Our experience of Colic

My daughter is now 22 weeks old and, thankfully, has finally outgrown colic. However, after talking to other mums it got me thinking about just how badly my baby having colic affected me and us as a family. I wanted to write something in here incase anyone else is going through the same.

From the start I couldnt breastfeed properly(I just didnt produce milk of a decent quality or quantity, despite trying everything to get the flow going)I did combine feed for the first month, breastfeeding her until empty and then toping up with formula on the advice of the midwife in hospital. However, when the colic kicked in our GP recomended I stop BF, she thought that the mix feeding might be what was upsetting her.

The colic actually kicked in when Phoebe was 9 days old. One day Phoebe began to scream and nothing I could do would settle her. It lasted for several hours until she suddenly stopped and went to sleep. It was the worst night of my life because I didnt know what was going on. My husband and I ended up screaming at each other (I was sobbing and he demanded I pull myself together for the baby, I wouldnt let him hold her because I wanted to soothe her). I took her to the doctors the very next day just to be told there was nothing medically wrong and it was 'probably colic'. Of course, I googled every article on colic trying to figure out what it was and what I could do. We tried infacol, dentinox drops and when she finally got to four weeks, gripe water. Nothing helped (although the dentinox did help her to burp). When hubby returned to work when she was 5 weeks old my day time routine was a 2 hour cycle of attempt to feed my baby, attempt to stop her screaming, shush her to sleep, only for her to wake up and cry everytime I tried to put her down. Often hubby would walk into me and Phoebe both sobbing. I took her to the doctors practically once a week because I just could not accept that there was nothing wrong with her. I took her to every health clinic only to be told that 'colicky babies cry' and not to come back for 3 weeks.

Hubby and I learned how to cope with the attacks, as exhausting as they were, and stopped snapping at each other. We would take half an hour shifts holding Phoebe whilst she screamed to that the other could have a break. Because she cried every time I tried to put her down I bought a sling so that I could at least make her bottles up.We tried swaddling and holding her close, walking in the pram, driving around with her in the car seat, sitting in a dark room, white noise, you name it, we tried it. Nothing really helped, we just got through it. We also tried changing her milk which seemed to help for a day or two before she went back to screaming. She had such a bad reaction to Aptimil we darent switch her after that and stuck to organic milk. I should mention that her poop was green and she always seemed constipated too. Often after she pooped we had a few hours less screaming. At about 9 weeks old a very kind doctor took pity on me and perscribed Colief, an enzyme you put in the babies milk to break down the lactose. The medicine is very expensive so not usually available on perscription unless a stool sample proves that the baby is lactose intolerance. After being on the Colief for two days Phoebe showed no sign of improvement, infact it was worse because she has started letting out violent trumps that made her cry. I took her once again to the health clinic and broke down in tears. The HV once again patted me on the hand and told me to persevere with the Colief, that the trumps were a case of #better out than in' and to give the medicine a chance. I am so glad I did because after a week her poops transformed into beautiful, soft, yellow stools. The crying lessened by about 70% and at last I had a baby who could be put down for a few minutes to sleep. She started to take a little more food too. Unfortunatly, Phoebe's stool sample showed a sensitivity to lactose, not an intolerance so we couldnt get Colief on perscription. Instead we pay ??10.99 every 9 days for a bottle. In truth, I would have paid double that because of the differance that it made. At 5 months we have been able to start to wean her off of the Colief as her digestive system has matured enough to handle lactose. My personal opinion on colic is this: There may be no medical reason for it, but that doesnt mean that the baby is not in pain. In the same way that migranes are not life threatening, but they are very painful. I found that many people who had never witnessed colic in a baby thought I was being dramatic. I cant even count the amount of times we were told that 'all babies cry'. People who havent had a colicky baby do not understand just how terrifying and painful it is for the parent. I firmly believe that Phoebe's colic was caused by an immature digestive system that couldnt process lactose, cutting out the lactose stopped the pain and our baby was much more settled and content. Medical professionals do not know what causes colic and an imature digestive system is just one theory, but I think it was what caused it in our case. I would recomend anyone else going through it to try the colief, but you must remember to give it a week - it takes that long for the lactose that has been built up to flush through. I feel very lucky because despite the colic I still bonded deeply with my daughter, but I felt like it was all my fault at the time. I felt like I was doing everything wrong. Looking back I can see it was the colic and luckily we have got through it. Hope this helps someone else out there. It makes my heart hurt to think of other people going through it.