Baby Woes: Surviving colic

Once again, let me preface this edition of "baby woes" with the disclaimer that I AM MADLY IN LOVE WITH MY BABY! I love everything about being a mom. The vent that follows is just to inform people that sometimes parenthood can be rough and if they're going through a similar experience, they are not alone.

That being said, colic sucks. Really really sucks. To the point where booting the baby out of the house seems like a really good idea. Baby D had colic. Hers was in the evening. Which was probably hormonal and related to the fact that I had major baby blues in the evening during the first two weeks. But that's another blog post.

For the first few weeks of life, Baby D just slept, pooped, and ate. It was pretty great, actually. We just cuddled her, and if she cried, we fed her or changed her diaper and she was content again.

But at some point after a few weeks, she started having these horrible screaming fits at night. NOTHING helped. Not swaddling, not feeding, not changing her diaper. We tried rocking her. We tried bouncing her. Putting her in the swing. Re-swaddling her. Singing to her. Trying to change her diaper again. Offering her a pacifier (which I swore I would never do). Trying to see if maybe NOW she was hungry. Holding her silently. Holding her and talking to her. Checking her diaper again. Seeing if she was ready for the pacifier yet. Running the vaccuum... you get the point.

NOTHING WORKED.

We are not supporters of crying it out, so we would just take turns holding her while she cried. After a few hours, it would stop. We would breathe a sigh of relief and tiptoe around the house in fear of awakening the beast. (Just an expression, I do not think my daughter is a beast. If shw were a beast, however, she would be the cutest flipping beast of all time!)

Finally one night it didn't happen any more. Now it seems like it all happened so long ago. It's funny, though. I wished those times away so many times when they were happening. Now, I wish I hadn't done that! She has grown so long, and I am so short, that she barely fits into my lap anymore - and she's only 4 1/2 months old! Back during the screaming fits, I could lean back and just hold her against my chest and try to cuddle the cries out of her. Now she is already too big for "chesty time," as we called it. It's downright sad sometimes.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: if you have come across this blog and you are dealing with a colic-y baby, I promise you the tears will stop. Baby D hasn't cried more than 5 minutes at a time for several weeks now. So try (impossible as it might be) to enjoy those times. When you are up in the middle of the night and all you can think is "I wish I could put this baby down without her crying so I can get some sleep!," try to enjoy the time you have holding that little baby! Because you can never get those moments back.

The upside to passing those moments by is that you get to trade them in for smiles, coos, babbles and (not for us yet) laughs. While I miss my tiny baby, this big baby is awesome too! Every time I get sad over a stage ending, a new amazing one begins. Let's just remember to cherish them ALL!