Trying to find solutions to calm your colicky baby can be a struggle sometimes. All you want is to relieve your baby and stop the crying, but why is that so hard? There are many factors that contribute to colic in infants. This includes, but is not limited to, the mother’s diet, how the baby swallows, and struggling to get the baby to burp. In this article on colic in breastfed babies, we will discuss these topics and offer you remedies.
What Is Colic
Let’s go over a quick definition of colic. According to the Mayo Clinic, colic in infants is when a healthy baby cries “for 3 or more hours a day, for 3 or more days a week, for 3 or more weeks”.
In other words, colic is when your baby cries excessively. Colic does not refer to gas being stuck in your baby’s gut, however, that is a major cause for colic in infants!
Signs and Symptoms
You may notice these symptoms if your baby has colic:
- Arching of the back
- Clenched fists
- The abdomen is tight or firm to the touch
- Reddening of the face and possible pale color around the mouth
If your infant has these signs and symptoms, there’s a good chance they are struggling with colic. The next question going through your head will be, “How do I get rid of colic?” We will spend the rest of this article discussing solutions for your infants colic and bring you and your little one relief!
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How To Reduce Colic In Breastfed Babies
Trying to find solutions to your baby’s colic can drive you mad. At least it did for me! After trying several things, I could not figure out what my daughter’s problem was. I felt hopeless.
My daughter seemed healthy. She ate well, had normal amounts of wet and poopie diapers, and slept decently well for an infant with colic.
Thankfully, I found some solutions that really worked, and I will share them with you here.
My daughter’s main cause of colic was gas stuck in her gut. There are several things you can do to help reduce the amount of gas in your baby’s gut. Let’s go over them below.
1. Process Of Elimination In Your Diet
Yes, what the mother eats does, in fact, effect the breast milk.
I was surprised what the nurse told me when I called my pediatrician’s help line for my daughter’s extreme colic. When I mentioned maybe something in my diet was upsetting my daughter, she down played that as having any real effect on my daughter’s gas trouble. “What you eat shouldn’t effect your breast milk,” she said. Well, through the process of elimination in my diet, I proved her wrong!
What I found out was my daughter was extremely sensitive to dairy! If I had Ritz crackers, which contain butter, my daughter would poop uncontrollable watery poops and scream from colic!
Once I eliminated all dairy products from my diet, she was a MUCH happier baby! And I was a MUCH happier mama! Her poops got regular and her screaming subsided.
Below are some foods that have been known to upset infants when the mother eats them. Try eliminating just one food item at a time so you can clearly tell if your little one is effected by it or not.
Common Foods Breastfeeding Mothers Should Avoid To Reduce Colic In Their Baby:
- Dairy
- soy
- peanuts
- Some green veggies (lettuce, broccoli, cucumber)
How To Eliminate Foods Effectively From Your Diet
What I mean by “eliminating foods effectively” is you want to know which foods are causing your baby to be sensitive, right? So, you want to eliminate foods from your diet one at a time. Don’t go crazy and try to eliminate 2 or more food items at a time. If you try to eliminate more than one food item at a time, and you see improvement in your baby, you won’t know which food was the source of their sensitivity!
Remember: Eliminate just one food item from your diet at a time. Wait 2-3 days before eliminating something else. This will allow you to clearly understand which food was causing your baby’s sensitivity.
2. Get Your Baby To Burp And Burp Often!
If your baby struggles to burp, the air that gets in their stomachs after feeding will get stuck in their gut and cause colic.
My daughter was a challenge, to say the least, to burp. I would sit there for 5, 10 or 15 minutes trying to burp her in every way I knew how, and she just wouldn’t burp!
Finally, I had more success getting my daughter to burp after getting some advice from family and friends. Below are some tricks they taught me that really helped!
Use Gas Drops With Simethicone Before Feeding
Infant’s gas drops that contain simethicone help with getting a baby to burp. How? They break down the surface tension of the gas bubbles in the baby’s stomach so they are able to be burped up easier.
When I first gave my daughter gas drops, she burped within the first minute! I was so relieved!
I would highly recommend any mother with a colicky baby to invest in some gas drops. They really are a game changer. The drops are not absorbed by the body, so you can use them several times a day with no harm coming to your baby.
Burping Positions
Find a good position that works to get your baby to burp can be a challenge. I will not go over every single burping position here in this article, but I will explain the one position that helped my daughter a lot.
I call it the “feet and bum hold position”.
First, place your infant with their chest facing yours.
Then, with one hand on their back take the other hand and cradle their feet in your palm. Bring their feet up to their butt. Now, both their feet and their butt should be “in” one of your hands. Your other hand should be supporting their back/head.
Make sure their knees are facing outward toward either side of you.
Finally, gently bounce your body up and down. Also pat their butt with enough force to encourage gas to move upward so they can burp.
Coupling this position with the use of gas drops should work beautifully for you!
3. Ways To Calm Your Crying Baby
Excessive crying in infants can lead to more gas being stuck in their stomach. This, of course, causes more colic.
So, let’s talk about some ways to calm your crying baby.
Massage With Essential Oils To Calm A Baby With Colic
There are some essential oils that hold qualities that may help reduce the amount of colic your infant is experiencing.
In my article, Essential Oil For Breastfeeding, I discuss which essential oils are safe to use around infants and toddlers and which ones to avoid. I also discuss the importance of diluting essential oils in a carrier oil before use to avoid irritation to the skin. This is especially true for infants!
When applying an essential oil blend to massage your infant, be sure to follow the guidelines below.
1-2 drops of essential oil to 2 tablespoons of carrier oil.
How To Apply To Baby?
After creating the appropriate dilution of essential oils to carrier oil, do a spot test on the baby’s ankle or wrist. Wait a few hours and note if there is any reaction in those areas. If there is not, you are free to apply your home made massaging oil to your baby!
Apply your massing oil to the baby’s back and stomach to help relieve colic.
For a general calming and bonding experience for you and your baby, apply to the feet. Do not apply to the baby’s hands as they will stick them in their mouths!
Carry Your Baby In A Baby Wrap
Sometimes the best thing you can do to calm your baby is to hold them. I know some people are weary of holding their infants for too long because they don’t want to encourage a state of dependency upon the mother. However, here’s the thing. You cannot “over-hold” an infant! When they are so young, they crave skin-to-skin, physical touch, and closeness. They are born wired with this need! A need that needs to be met.
When a mother holds her baby close to her, the baby can smell the mother, feel her, and bond with her. It lowers the baby’s heart rate, levels out emotions and cortisol (which is the hormone known as adrenaline), and brings the baby peace.
My daughter loved her baby wrap as an infant! It really helped both of us bond together after dealing with so much stress related to colic. Using the wrap was actually therapeutic for us. The wrap also helped calm my daughter and bring her peace amongst all of her colic.
Go For A Drive Or Stroller Ride
Sometimes a simple car drive or stroller ride will calm your crying infant. I was surprised how my daughter would stop crying, after hours of screaming inside, after a few minutes of riding in the car.
It took my daughter a few months to actually enjoy her stroller. Maybe you will have more luck with it than I did, but it is an idea for you.
If you don’t want to go through the hassle of loading up your infant in the car, and she doesn’t enjoy the stroller, perhaps take her for a walk using the baby wrap. See how that works for you. I’m sure it will lull her right to sleep.
4. Tongue Tie Can Cause Colic
One way to reduce colic in your breastfed baby is to look for tongue tie.
When I mention tongue tie to most people, they ask, “What is tongue tie?”
Can you see or feel the piece of skin that connects your tongue to the floor of your mouth? When that piece of skin is too thick, it holds more of the tongue down than is needed. This restricts the tongue from being able to function as it should.
The result is:
- An inability to swallow correctly – which leads to colic in infants
- Prone to choking
- Increased risk of sleep apnea
- Poor posture – tongue tie holds the muscles through the shoulders and back tight so it causes a “hunched” posture in kids and adults.
When the tongue can’t swallow correctly, a nursing infant is swallowing lots of air with every gulp of milk. Of course, this leads to colic and lots of crying!
How Do I know If My Baby Has Tongue Tie?
- They can’t stick out their tongue beyond the lower lip
- If you put your finger in their mouth to suckle, you can feel that their tongue is unable to sweep the top of the mouth appropriately.
- Lots of clicking sounds when baby is breastfeeding or bottle feeding
- Colic
What Should I Do If My Baby Has Tongue Tie?
Take your baby to a specialist who can fix the tongue tie.
I, personally, would not recommend talking to your child’s pediatrician about your child’s possible tongue tie since many are not educated in the subject and may down play the issue.
Search your area for dentists or specialists in treating tongue tie for infants.
If you want to look for non-surgical solutions, you may consider then talking to your child’s pediatrician, a lactation consultant, or an ear-nose-throat (ENT) doctor.
5. Inverted Nipples May Cause Colic In Breastfed Babies
In my article all on inverted nipples, I discuss the 3 degrees of inverted nipples and at-home remedies to correct them. I also talk about how inverted nipples cause difficulty latching for the child, and share my own personal story of struggling with inverted nipples.
When a baby can’t latch on correctly to the breast due to inverted nipples, the baby is unable to swallow milk appropriately. This may lead to colic, among other health issues such as sore, bleeding nipples, engorgement, and a constantly hungry baby.
Read my article, Inverted Nipple Corrector, to learn how you can fix your inverted nipples and find relief from the challenges associated with them.
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