Sunday, March 14, 2010

Update

Michael is five weeks old tomorrow. He still is a better sleeper most nights than Joseph is, for which I am profoundly grateful. Unfortunately Michael has digestive troubles. No matter what I eat or do not eat, despite baby zantac, gasdrops, gripe water, slings, baby massage, baths, moving legs up and down and so on... Michael screams. He screams a lot. He screams several hours a day.
By now, all the good advice from friends who have been there and done that has come to... 'You just have to wait it out, he WILL grow out of it eventually'. I will readily admit that I wish 'eventually' came with a date. This would be so much more manageable if you knew: ok... it will only last x more weeks... or months... then it is over. Even if x was a number larger than you wanted it to be, you would have an end goal in sight. Instead, we just have to wait and pray.

In the mean time, I can only walk him, try to calm Joseph when he yells "stop screaming, Michael" and ask him to say "Bless you, little brother" instead. Joseph has eagerly adopted the new phrase, though he hasn't given up the "stop screaming!!!!" preferably yelled at the top of his lungs, adding to the already deafening noise. Sometimes I feel like yelling it myself, especially after midnight when I am walking the floor with him. Instead I train myself to say "Bless your little heart, Michael" whenever I want to tell him myself to stop screaming.
While I am still looking for a solution, I have sort of accepted that this is our new reality until he does grow out of it. I just pray for the patience to deal with every day in it's turn and I hope that the number of weeks till he grows out of whatever prompts this crying will be small.

3 comments:

MamaBirdEmma said...

I am so sorry, Eva. I wish that I had some words of wisdom for you. I will be praying for you!

Kate said...

May the Lord preserve your sanity and your eardrums. That is meant both as a cute little sentiment and an absolutely serious prayer!

My son was fussier than my daughter and I remember being completely exhausted and rocking him at night while he cried and I just cried with him, praying fervently that he'd stop.

Kate said...

Vitamin B6! Give it a try. On the first day take 1 tablet 3 times a day. Afterwards, take 1 tablet every 12 hours, increasing to one more only if it seems to not be working. If it starts working, after a week, decrease to one a day (only increase if the colic returns). Try this! Hopefully within a week the colic will be reduced.

Vitamin B6 is one of the number one vitamins we are deficient in because it is mostly found in raw milk and raw liver....two foods very rarely eaten in the Western World.