A Colicky Baby

Two things that helped my boys: taking them outside (I don't know why, but it works like a charm) and rocking them back and forth in a baby stroller. I even brought my stroller indoors - one of the best things I ever did! Good luck - tell her it will get better!

I would recommend getting the video, Happiest Baby on the Block. It is extremely eye-opening. The doctor states there is no such thing as a colicky baby. Give it a try, nothing to lose, and no dietary changes. Good luck!

The rice may be making the baby constipated. I think the rice is too much for a 4 mos. old digestive system.
My son was colicky and had stomach problems also. I gave him gas drops after every feeding. He was also given a Proton Pump Prohibitor prescription by the doctor (can't remember if it was prevacid or protonix??). The combination of the two really helped out a lot.

So wonderful of you to find out more info for you sister. I will say that the baby is being introduced rice way too soon, it sounds like his system is not ready for it. The sooner you introduce it or too soon I should say, the more likely they will grow into having gluten intolerance. Second, his system needs a good round of probiotics and have attached an article for you to read and pass along on why babies need these. Often people that have a gluten sensitivity will have acid reflux (among one of the many issues and I speak from personal experience) Putting rice cereal in the bottle will expand his stomach, not letting him properly digest his cereal. It should only be spoon fed. If your sister wants to feed her son, go with an avocado, it is full of good fats and easily digested. Bananas can irritate acid reflux if the system is not ready for it either, so be careful with bananas, despite popular belief.

Article:
http://www.bodyecology.com/07/09/20/introduce_babies_prob...

There is homeopathic medicine on the internet called Colic Calm and know a couple of moms that it has worked for, no preservatives like the tummy drops that you can get at the store.

I gave my daughter her first round of probiotics since she was ready to take the bottle at 4wks. My peditrician commended me on being so proactive on her health. I just completed another round getting her immune system a boost for the cold and flu season (yes, no flu shots for us). I get them at www.smartbomb.com it is called FloraBaby by Renew Life. Every baby will benefit!!

Let me know if you have any more questions.

J. W. MPH
Lifestyle and Wellness Consultant

I feel for your sister. I went through that for 4+ months. My son would cry for 4 hours straight. He was breastfed, so I can't help with the formula advice. My son was eventually put on Zantac for his reflux, but I don't believe that helped too much. He just eventually out grew it, but everyday was a challenge. I did purchase Happi Tummi which is a herbal warm pack you can place on their stomach. I also had my son sleeping in a boppy pillow to elevate him for his reflux. I would never want to relive having a colicky child again, but tell her the end is hopefully near....

Having a colic baby isn't always related to stomach issues, sometimes there is no reason and you just have to find strategies to get through the stage. Typically, but not always, it ends around 12 weeks. Some suggestions to help your sister sooth her baby: go for car rides, use white noise, go for walks in the stroller, wear your baby (can reduce crying tremendously), ask for help and get breaks to help your sanity, and know that it does and will end!! I wish her the best of luck.

I know you have already posted your reply, however Im baffled as to why no one has mentioned this yet.....It's not colic after 4 months. Colic only lasts the first four months. After that there is 99% of the time a diagnosis, as long as the parents take the child to the ped. If they continue to have crying fits, there's something wrong.....Teething, upset stomach, acid reflux (the most common reasons)etc...

I was ALWAYS told NEVER put anything but formula in a bottle. My kids ped said this, mother, grandmother, all the dr's in the family,(and there are a lot of them), and my own docs said this too. Most books I've read on nutrition etc say the same thing. NEVER feed a baby rice from a bottle. If they don't take it from a spoon they're not ready for solids yet. Not being ready means their digestive systems can't handle it and if you force the issue you can cause problems in undeveloped areas of their bodies. My cousin has stomach problems which when diagnosed they determined that this was the original cause, and he's still paying for it at 25. Also other liquids have extra sugars (even rice cereal) which you don't want sitting on the gums. It also helps with weaning. Once the breast milk or formula is gone, so are the bottles. Adding juice, cereal, or water to a bottle only makes it more confusing.

Careful with Chiropractors and babies..I've heard a lot of horror (truely horror) stories recently. Most babies have mild allergies to straight milk, most of us grow out of it, as a matter of fact most of us grow out of a lot of different allergies, so careful putting too much strain on putting a child through allergy tests. The tests are really painful and can be a huge pain physically and financially for little to no reason. I was supposedly allergic to milk, grass, peanuts, dogs, cats, mold, etc...I grew out of all of them, and really quickly because I did not cut down my exposure. Not the technique for everyone, but I also rarely get sick now as an adult.

you have gotten some good responses ...basically, there might be some kind of medical problem this avenue should be pursued, but....unfortunately some babies are just like this. In my experience (3 kids, one colicky) these things worked: swaddling and close physical contact and rocking. I cannot emphasize enough that SWADDLING worked when nothing else did. Your sister needs to learn how to swaddle that baby and I mean tightly so the baby cannot kick out of it. Swaddle the baby, feed it while rocking gently (the gliders are the best). The natural tendency is to react to the violent crying with too much physical response. Go gently!! Meet the baby's fenzy with soothly calm, use a low voice, low music and steady gentle motion. Good luck to your sister!

My daughter was colicky for the first 3 months, but for no apparent medical reason. She just cried all the time. After trying all sorts of different formulas, we ended-up using Nutramigen by Enfamil and used this until she was 6 months old.

We found great success by using the soothing methods from "The Happiest Baby on the Block." Get the video as soon as you can (don't bother with the book), as you learn it in minutes by watching it. It was one of the only things that calmed our baby. But, then again, she did not have a medical problem or stomach issue. And our daughter grew out of it by 4 months old (which, I understand, is quite common for this type of non-sleeper colic.) It sounds like your Sister has a very different situation. But please give the video a try. You can probably get it from your local library.

I found that my baby's colick was totally unrelated to food but was due to my cluelessness about how much sleep she should be getting. Once I read Dr. Weisblut's "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby" and put her on that program, the colick magically went away. His program involves not keeping the baby up all that long perhaps 1-2 hrs max at a stretch in the first few months. The moment you see signs of tiredness: less activity, rubbing eyes etc put baby to sleep. Let them sleep as long as they need - sleep begets more sleep.
Also, doctors recommend against putting rice in a bottle. I know our parents did this but it is no longer recommended. Also if the baby is waking a lot because he jerks around, a swaddle can be a great remedy. I also bought an amby bed, which is a hammock like bed recommended by Dr. Sears and JPMA certified. When baby wakes, it rocks and then he/she will often rock back to sleep. Much of colick is really the build up of stress and so getting more relaxation and sleep sometimes works wonders (for mom too :). Good luck.

Are they sure it's colic and not something that is causing the baby to be colickly like acid reflux? My daughter was a mess when she was little until we discovered she was in so much pain due to the reflux that it caused colicky behavior. Look up online at the symptoms to see if the baby has any of them. A good place to start. I feel for her, that is tough!

I think Jennifer P is right on the mark!

Our baby was colicky for 14 weeks and for NO reason whatsoever. A lot of moms would sit there and criticize me telling me there just HAD to be some medical cause for my baby's incessant screaming and crying (like their smarmy comments on top of an inconsolable baby really helped...). I drove myself batty, trying every single trick, technique, gimmick, whatever to try to soothe my baby and nothing worked! It was just a one-shot deal; it was actually trying the technique for a fair period of time. And, at 14 weeks it just stopped.

It's difficult to have a colicky baby. I would never wish that on another mother - I mean, there's nothing like waiting anxiously for 9 months to see your precious baby, only for him to come out and scream his head off and you can't soothe him! Add in a healthy bout of post-partum depression and you wonder why the hell you even wanted to have a baby in the first place. Now, fortunately at 14 weeks the colic turned off like a switch and we've had very happy days ever since.

You can try everything under the sun but sometimes it might just take time. Make sure the feeding is going well, the baby isn't overtired and becoming screamy due to a lack of sleep, and keep on the pediatrician to make sure that he is a healthy baby. The only thing that shows as a red flag to me is the constant changing of the formula and the early addition of the rice cereal - his poor digestive system might be having a difficult time adjusting, which could definitely be causing the discomfort.

It's hard to believe but the colic does end. My heart goes out to your sister. Make sure she gets some time for herself so she can keep her sanity during these tough times.

I read somewhere that probiotics help colic.

At four months old the rice cereal might be disagreeing with him and causing him gas. My son doesn't tolerate it well either. He's a big baby and eats all the time, but cereal just makes him worse. My son also spit up all the time, has gas all the time, and cried most nights for an a few hours until he was four or five months old. He just recently started becoming a more content baby. The doctor and I both think he had some acid issues along with the gas because I could give him 1 ml of Maloox with simethicone and he would do much better. The doctor didn't like giving it to him because it was made for adults so we switched to Zantac for kids. He wouldn't swallow it...even when I had it flavored. So we just suffered through it. If it got realllllllly bad like an all nighter kind of thing, I would break down and give him 1 ml of the Maloox. So he's only had it about five times.

He's better now and still gets gas, but he's getting use to it and he just grunts and blows "farts" now. Sorry that sounds crude, but that's what he does. He's funny about it too. He thinks it is funny.

Anyway, some babies are just fussy. All of my children have been. The first and third the worse. The little girl I babysit was horrible when she was a baby. She cried all the time if you weren't holding her and bouncing her all the time. Once she started crawling she was much better. It might just be his personality. It is hard to suffer through it, but it will pass.

I use to look at my little ones and joke that if God knew what he was doing when he made them so cute...because with all that fussing I was tempted to give them away. I love my babies and they are all happy now, but it was h*** getting to the happy times.

I second the Weissbluth book recommendation - it became like a bible in our house. Also, we had two very gassy, girls. We used natural gas drops and slept them on the stomachs. I know this goes against the recommended "back to sleep" but we were desparate. As neorotic parents, we purchased an under the mattress heartbeat monitor. It works like a regular monitor, except the sensor goes on a board under the mattress and an alarm sounds if it doesn't pick up the baby's heart beat. Also, neither of them would eat the rice cereal, we went immediately to baby oatmeal.
Good luck.

I know what your sister is going through, it is horrible having a colicky baby. We put Mylicon gas drops in my daughters bottle and that would help a little bit. I have seen colic tablets and gripe water but never tried them because colic was done when I finally saw them. I would try either of those also. It does go away, even though it seems like it never will at this point. Just tell her to hang in there. My mother would take my daughter overnight for me once in a while to give me a break and that helped also.

does she use the "Dr. Brown" bottles?? he designed them for his youngest son (who is now 18 ) due to excessive colic. My daughter is using them with her son who is almost 4 weeks old and seems to be doing very well at not having colic. If not a Dr Brown bottle,there are a couple more designed about the same. At 4 months of age it isn't good to continually change his formula,unless the doctor has recommended it. I would also recommend trying some water in between to help the cause. If the doctor says the baby is healthy,I would take his word at it. Some babies are just natural born colicky. A warm bath might help more frequently than one time a day. Or kinda a wives' tale??? but a warm washcloth across their tummy sometimes works. Also,try laying the baby across your lap,face down and gently rubbing their back in a circular movement. It's been a while so these things may not work with new modern babies like they used to!!!! LOL LOL Good luck........J.

My "colicky" baby had acid reflux, not discovered until 5 mo old. She still has reflux now, at 2 yrs old. I would have your sister go to a different gastroenterologist to get another opinion.

Hi D.,

It is really hard to diagnose the reason for babies being colicky - sometimes the babies intestinal systems just take a while to get going correctly. My doctors were very hesitant to do anything until my baby started to lose weight and many of the formulas we were trying were causing blood in his stools. My baby seemed very uncomfortable all the time. Very Gassy and Fussy. He never spit up but had a hard time eating and was even more fussy when he ate. I suspected acid reflux even though he wasn't spitting up. The doctors sent me to a pediatric gastric specialist at Rush when he started losing weight around 4 months. The gastric specialist switched him to Nutramigen - hypoallergenic formula. (I also BF but didn't produce enough so I had to suppliment.) He also put him on Zantac and within a week he was a totally different baby. He was on the Zantac for about 3 months and was on the Nutramigen until he was a year. We did not do Rice as the doctors advised against it until he was 6 months.

Good luck!

The same thing happened with my daughter she was "colicky" and spitting up constantly - I tried everything, formulas etc. and my doc insisted she was ok. Finally I did research on acid reflux and suggested that this may be the cause of all the crying and discomfort and she finally agreed that it could be. She put my daughter on Zantac as well and it what a difference it was like a miracle. Doctors seriously underdiagnose this condition which many babies have. She only needed the meds for a few months. Colick is just a word for a crying unhappy baby there is an underlying issue causing it. Good Luck

Sounds like an awful lot of food consumption for a 4 month old. Maybe that has something to do with it. His little tummy just can't hold all that. Very puzzleing. I'm interested in the results; please post when u find out.

My daughter had colic until about 5 1/2 months. We gave her Mylicon drops in every bottle and Good start formula (purple can). It is something they have to grow out of usually. You can hold the baby over your arm on his tummy . It puts some pressure on his tummy and it seems to help. I heard of a belt to put on his tummy too but don't know where you can find it. All the cereal may be too heavy and be causing gas.On a good note once the colic went away my daughter turned into a smiley happy little angel. Hope this helps:)

I had an extremely colicky baby - we saw symptoms up until 6 months. I have read that optiflora is a good thing to give the babies as it helps with underdeveloped GI tracts. Also, I'd personally hold back on the rice cereal - food isn't recommended until they are 6 months old. Any doctor who is advising this sooner is pretty old school. I can get you more info on optiflora if your sister is willing to give it a try. It's very safe and pretty easy to give them. Totally worth it if it helps avoid a belly scope!

Email me for more info,
K.
____@____.com

Our daughter was also a screamer. She sounded so miserable, and I didn't believe she'd scream like that for no reason ("colic"). She didn't just cry for a few hours in the evening, it was all the time unless we were out and there were a lot of distractions. Tylenol helped calm her somewhat, so it made sense that it was some kind of pain. It turned out she had reflux, and though Zantac didn't work, Prevacid worked miracles- she was like a different baby! She took it from about 5 months to 10 months, and she's been great since. It also helped her to sleep somewhat upright, like in her bouncer chair, or even on her stomach (I know, I know..). Our daughter spit up a ton and the doctor saw it, and that's why he suggested trying the meds, but I talked to another mom whose daughter had reflux and she never spit up. Doctors are less likely to diagnose it if that's the case, but reflux does not always involve spitting up. Hope this helps!

GRIPE WATER!!!! you can find it online... the best thing since sliced bread. No more long sleepless nights. My daughter had it bad!

My two months old had severe gas and colic issues and was on Zantac for whole two weeks but nothing helped unless I put him on Babies magic tea.

two things I will suggest
1st - have the baby adjusted by a chiropractor. That is what solved my dd's colic. She had it from 3 wks old till 9 MONTHS old. That was so long it was very hard and depressing on me. I was getting no sleep and honestly got suicidal, so watch that in your sister and give her tons of support.

2nd - in order to manage my daughter better I did the following and it helped so much once I discovered it. Since then I have used this method on countless daycare infants and it works like a charm even with the most fussy.
try using the Baby Whisperer's EASY method for a schedule, and the Happiest Baby on the Block 5 s's method. Those two combined will make cio not be a needed thing (at that age)
EASY - when the baby wakes up it Eats. After you feed it, then it has Activity - bouncy seat, tummy time, sitting up and playing with toys, swing, exersaucer, etc. When the baby gets fussy check the B's - boredom, butt or burp. If it's none of those then off to Sleep. Don't wait for the baby to do more than get the tiniest bit fussy, then see what is causing the fusses - if it's just that they needed their diaper change do that, but if it's not the activity is boring, the butt is dirty or they have to burp, then put them down. This may happen after as short as 45 minutes, don't freak, it really means they are tired.
Now, to get them to sleep use the 5 s's. Swaddle the baby, hold the baby on their side and sway as they suck on something (paci, your knuckle or their finger/thumb) and make a shush noise. This will calm your baby. When the baby is calm, but not asleep yet, keeping them swaddled lay them in the bed. I like to pat them instead of sway after a minute or two cause you can still pat after they are put down but you can't sway, so pat the baby and continue patting gradually decreasing it as you put them in the bed. Also continue the shushing as you put them down, again gradually getting quieter.
If you do these two you will find a well rested, easily managed baby in no time.

Are you sure it's colicky? Maybe he's just still hungry. Has she tried all the traditional stuff, car rides in the middle of the night or a stroller ride in the house (not kidding-had to do that myself)tummy packs, etc. She should rule out everything first before they go poking around her little sweetie. How nice that you have babies the same, you will enjoy watching them grow. Tell your sister I feel for her, I remember being awake and waiting for that to pass. Now I am awake waiting for my sons to come home in the middle of the night.

My teo year old was extremely colicky...I mean like crying 5-6 hours a night at its climax, and god only knows how much during the day if I even put her down. It is very difficult situation to deal with...but scoping a baby that seems gastically healthy seems a bit extreme to me. I actually had endoscopy/colonoscopy this summer it was a very hard thing for me to put myslef through (though I am glad I did it) let alone put my child through. Sometimes kids are just collicky, and it sucks...it's an awful way for a baby to start out life, and it is really hard on the whole family. I would get a second, and third opinion if I was your sister. There are small chances of esophageal tears during this procedure, infection, and a really sore throat if not done by the proper hands. The way it was put to me was this...it is only something they do if the pros outweigh the risks. ALso, I seem to recall that somewhere around four or five months the crying/colic began to subside gradually. Now don't get me wrong, she was still a very high needs baby...light sleeper, cryed easily, got over stimulated easy, but it got better and better the more independent she became. Tell your sis to hang in there, go with her gut, but definately at least see one more doctor before allowing that procedure to done on the baby.

Colicky = Overtired Call Dr Weissbluth or read his book..

Your poor sister:

I had a horribly colicky baby. One we found out he had acid reflux at 6 months. Put him on Zantac and that helped. I had to stand in the doctors office and demand they test him because I read everything about colick and my son had a lot of issues with eating. The other thing is wear him. I had my son attached to me 24-7 when I wasn't at work. Put on the baby sling and take him everywhere with you. It was amazing the more I wore my son, the more I saw him gradually let us put him down or sleep better. It's hard so please tell her she has my sympathy.

Mine was a cryer and was happy some time but more often then not he would cry. It turns out that he has allergies. We did not find out until he was much older (7 yrs) The Ped Doc didn't believe in testing, so when I decided there was something that he wasn't checking for I made the appointment with an allergist. Turns out he is allergic to milk (this includes whey and other forms of milk) If I had known this back then he would have been a better baby. Good Luck!!