Survivor’s Guide to Colic: Solutions for Crying Babies from Someone Who’s Been There

By Jen Lester

* No Bossy Rules - Just Clear, Balanced Information About Your Options *

Is your baby unsettled, fussy and crying for hours? When your baby won’t stop crying you need practical answers FAST.

If you’ve been told that “colic does not exist” or “there’s nothing you can do” or if an expert has told you that there’s only ONE way to ‘fix’ colic and that didn’t work for your baby, this is the book for you.

In this sanity-saving book, Jen Lester brings together for the first time all the information that parents need to help their baby stop screaming. Cutting through all the confusion, misinformation and biased product sales pitches, Jen brings clarity to the colic debate for the first time.

Survivor’s Guide to Colic clearly explains the main theories about the causes of colic and covers your options to prevent or reduce colic. For each option, Jen clearly explains:
- who thinks it works and why;
- who disagrees and why;
- any medical evidence to back up each viewpoint; and
- her own conclusion after reading the latest medical research and going through it herself.
This will empower you as parents, to find the right solution/s for your family.

Easy to read for new, sleep-deprived parents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9780992436803

Book preview

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Section 1: Colic is NOT Your Fault (Really!)

(But there are things you can do that will help)

The Sound of Crying

There is a sound that is biologically designed to cause you stress. You are hardwired to want to make that sound stop. If it goes on for any length of time, you’re pre-programmed to feel quite desperate.

It’s the sound of your own baby crying.

Now as a survival mechanism that works brilliantly if your baby is crying because she is hungry, tired or needs a nappy change. However, if you’ve covered all those bases, and your little one is still regularly crying for prolonged periods, you are probably:

Feeling genuinely distressed when a crying session lasts for hours and nothing you do seems to help;

Worried about your baby and wanting to protect him/her;

Confused by all the conflicting and unhelpful information and advice that’s out there about colic;

Exhausted from the stress and the sleep deprivation;

Worried that you’re doing something 'wrong', that you’re not a 'natural' mother/father, that you’re not 'good' at parenting or that this is your 'fault' somehow;

Feeling anxious about when the next crying spell might start; and/or

Concerned about the impact that the stress is having on your relationship with your partner (when you’re already under the pressure of adapting to massive life changes).

Living with a baby suffering from colic is really tough, but take a deep breath and relax, because I’ve pulled together the information and solutions you need to help you through this.

Colic Affects a Large Proportion of Babies

If your baby has been regularly crying for extended periods and nothing you do seems to help, the first thing to know is that you are not alone. Estimates of the proportion of babies that suffer from colic vary widely, from up to 20%¹, to up to 30%² or even up to 40%³ of babies.

Of all the babies that see a doctor because their parents are concerned about ‘excessive crying’, the statistics indicate that around 5% will have an underlying medical cause. The other 95% of babies will be diagnosed with ‘colic’.⁴

Although there is debate about the exact numbers, what is clear is that colic is something that happens to a very significant number of babies. So you can rest assured this is a common problem and it is NOT happening because you are a ‘bad parent’. I mention this only because often new parents with a colicky baby will worry that this might be happening because they are ‘no good at this whole parenting gig’.

And if that worry has been niggling away in the back of your mind, remember: if you’re reading this, you’re already taking steps to find answers for your bub. Now that sounds like something a caring, responsible parent would be doing, right?

Colic is Not Caused by Stressed Out Parents

Sometimes well meaning, but uninformed, people will suggest that your baby is colicky because you are stressed out or anxious.

It is very common to hear things along the lines of happy mother = happy baby or some other equally unhelpful statement implying that your baby would be just fine if you relaxed.

So the second thing to know is that studies have NOT shown any evidence that parental anxiety causes colic.⁵ For example, even when trained occupational therapists cared for colicky babies, they still cry for twice as long as infants without colic.⁶

So your baby does not have colic because you are stressed. Although the chances are that if your baby is crying excessively you will be feeling pretty stressed and anxious as a result! (Don’t worry, that’s normal too – again there’s loads of evidence that most parents in this situation feel that way).

Some people are lucky – they have a baby that is naturally calm and relaxed, and drifts gently off to sleep. If you were not so fortunate, just remember that it is not your fault – it is just the luck of the draw.

If you talk to enough parents you’ll soon hear stories of parents whose first baby was easy, and are then horrified to discover that their second baby…

Just. Won’t. Stop. Screaming.

They’re doing all the things that worked just fine with number one, but number two isn’t responding the same way at all… For some reason their second ‘little angel’ is crying and screaming for hours at a time and nothing seems to help.

If you are reading this book you probably have a challenge on your hands. That challenge might have been obvious from the beginning or you might be one of those poor parents who thought they’d scored a contented little baby, only to have him/her morph into an unhappy, screeching gremlin down the track.

Natural Instinct is a Myth – there are Specialist Skills you can Learn

There is a widespread myth that mothers have a ‘natural instinct’ and should somehow automatically know exactly what their little bundle of joy needs. And if you have an easy-going baby, there’s quite a lot of leeway to make mistakes and it doesn’t take as much to keep that baby happy, so this helps perpetuate the myth.

The third thing to know is that there ARE specialist skills and tricks of the trade that help enormously when looking after newborn babies, especially unsettled babies. Through trial and error you might stumble across techniques that work, but generally this is something you need to