The Mayo Clinic reports that about twenty-five percent of all babies experience colic, and it occurs with about the same frequency in boys and girls, as well as in babies who are breast-fed and formula-fed.  The Mayo Clinic also reports that infants of mothers who smoke during pregnancy or after delivery have a greater risk of developing colic than babies whose mothers don’t smoke.

Despite decades of research, doctors still aren't quite sure what causes colic

Some believe colic is the result of the infant’s intestines working too hard, which causes them to cramp up and cause pain.  Others conclude that colic is the results of the child’s bowel movements which may be too slow, so that air in the bowel makes the intestines expand – and that causes pain.  Some child care professionals believe that colic may have something to do with eating too fast, or that the baby may be swallowing too much air without burping.

A prominent theory is that there is a link between the nursing mother’s diet and her baby’s colic.  The assumption is that food that produces gas in the mother will produce gas in the baby.  This theory cannot be proved as some mothers who eat “gassy” foods have babies who never experience colic, and x-rays have shown that when babies cry they have much less gas (or air) in their stomachs than when they are not crying.

Everything from digestion problems to “spoiling” the baby, to inherited bad temperaments, and even the time and date of the baby’s birth have been cited as causes of colic.  While many theories have been accepted and then abandoned, the definitive cause of colic is still being debated.

Dr. Karp And The “Fourth Trimester”

Dr. Harvey Karp, noted pediatrician and author, has written about the missing “fourth trimester” as a cause of colic.  What is the fourth trimester?

In pregnancy, the word trimester means “three months.”  This may sound confusing because a normal pregnancy is forty weeks which is a bit longer than nine months.  Nevertheless, doctors and pregnant women talk about trimesters to help give the pregnancy a beginning, middle and end, which add up to nine months.

It takes most babies an additional three months to adjust living in the outside world and that the time between birth and the end of the age three months is what Dr. Karp he calls the missing “fourth trimester.”  Briefly, this theory is based on the fact that human babies gestate for only nine months, but many mammals gestate for far longer.

The “fourth trimester” is that the extra time in the womb enables infant animals such as colts, elephants and many others to stand, walk and even run immediately after birth, while human babies can do nothing more than cry, sleep and feed at birth.  They can’t smile, coo, stand, or even see clearly.  At birth an infant can detect light and motion.  At three months a baby can see faces and can follow an object such as a rattle as it is moved side to side (this is known as tracking.)  At four months a baby can detect an object that is about a foot away from him and will reach for it.  Eyesight continues in develop and by six months a baby can tell the difference between objects such as toys and a bottle.  By age eight a child with no optical abnormalities has 20/20 vision.

Life inside the womb is noisy.  The developing baby hears a constant background of digestive noises, the maternal heartbeat and the whooshing sound of blood through the placental arteries.  There is evidence that by the third trimester the fetus responds to sounds it hears. Researchers have noted fetal heart-rate increases in response to tones it hears through the mother’s abdomen.  In addition, the baby experiences constant motion that occurs every time the mother moves, sits, stands or walks. Dr. Karp argues that once babies leave the motion and sounds of the womb, they want to be in an environment that simulates environs of the womb.

Thus, there is a correlation between short gestation times and colic and the reason for the  fussy newborn’s poor state of self-control and self-calming ability is due to an immature brain.  That is why over or under stimulation can result in the flailing of the arms and legs and loud crying.  Also, a baby with a sensitive temperament can have a greater reaction to pain from food and allergies or acid reflux.  In addition, it is believed that constipation and gas can cause discomfort that provokes crying in babies with brain immaturity.

Dr. Karp summarizes his hypothesis with a system that uses the five “S’s” – swaddling, side/stomach holding, shushing, swinging, and sucking.  This, he says, stimulates the conditions of the womb and activates the baby’s calming reflex and can relieve crying and colic in babies.

Do you have any experiences with colic or solutions you can share with our community? Leave a comment in the box below!

Consider which of the following tantrums your child is exhibiting:

How to overcome toddler sleep problems

1) Over-Stimulation Tantrum – your toddler is overwhelmed, tired or hungry. His tantrum doesn’t seem deliberate; instead, it seems like he’s melting down.

If this is the case, slow down your child’s activity level about an hour before it’s time for bed. Look over his bedtime routine and ensure that there are no stimulating activities.

2) Power Tantrum – your child isn’t getting what  she wants, and she wants you to know it.

Her tantrum seems completely deliberate, and she’s challenging your authority.If this is the case, offer your toddler choices.

Does she want to read a story or brush her teeth? If she feels that she has an option, she will most likely calm down and make a decision.

If she doesn’t call down, lay down the law: “You can do this or this. I’m not willing to argue any more about it. Let me know when you’ve made your decision.”  Then
walk away and take a deep breath.

3) Attention Tantrum – your child is trying to get you involved, paying attention to him.

His behavior will seem deliberate, as if nothing will please him. If this is the case, evaluate the amount of time you spend with your toddler–is he getting enough one-on-one time with you during the day?

If not, this may be why he strives for your attention at nighttime. Teach your child various positive ways to ask for your attention.

If none of this works, remember that your toddler only wants your attention. So deprive him of your attention until he calms down.

Remove yourself from his room and tell him you will return once you hear him talking calmly. During tantrums, remember one thing: you are in
control of the situation.

Make bedtime a time to sleep, not to talk and act out. Keep your attitude firm yet boring. If your toddler wants a glass of water, get it without a word, give it to him, and then leave the room. This will teach him that no matter how much he acts out, his place is in his bed.

If you’re looking for more tips and strategies to help your toddler sleep through the night, you can check out my toddler sleep resources here.

Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution Book focuses on gentle nighttime routines and the need for consistency in training

The theory behind the No Tears method is that bedtime is a prime opportunity for connecting and building a relationship with baby. 

It is based on going to baby immediately when he cries during the night and creating an environment of safety through constant contact, picking up and putting down as necessary, and lots of attention.

It focuses on gentle nighttime routines and the need for consistency in training.

No Tears Method Pros

• It builds a healthy bond between baby and caregiver
• It reassures baby and helps create a positive understanding of nighttime
• It encourages gentle sleep training
• Good method for babies and toddlers needing help

No Tears Method Cons

• It can take a while (several weeks) to show results
• It can create a habit in baby of needing props to fall asleep
• Caregivers are required every time baby wakes up, making it difficult for the caregiver to fall asleep themselves

If you are interested in learning more about the No Tears Method, pick up Elizabeth Pantley’s book “The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night.” If you’d like to learn more about alternative method for sleep training, please check out my baby sleep book here.

6 easy ways to help your toddler sleep through the night

What is guaranteed to drive your toddler crazy? Four little words, “It’s time for bed”! These words are enough to turn any toddler into a argumentative little being. If you’re a parent struggling to get your toddler to sleep, you know what I’m talking about. So what can you do to get that toddler into bed? Instead of standing there pulling out your hair, I have six useful tips to offer to get any toddler into bed time mode. All these tips are tried and tested to work, however not all them will work on every toddler.

1. Keep your toddler busy while he’s awake. Parents with toddlers know that they have an abundance of energy. Take your toddler to a playground or let him run around the garden so that he can burn off that excess energy. Remember when you were a child, Didn’t you used to love playing out of doors?

2. For the days that it’s raining, keep him occupied with toys indoors. Give him an assortment of toys so he won’t get bored, and remember mental activity can be just as tiring as physical activity.

3. Whatever you do, you should make sure you choose a bedtime that is realistic. Children are just like adults, they have distinct sleep patterns. Some are morning people, while others are night owls. While you will be able to control this to some point, it will pay to fit in with your child and consider delaying bedtime if he is still wide awake at 7pm. On the other hand, if he’s too tired to eat dinner, move both the meal and bedtime forward to accommodate him. By doing this you will save a lot of arguing and stress!

4. Daytime naps may also affect how sleepy your child feels at night. If bedtime’s a constant battle try cutting out, or shortening, his daytime naps.

5. If your toddler does not usually take a nap during the day, then just have him or her have a quiet rest period, which will refresh and re-energize him until bedtime comes along.

6. Have a bedtime routine and stick to it! It’s very easy to get off track so this may take a bit of effort at first. Begin the routine straight after dinner and don’t deviate from it. If, despite trying this routine for a few weeks, your toddler is still impossible to get into bed, a glass of warm milk may do the trick. Don’t under any circumstances give your child any type of sleep medication, no matter how mild. It will always lead to further sleeping problems in the future.

I hope these tips are of help when your toddler won’t sleep. To summarize, plenty of activity during the day will ensure that your toddler will be ready for sleep at bed time. As an added bonus, all that activity is good for his health too. Now here’s an extra safety tip; if your child is a sleep walker or tends to wander around at night, simply attach a bell to the bedroom door.

Do you have a toddler or child who plays up at bedtime? Does your child wake up frequently at night? For the answer to these and other problems visit http://www.insomnia-connection.com/child-sleep.html to find out how to teach your child good sleep habits and enjoy peaceful nights again.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Wendy_Owen

Dr. Ferber's sleep training strategy teaches babies to soothe themselves to sleep

The Ferber Method is a sleep training strategy designed by renowned sleep doctor Richard Ferber, which puts the work on baby to fall asleep on his own. 

It teaches parents to put baby to bed when he’s sleepy but not yet asleep, and to give him some time to calm himself before going in to comfort him.

Ferber encourages this self-soothing method to begin at around 4-6 months of age. 

The key points of the method are a loving pre-bedtime routine, putting the child to bed while he’s awake, and leaving him to soothe himself for long stretches of time, broken up by check-ins.

Pros of the Ferber Method

• It puts the work on baby – caregivers go in to check on baby only after a set amount of time spent fussing.  Baby quickly learns to calm himself.

• Results are fast, usually within a few days

• Babies get a combination of learning to soothe themselves and knowing that a caregiver is nearby and attending to them

Cons of the Ferber Method

• This method is hard, as it requires caregivers to ignore baby’s cries for stretches of time

• Opponents say it is too harsh and teaches children that they are alone in the world

To learn more, read Ferber’s book, Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. If Ferberizing seems too harsh for you and your family, and you’re looking for more gentle strategies to help calm your baby and teach him to sleep through the night, please check out ParentingHQ’s brand new book: Baby Sleep Secrets.

Inside, you’ll discover 22 simple sleep training techniques that are guaranteed to have your baby sleeping through the night, without using harsh cry it out methods. You can also download our free “7 Minute Baby Sleep Solution”  report here.

How to choose a doula

BRENDA KAY SHUMWAY: Well, and I think, too, so many times we see on the TV shows and the soap operas, people giving birth and they’re totally made up.  Hair, makeup, you name it.  Some of them are getting…

INTERVIEWER: Some of the shows are getting a little better at that, at making them look pretty ragged.  (laughs)  As we do when we’re giving birth.  But we’ve had that in front of us for so long on these TV shows, that you must be June Cleaver.  Be perfect all the time.

BRENDA KAY SHUMWAY: Well, and look at our pregnancy magazines.  Everybody’s perfectly coiffed, they’re all their makeup is just fine, no one has dark circles under their eyes.  And, you know, nobody has those bulges here and there like I do.  (laughs)  So I must be doing it wrong.

INTERVIEWER: (laughs)  Well, I would love to talk more about doulas.  Because again, we want to give as much information on the subject as possible.  And let’s say that we have parents who are on the fence right now.  They’re thinking, “Okay, this could be something that would be beneficial to us.”  How do you find a good doula?  How do you know the person that’s best suited for you?  And what are the resources?  Where do you find doulas?  Are they, you just look ‘em up in the phone book?  Through the hospitals?  Tell us all about that.

BRENDA KAY SHUMWAY: You can look ‘em up just about anywhere these days.  They may be in your Yellow Pages.  You can certainly find ‘em on the Internet.  I personally would prefer to have women talk to their friends, their care providers, people who work well in the whole birthing team.  Certainly by word of mouth is a good way to do that as well.

But on the Internet, if you look through certifying organizations such as DONA or CAPPA, you’ll find a listing of certifying organizations that are available, finding a list of women.  And I really encourage women to interview several because there will be warm squishy doula, there will be a very informative and business-like doula, there will be a hands-off doula, there’ll be a really hands-on. 

You’ll find your yoga doulas, you’ll find your hypno-birthing doulas.  And so you kind of, by visiting with several either over the phone, over the Internet, chit-chatting with them over email, you kinda get a flavor of is this person gonna really jive with me and understand what it is that I need?  Then inviting them either into your home for an interview or you can certainly meet at a Starbucks or some place like that if you feel more comfortable doing that.  Doulas are really great at coming and chit-chatting with you and then saying, “I’m gonna back off now and you guys talk about it.”

There is a doula for every woman.  Sometimes that’s more difficult to find if she waits later in her pregnancy to find her.  But we’re as vast as all of you are ‘cause that’s who we are.  We are you.

The Mommy Do Box

BRENDA KAY SHUMWAY: I think another thing is when women are in that new postpartum period, a lot of people come to visit her.  Although that’s wonderful, everybody wants to show off their new baby, it’s also very exhausting.

INTERVIEWER: It’s stressful, isn’t it?

BRENDA KAY SHUMWAY: It is extremely stressful.  And what a lotta people don’t realize is this woman has, probably the last month or six weeks of her pregnancy, not slept well.  She’s had a lot of misery, a lot of heartburn, a lot of swollen ankles, and maybe a lot of prenatal testing going on, along with maybe her job, her other kids.  She’s gone through twelve to thirty-six to forty-eight hours of labor, given birth.  The baby doesn’t let her sleep after that because “I want to be fed every hour and a half to two hours ‘round the clock.”  And “Oh, my gosh, I have to put myself together so I can have company.”  So if we’re aware of that as visitors when we see mom being a little bit wound, maybe we can not just say, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do” but have some really concrete ideas into place and just do ‘em for her.

INTERVIEWER: I think if you are a visitor, probably the best thing that you could do is, number one, call before you come and say, “Don’t worry if the house isn’t perfect.  If you need me to pick up something or clean this or help with dinner,” and just be that kind of a support as well, do you think that would work?

BRENDA KAY SHUMWAY: Oh, I think that’s a wonderful, wonderful friend that just assumes that we’re gonna be kind of a mess.  When I go into a woman’s house to maybe do her little postpartum visit or to help with a little breastfeeding, if her home is kind of a wreck I always congratulate her.  Because that really shows that she’s spending her time and attention on what she needs to, which is herself and her baby.  And just say, “I just want you to know I’m so happy.  I’m so happy to see,” you know, “there’s laundry over here.  And I’m gonna, if you don’t mind, I’m just gonna get in your little space here and I’m just gonna do a little bit’a stuff that I would want to have done.  If that’s okay.”  And usually these are people that I’ve kind of developed that kinda relationship I can do that.

I would love to just kind of throw this out there for people.

A great baby gift or a great way to kind of have a little thing to do to keep your mind off of “When is this baby gonna come?” is to make what I call a Mommy-Do box.  And your Mommy-Do box looks kind of like a recipe box.  And on one side it has a chore.  It has “Vacuum my living room” or “Put my stuff in the dryer” or “Put away my dishes.  I don’t care if you put ‘em in the right place” or “Pick up my prescription at the drug store” or “Pick up Tom’s dry cleaning.”  And on the back there’s a place for their friend to sign their name.  And when they come in, the Mommy-Do box is right there, at mom’s bedside because people are gonna come visit her in her bed ‘cause sheS recuperating, right?

BRENDA KAY SHUMWAY: She’s not in the living room entertaining friends.  So when they say, “Let me know if there’s something I can do,” dad says, “Oh!  Here’s our Mommy-Do box.  Choose something and sign the back.  And then in six months when we’re feeling more like ourselves again, we’ll send you a thank-you card.”  And that’s a really great way for a mom to give permission.  It’s okay for you to look in my cabinets.  It’s okay for you to see my dirty laundry.  It’s okay for you to see my dry cleaning bill.  And that way it takes care of some of that stuff that otherwise moms worry about as they sleep.

INTERVIEWER: Brenda, I love that idea!  Absolutely love it!

BRENDA KAY SHUMWAY: Well, I think it’s just a practical way to give permission on both sides.  It’s okay to ask for help and it’s okay to give it.

INTERVIEWER: And doesn’t it make you a little bit closer with that friendship when you share something that personal.

Click on the play button below to listen to this teleseminar segment!

infant colic myths

QUESTION: Let’s talk about old wives’ tales.  Are there any old wives’ tales or common myths about infant colic, crying, or getting an infant to sleep that you’d like to clear up with our listeners today?

One common myth about infant colic is that you can "spoil" a baby by holding or comforting her

JULIE BUCK: There are a few. Definitely.  One myth is that it is caused by something that you’re doing. It just is not the case.  It’s not your fault.  It is largely a phase and it’s something that some babies go through that has very little to do with anything mom and dad are doing.

The next myth involves the sentiment that parents can spoil their babies by picking them up and snuggling them too often. The truth is, you can’t spoil a baby that needs you – that’s just not possible.  That’s just not possible.

There are 8 foods that are most often associated with infant distress, and that breastfeeding moms may want to eliminate to determine if they are the source of colic and crying.

1) Cruciferous vegetables (such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage)
2) Dairy products (including milk, yogurt, cheese etc.)
3) Chocolate
4) Eggs
5) Citrus fruits
6) Tomatoes and tomato sauce
7) Caffeinated beverages
Artifical sweeteners

Certain foods may contribute to colic in breastfed infants

If you suspect that something you are eating is causing a reaction in your baby, track your diet using a log, then track the bouts of colic or inconsolable crying that occur on the same day.

Over time, you’ll be able to identify a pattern and determine which foods your child may have a sensitivity for.

Click on the play button below to hear Julie’s advice:

baby cry remedies

QUESTION: Do you ever recommend any over-the-counter medications or any home remedies that could help colicky or fussy babies?

JULIE BUCK: I always give the disclaimer that any suggested remedy should always be considered in consultation with your doctor. You definitely want to discuss any of these options with your pediatrician and make sure that it’s right for you and right for your baby.  That said, there are a couple of products on the market people swear by – that I’ve seen really help.

One is called Gripe Water.  And another is called Colic Calm.  And those are two products that usually with an Internet search or at a local store you’d be able to find.

Another option is to use regular gas drops like Mylicon.  There are also suppositories you can use if it seems as though your baby is having a hard time going to the bathroom.  If you visit a whole foods or a Vitamin Cottage there are other homeopathic remedies that are available.

You can also try making a chamomile and fennel tea. Steep it weakly and give it to your baby a few drops at a time. Chamomile is a calming type of herb or flower, and fennel is a nice digestive aid. Again, make sure you consult with your doctor first.

I’ve also had some experience with other families who have used pediatric certified chiropractors, who are certified to work with children.

There can be underlying things going with a baby’s spine and body as they’ve come out of the birth canal they’re experiencing gravity for the first time. Things that can make them uncomfortable that we might not necessarily catch, which chiropractic can help.  A website for more information on pediatric certified chiropractors is  ICPA4kids.com.  And it’s very important that you find a chiropractor that has the pediatric certification.

There are two other types of alternative medicine that, again, you would discuss with your doctor and decide if it was correct for you.  One is called craniosacral therapy.  It works through the fluid that bathes our spine and our brains.

Another option is acupuncture.  For children and babies there are licensed acupuncturists that  don’t use needles.  It’s acupressure.  Those are some of the solutions that families I have seen work well for other families.