Both my babies have had colic. It's a given on this one, as he had to have antibiotics on the third day of his life. But my daughter was bothered by it for four months.
It's exhausting - you feed them, they get pain, they think they want more food, and the wind pain, hunger pain and tiredness all get confused, so they just want to feed all the time and the cycle starts again. It's not as bad as reflux, and in fairness, the baby grizzle more than screams, and doesn't do it ceaselessly like some. But it really is interfering with sleep and his settling - and agonisingly, he'd be great at night so far if he could just go off to sleep after each feed!
I am dedicated to breastfeeding as a method of feeding babies and wouldn't consider doing it another way unless I had no choice. But God. Between my over supply and fast flow (which isn't so bad this time, but the boobs are still too swollen for him to latch on properly half the time, so with the faffing around before and the colic after, feeds are taking ages and getting frustrating for both of us). And then there's the puking, especially if he has a bit more to try and settle his wind - then you get milk on top of air and the burps come with puke on the side when they finally come. I've got the Frankenboobs too, very uncomfortable!
But the massive problem is not being able to eat anything. How bad must my diet be that I'm so limited while I feed my baby. Can his tummy really not take lots of types of veg, beans, dairy, chocolate etc? Is it all so deeply unnatural, especially after being processed into milk?
I don't know. I wonder if colick is an age old phenomenon? Animals don't seem to suffer from it. Plenty of babies don't suffer from it, and I'm sure I don't eat that much worse than their parents - or do I?
Either way, while the hassles of breastfeeding are worth it to me, I can totally see why other people who aren't so into it are put off. And I feel that in evolutionary terms, we should have had a better version of bfing - and pregnancy, come to think of it, by now!
3 comments:
Oh dear, I hope it clears up soon. Keep your strength up. I'm going to go now and read up on some of your earlier posts!! Thinking of you
My ma got diagnosed as a coeliac last Sep at the age of 75! Gas I know. It's a struggle. She stopped taking holy communion at mass. I slagged her about converting to protestantism because by refraining from eating the bread she's not accepting transubstantiation. Think you had to be there.
That is really funny! Perhpas the priest would bless some gluten free crackers?
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