I was lucky with Jonah, he was a great baby... an easy baby. He boosted my confidence in being able to handle infants because he was so responsive to everything I did. I rocked him, he fell asleep. I fed him, he smiled. He cried, I soothed him. Worked in perfect harmony. As a mother, one of the hardest lessons I have had to learn is that I can't make my child do anything. I freely admit, I like to be in control. When it comes to kids, you only have some of the control. Yes, Jonah tests his limits daily, but he's at an age now where I can begin to reason with him and he is starting to make sense of the world. Nolan, on the other hand, is lost in this overstimulated, scary world.
At Nolan's 2 month appointment, I asked the pediatrician about his poor sleeping during the day and the fact that I could only get him to sleep on his stomach. Of course, she didn't like that idea (and honestly, nor did I) and encouraged me to just use the swing and try to put him down for naps on his back when he seemed willing. I asked questions about how to tell if he was sensitive to what I was eating and what signs to really look for when I started cutting foods out of my diet. She looked at me like I was crazy and started asking about why I thought he had issues and I mentioned all the crying and screaming. As a good doctor should, she told me it was normal and he probably had a "colicky period " during the day and he would grow out of it. I heard what she said and superficially accepted it, but continued to not believe that my sweet little boy had "colic" and he would "just grow out of it".
It's such a dreadful word, "colic". Society says that babies who cry too much have this "disorder" and that something is wrong with them. A random rule of 3s defines who has this "problem": crying 3 hours a day, at least 3 days a week for at least 3 weeks. Does anyone really total their child's screaming time? I don't. I just know it happens.
When someone denies something is occurring, what normally happens? It gets worse. Over the past several weeks, his screaming and crying has only intensified, as has my crying and frustration. I fell apart emotionally several times and deemed myself the worst mother on the planet because my 2.5 month old would scream and cry when I tried to put him down for a nap, throughout the evening and virtually every time I tried to leave the house with him. I was embarrassed because I felt like I had failed as a mother. I wanted to hide myself and my child because he wasn't a sweet angel baby who smiled on command and quietly sat in his carrier and just gracefully fell asleep every chance he got.
Is that what my sweet little boy deserves? Not a bit. In my emotionally broken state, I scoured the internet on tips to help him sleep, ways to soothe him that I hadn't tried, schedules for "high-need babies". The reality is and was, I could not find the magic combination to help him. In our bible study group, as I paced the kitchen shushing Nolan to sleep, one of my friends was talking about forgiveness and prayers. She plainly stated that sometimes you shouldn't pray for the other person to change, but to pray for your own heart to change. It stuck with me, but I didn't see why until now. I have been praying for my heart to change over this past week; to openly accept my son, screaming fits and all, and just help him through this time as best I can. As if on cue, God led me to a website that appealed to my intellectual side. This website has helped me understand the natural process that every baby goes through during this phase in their lives. If you are a mom to a newborn, or are a soon to be mom (even a second-time mom), I urge you to just gloss through the material.
I'll share the cliff notes version of it - the parts that really helped me. Every baby goes through crying in the first few months, but not all babies go through this phase the same way. Around 2 months, the baby's crying peaks in intensity and frequency and begins to taper off between 3-5 months. There are three types of crying: fussing, crying and inconsolable crying. Again, this is unique to the baby and there's really no rhyme or reason to it. With inconsolable crying, it starts and stops for no reason, with virtually no explanation and it almost looks like they are in pain. As a parent trying to soothe this little person, it's virtually impossible and only very upsetting and frustrating. They use the acronym purple to help describe the features of normal infant crying
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I will say this site is in conjunction with the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, so they are trying to educate parents out there that their child is normal. The specific pages that helped me were this one and this one. My pediatrician even mentioned to me that this unhappy crying period is often not talked about by parents because of embarrassment and not wanting to look like a bad parent. But truthfully, it really doesn't have much to do with the parent. I can tell you that I have done very little differently in how I survived the first few months with Jonah and Nolan and the experience has been night and day.
I hope that you take the time to pray for me, Randy and Nolan as we battle through this phase. If you have the same struggles, take heart that you are not alone!
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