements.)

[Pilgrim]

Thank you all for your replies! Let's see..

1) Because of DD1's allergies, I've been dairy, gluten, and soy free since before conception. I'm very well versed in the elimination diet, and so I immediately eliminated corn, nuts, eggs, and acidic foods as well. I can't bring myself to eliminate fish though. But if you see item 3, this does not "smack" of food allergies because she's fine the rest of the day.

2) She's been diaper-free since day 3. Though I'm glad you posted that article, because although she's been "on a diaper" not "in a diaper" most of the time, I still have no clue as to her readiness signs!! (at least I've been cueing her when she does pee.) I definitely need to try to put her on the potty more (I even have all the EC "stuff" including a little potty bowl.) She poops only once every few days, but when she does, there does not appear to be a hint of a struggle to it.

3) All day, she does her nap/wake/nap/wake/nap/wake thing no problem. This extreme fussing happens always when I would expect her to be tired again, but for the last time of the day. She can only tolerate about an hour of awake time (except for fussy time...). So after her last "nap" of the day, she's happy for about 45 min or so, then she fusses to nurse, which we do. She will only nurse a little bit, then begin her nightly fussing, as if the nursing caused the discomfort. I usually offer to nurse her about once every 1/2 hour during this time, and she usually refuses it until it's getting closer to 10:00, and then she will accept it again and often nurse to sleep. Then she sleeps very good until around 6:00 am (nursing only once or twice at night.)

Anyway, this seems somehow connected with her entire daily cycles, with the fussy time being before her long sleep. Does something happen to breastmilk in the evening? I know supply goes down, but that is not a problem here. I squirt milk all over the place!

Thanks for the ideas - keep them coming!

[Pilgrim]

Originally Posted by flapjack

I'm there too. Whilst we do get fussing when River wants a poo, there's a different quality to his evenings- he just can't get comfortable. What's taken the edge off it greatly is avoiding caffeine, wheat, dairy, tomatoes and yeast. (His big trigger food is pizza. Having figured that out, I don't yet know if it's safe to try reintroducing the composite elements.)

Yes, I noticed a difference when I eat even a smidge of chocolate or tomatoes, so I cut out all acid foods.

[caedmyn]

If she's sensitive to chocolate or tomatoes I'd consider amine sensitivity (it's a naturally occurring food chemical. www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info www.plantpoisonsandrottenstuff.com

flapjack--pizza tends to be super high in amines if it has meat on it, and is pretty high in another naturally occurring food chemical, salicylates

I read once that magnesium deficiency in the mom can cause evening fussiness. Also, is it possible that she really is ready to go down for the night instead of taking the last nap?

[AJP]

I had a colicky baby, too (my oldest), similar pattern to what you describe except it usually lasted more than 2 hours. Eliminating foods from my diet didn't help one bit. What did finally seem to help was acupressure. We had a friend who's a professional show us how to do it at home, a series of light but focused touches around the abdomen and down the legs. We started doing it every afternoon, a few hours before his customary crying time, and the length and intensity of the crying tapered off over the next couple of weeks. It's impossible to say whether or not he just 'grew out of it' at that time or if it was the acupressure, but nothing else had helped. We tried all the usual tactics and remedies. His crying never seemed to be related in time to his elimination patterns that I could discern, I believe it was more of a glitch in neurological development. sometimes he'd be snapped out of a crying jag by music (something loud with low base), but not always. I remember once I was walking and bouncing him in the hallway late at night while he was screaming, and I flipped on the light as I passed the switch - a very bright light - and he startled a little and immediately stopped crying, then fell asleep a minute later. It's like he was stuck in a feedback loop and needed a reset button.

I know we nutrition-conscious folks tend to want to relate everything to food, but sometimes it's not the answer.