Hi, I'm Melissa and welcome to CloudMom.com.
First, I just wanted everybody to know that this is the first time I'm shooting and editing
on my own, in my nursery in HD.
So I've been working on this for months, so I'm just so excited that today has finally
come.
So I hope you like it, and if you have a comments, please leave them for me on the site, and
I'll try to take them into account and correct all the errors and imperfections.
Okay, so today's show is about colic.
I've been getting a lot of questions from moms in our new CloudMom community about colic,
what it means and how to deal with it.
This isn't something I dealt with any of my babies, but I have spent some time thinking
about it.
I've heard from a lot of other moms and talking to friends and so forth, so I wanted to share
my thoughts on colic.
So I'm gonna do one show on colic and what it means, and the symptoms and the signs of
colic.
And then I'm gonna do another show on what you can do with colic, how can you treat it.
Okay.
So going from my notes here 'cause this is pretty complicated stuff.
So, okay, the funniest things that I've heard when it comes to colic, although it's not
a funny thing, 'cause it's really a difficult thing to deal with when you're a new mom or
dad, is that colic is a five letter word for "I don't know."
A lot of doctors really don't know what causes colic.
It's a bit of a mystery.
There are some telltale signs of symptoms of colic that people tell you to look for,
and I'm going to run through those with you guys now, okay?
So here are the signs of colic, and I've seen this written in more than one place, so I
think it's pretty reliable.
I've seen it on Doctor Sears Baby Center, various places.
Your baby cries uncontrollably, inconsolably, ugh, terrible, for more than three hours in
a row on more than three days a week for at least three weeks, okay?
So this is something that's happening a lot, and you're not able to stop it, and it goes
on for quite an extended period of time.
It's not like being fussy or hungry for just a few minutes, and seeing that when you feed
the baby or change the baby or the baby sleeps, the baby is then soothed or made to be happy.
So it's something where it's very, very hard to deal with.
So colic usually happens at around two to three weeks of age depending on when your
baby was born.
It can peak at around six weeks of age.
And by three to four months, it's hopefully getting better.
By five months, it's hopefully gone, according to the AP, by three months it's hopefully
gone.
So there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
This is not gonna be something that you're dealing with when your baby is like 18 months
old.
Okay.
Often happens in the late afternoon or early evening, and it can go on and on and on and
on.
Now, so those are signs that your baby actually has colic, and what causes this, again there
is that sort of mystery factor where no one is completely sure.
But here are some things that people suspect might be what's causing colic in a young baby.
The number one the first biggie, biggie is gas, G-A-S, and that's one of the reasons
why people really recommend burping, burping, burping and being careful about the bottles
we use and nipples and so forth, because they think this gas can really be really what makes
these babies very uncomfortable.
And unfortunately, with the kind of crying that colicky babies can do, they can actually
cause their bodies to ingest a lot more unnecessary air.
So it can make the situation even worse because they start crying, they start gulping down
even more air and they get more gas.
So it's a really, really tricky thing.
So gas is number one.
Secondly, an immature nervous system.
Some people think that these babies are just not used to all the stimuli that's coming
on...
Coming into their little brains, and they can't handle it, and colic is a way for them
to shut it out.
And the third thing that people suspect is that it's a way for babies to release energy
that they just need to sort of get rid of energy, as my mother used to say, the baby
cries because he needs to exercise.
Well, it's sort of that thing that this is the way that they can get rid of all of this
unwanted energy, and so they cry and cry and cry.
So it's a really, really hard thing if you're going through this, please hang in there.
You've got to seek help, you've got to reach out to your doctor, you've got to reach out
to friends and figure out what are the ways in which you can handle it.
We're gonna do another show and that's more I hope it be will helpful to you.
If you've suffered from colic or your baby, sorry, has suffered from colic, please comment
on this blog on CloudMom.
We'd really love to hear about your experiences.
Thank you so much for watching today, and I can't wait to see you tomorrow.