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As a new parent you do everything you
can think of to keep your baby healthy and
happy ... so why is it that your baby
decides to start screaming inconsolably
right around dinner time? Just when you
need it least.
Ask yourself ...
does The Rule of Threes apply?
- When your baby starts crying, is it
for spells of 3 or more hours at a
time?
- Do these crying spells happen 3 or
more times a week?
Did you notice the crying spells
becoming more apparent about the 3rd week
after you brought your baby home?
If you have answered yes to the above
questions you possibly have a baby with
colic. Attempting to calm a colicky baby
can leave a parent emotionally drained and
physically exhausted.
Colic is the diagnosis many
pediatricians tag on a baby who is
otherwise healthy and thriving; a colic
baby has episodes of inconsolable crying
beginning around the 3rd week of life,
lasting at least 3 hours a day, for at
least 3 days a week.
The word Colic comes from the Greek
word kolikos which means suffering in the
colon. Sometimes simply changing the
baby's diet can help dramatically or
changing the mothers diet if you are
breast feeding.
However, another theory is emerging
about the cause of colic. Some doctors
believe an underdeveloped and immature
nervous system may be contributing to the
cause of colic crying. When a baby is
born, its head isnt big enough to house a
brain that is mature enough to have all
the survival tools a human infant needs. A
baby's brain is only the size of an apple.
The birth canal cannot handle a bigger
head. So when a baby is born, the only
inherent survival skills they possess are
sneezing, sucking, swallowing and
CRYING
Babies are capable of crying for a
reason and then calming themselves down.
They are awake for awhile to learn and
accept stimuli. Then they sleep to recover
and awake to take in more stimuli.
A colicky baby is high-maintenance.
Their nervous system is overloaded with
all the sights and sounds of a new world.
And by about dinner time, they've had it
and the crying begins. Once they start
crying they lack the mechanism to calm
themselves down. It seems the baby fights
going to sleep, won't take a nap and won't
stay asleep once they do finally go to
sleep. These poor babies never take the
time to recover from all the stimuli they
have taken in over the course of a
day.
What can a parent do to eliminate these
crying episodes?
An effective method to calming a
colicky infant is by using white noise to
mask environmental stimuli.
 White
noise is something we hear all the time,
but rarely pay any attention. You hear
white noise from:
- the roar of the wheels while
driving in the car,
- the hum of the fan while working at
your computer,
- the hum of the motor while running
a vacuum cleaner,
- the roar of a crowd while watching
sporting events.
White noise is the full spectrum of
sound frequencies a human ear can hear
combined together all at once. When you
hear something that creates a monotonous
hum, and maybe kind of makes you sleepy,
you are hearing white noise. You can
purchase white noise cds and white noise
generators, download white noise mp3s or
even try running an appliance such as hair
dryers, air conditioners or fans to create
the white noise necessary to calm your
baby in the midst of a crying
outburst.
Remember, in the womb your baby was
packed in tightly. It was dark, it was
warm and the prominent sound s/he heard
was the whoosh of blood flowing through
the placenta, a noise a little louder than
the noise of a vacuum cleaner running.
This whoosh of sound actually acted as the
white noise your baby heard while in the
womb. You can recreate the feeling your
baby had while in the womb. If you lower
the lights, swaddle your baby in a blanket
and play some white noise, a colic baby
outburst can be eliminated in no time.
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