Baby colic occurs when an otherwise healthy baby cries inconsolably for extended periods of time without any apparent reason. There are, however, certain mistakes some parents make that can make the situation worse and the crying sessions longer or more intense.
In this teleseminar, Julie Buck (a postpartum doula in Denver, CO) discusses three common mistakes parents make when dealing with colicky babies, and exactly how to avoid them.
Click on the play button below to listen now!
QUESTION: What are some big mistakes that parents make when trying to deal with colic babies and how can those mistakes be avoided?
JULIE BUCK: The biggest mistakes that I see parents make with colic babies is that they allow their baby to become overstimulated and/or overtired throughout the day. And while that’s not a direct cause for colic, that doesn’t help. It doesn’t make for a successful night if the evening time is when your baby is very colicky. If they’ve had a very overstimulating, overtired day, their system is already overrun and they’re unable, even more, to not be able to settle themselves and to calm down.
Watch for those early signs of overstimulation and overtiredness. For example, your baby looking away from you, or your baby having that glazed-eye look. Those are some early signs of overstimulation tiredness.
Tiredness would also include some yawning, some rubbing of the eyes, some initial kind of fussing – those early baby-sounding cries.
What you’re gonna want to do is when you start to see those early signs of tiredness or those early signs of overstimulation, is not wait until you’re into a full-blown crying spell. You want to get them swaddled and get them into a calmer environment so that they can go to sleep or let their systems not be so stimulated for the time being. And really just trying to avoid too many overstimulating activities at those times of the day when you notice that naps need to happen or that stimulation needs to sort of be at a minimum.
Another thing that people can do is offer their baby their meals in a quiet setting. This helps the baby to stay calm and to reset themselves and be collected. It also ensures that they’re eating good solid meals, that they’re not distracted while they’re eating. Which is important if you want a not-hungry baby.
The last thing to remember is that a lot of people end up trying to comfort their baby after their crying has already started or escalated. Using the soothing techniques that we just talked about to try to prevent the major baby crying sessions from occurring is something that works well as a preventative measure as well.
Now that’s not to say that you’re not going to go into a full-blown crying session but that I think it’s something to keep I mind. Try hard to maintain comfort and you might be able to avoid a crying session.
1 Response to "Baby Colic? Avoid These 3 Mistakes"
Nice article… I like it because it is advice on how to avoid Colic and not stop them.
A lot of people AND articles focus on how to stop colic. But rarely do they focus on how to prevent them. My wife and I heard the horror stories about colic so we decided before hand to learn about preventing them.
We “believe” we avoided colic by using the methods described by Gina Ford (I know she’s hated but I do not care if someone doesn’t like her, I care if my baby is ok and not crying). More accurately by properly breastfeeding. A few of our friends were not as lucky and they were helped either by fennel tea or by Biogaia drops.
Colic definitely are one of those things where it is better to be a bit paranoid and prevent them than to have to cure it… we were like that and so my wife even wrote a comprehensive article on the subject titled simply Colic
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