What Saved My Sanity During Colic

First, if you came across this page because you are desperately googling everything you can get your eyes on about colic while holding a screaming baby ~ girl, my heart goes out to you.  I have been there.  For my younger son, his witching hour (haha, make that hours) was every night from 6-9 and he screamed pretty much that entire time.  Now we tried everything we could think of.  He hated the mechanical swing, hated the bouncer, hated just being held.  Sometimes he would quiet for a few minutes if I put him in his carseat and swang him around using my entire body.  Not a very sustainable move in any case, and certainly not a few weeks postpartum.  

Enter, the exercise ball.

Well, no, first I googled.  I tried gripe water.  I googled some more.  I cried.  He cried.  And repeat.  Finally one night I texted my friend Katy how much we were completely struggling and she asked if I had tried an exercise ball.  She said that it made all the difference when her daughter had colic.   I happened to have one in the basement and immediately ran downstairs, grabbed it, sat on it with my son and started bouncing.  And I heard: silence.  And contentment.  And silence.  Sounds that hadn’t been heard at our house from 6-9 pm for a long time.  If you don’t happen to have one lying around in your basement, you can find a similar exercise ball on Amazon (this is an affiliate link).

So, first, I wanted to hold up a boombox for Katy playing, “Somebody saved my life tonight …”  Because finding this trick so completely helped turn our evenings around.  I bounced my son on this thing for weeks and weeks.  I bounced so much that when my mom came over and took my son to sit with her on the couch, I got on the ball and started bouncing just out of sheer habit. 

And things got better.  And one day we didn’t need the exercise ball so much anymore.  And one day it went to back to gathering dust in the basement (I’m so going to use it for actual exercise someday.)  So, I promise they will grow out of this!  It gets better!

I do want to be sure to mention again that this was with my second son.  I feel like there are so many tricks and articles focused on new moms that, while I knew of course it wouldn’t be easy, I just assumed that second time moms have some tricks up their sleeves and are just magically Baby Whisperers right out of the gate because literally no one talks about what it’s like with your second baby.  So I felt a lot of guilt that I didn’t just automatically know what to do or like a failure because my son had colic because I thought it was something maybe I did.  Please, don’t be like me.  None of this is your fault.  You’re doing the best you can for you, your baby and your family and you are awesome.  Every kid is different and it’s a learning experience with each one.  You’ll get through this!  

I hope this trick is as much of a sanity saver for you as it was for me!  Any other tricks I missed for dealing with colic?  Tell me in the comments!