When you hear your baby crying for a long period of time due to colic, as a parent you surely want to help as soon as possible.
It is more likely that you have experienced it as parent, so you know it is not easy to look at your little one suffering from colic pain. It can be so frustrating because you feel powerless.
Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to prevent them having colic. However, there are different ways to help relieving colic in babies.
Before I give you some tips about baby colic relief, there is some information that you should know first.
Identifying colic
How can you tell if your baby has colic?
The symptoms to look at are generally:
– Uncontrollable crying,
– Your baby is crying late afternoon or evening and for a very long time.
– Also, your baby draws his/her knees up to the tummy or bends his/her back while crying.
Why do they have it, anyway?
One theory to explain why babies have colic could be that the gut is still maturing. So indigestion and wind are temporarily causing a problem.
When does it start?
Generally a baby starts having colic around 6 weeks of age and end between 3 and 4 months of his/her life.
Colic affecting boys and girls
Also, it has been said that colic affects equally boys and girls. Interestingly, in France, there is this belief that boys are more prone to colic than girls. Clearly, I don’t know whether it’s true or false, all I know that I had to deal with my son having colic. Since, he was a “natural screamer”, I wanted to avoid him crying out loud longer than necessary.
So, I searched for solution to prevent further ‘drama’ because trust me it affect your own sanity as a parent.
Tips for helping colic in babies:
Tummy massage: I used to massage my son’s tummy with clockwise movement in order to help trapped poo and winds. Or, sometimes, I would just placed my warm hand on his tummy and left it there for a few minutes.
Empty one breast first (obviously for breastfeeding mothers): This is something I didn’t know about and learned it from my sister who got the information from her daughter’s paediatrician. The idea is to empty one breast first before giving the second one.
Avoiding swallowing air: if your baby is fed from the bottle, you have to make sure that his not swallowing air. You should try to sit your little one upright and make sure that you tilt the bottle enough so that the milk fills the entrance of the teat.
Colic relief remedies: I gave to my son Colic calm, homeopathic gripe water. Clearly this remedy saved my life several time. It is one of my favorite one. You could not believe how fast effective the product work for my son. Trust me, I had to make sure that I was not running out of this product. As a matter of fact, I bought it twice. And, the incredible thing is till today, I use it from time to time to help my son with upset stomach. I’ve planned to write a full review about it soon.
Probiotics: One of my sisters who is naturopath (as mentioned in previous posts) suggested to give to my son probiotics to help his gut. I searched online and found Proven Probiotics for Breast Fed Babies.
I am convinced that this product helped a lot my son to improve his digestive system. That was my second favourite product because I could see the positive effect on my baby. To be honest with you, as soon as I introduced this product in his diet, colic had decreased dramatically.
In conclusion, a baby having colic is not fun either for himself or for the parents. Even if colic it’s just temporarily, however, it can be very dreadful. So, finding the solution that help relieving colic is vital in order to feel less pressurised and enjoying a restful time with your baby.
And you, what is your experience with a colicky baby? What are the solutions that help reducing colic in your little one. I will be happy to hear from you 🙂
NB:
Pic from tostadophoto
