So, uh, yeah. You scream a lot. After a feeding, it's not uncommon for you to scream for about 2 hours. Not straight through; you'll sleep, or be quiet and happy, for about a minute, maybe as many as 3. Then you'll start screaming bloody murder, fart, scream for a few more seconds because, well, that's what you were doing before, realize that the gas pain has gone away, then fall back asleep. In a couple minutes, the gas pain comes back and you do it all again.
This typically happens between the hours of 9pm and 3am. Ya know, right when Mom and I are trying to sleep.
Well, we think we've recently found the solution(s). The things we're doing that seem to have helped:
- Mom only feeds you on one boob at a time to make sure you get both fore milk and hind milk.
- We've been giving you some meds: Mylacon, some herbal colic tablets, and gripe water.
- We keep you somewhat vertical while you sleep. Unfortunately, you don't like laying down by yourself yet. You have to lay on one of us, unless you're already in a deep sleep when we lay you down. This means that one of us needs to sleep at an incline with you on our chest. This means either the couch, the chair in your room, or in bed, but sleeping on this foam wedge thing we got from our chiropractor. It also means that whoever has you has to sleep on their backs and can't roll over onto their side. Neither of us has rolled over in their sleep with you on our chests (yet), so to the best of our knowledge, you don't have any brain damage. But it's only a matter of time. :)
- (This is the hard one) Mom is giving up foods for you. The big one that she just started a few days ago: Dairy. Your mother is a Milk Hound. She drinks as much milk as I do (which is a lot). So giving up Milk is not an easy feat. Even if she didn't drink as much milk as I do, it's hard to find products that don't contain _ANY_ milk; it sneaks in there a lot of the time when you least expect it. We've been trying things like rice milk, almond milk, goat's milk, etc. So far nothing has been a silver bullet, but they should be better in baked goods (for example). In support of mom, and to remove temptations from the house, I'm also avoiding milk products whenever possible. Let me tell you, it ain't easy.
Everyone keeps telling us that colic lasts about 3 months, then babys grow out of it. Of course, every baby is different, but that's the number we hear most often. You're 5.5 weeks old right now, so we've got about 7 or 8 weeks to go if that's the case. Golly, it sure will be nice to be able to sleep again. :)
At least while I'm on the couch with you, I get to watch movies. We just picked up the four James Bond box sets, so we're plowing through those now. :)
Anyway. For now, I'm off to play WoW: Burning Crusade for the first time. I've got you strapped to my chest in the sling. Luckily for me, you seem to be ok with it right now. Sometimes, you're not so ok. Oh, as luck would have it, just as I type that, you started wiggling around, which is usually a precurser to waking up. Well, it is about time for a feeding. We'll see how this goes.
You are still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I love you so much, Zoe. I can't wait for you to grow up so I can tell you that and you'll know what I'm saying.