Baby Tummies.

The past few weeks has been a little bit of a roller coaster ride. Our poor little peanut has been suffering with colic on and off for over 3 weeks. In case you haven't heard of colic before ... it's classified by constant (at least 3 hours) fussiness and crying due to bad gas and cramping as his digestive system continues to mature. Luckily there is stuff called gripe water that relaxes the entire baby digestive system giving them some relief. It has to relax the entire system because the baby cannot tell us where the pain is. So instead of using different medications for indigestion, upset tummy and intestinal cramping we can use this one homeopathic remedy. It contains stuff like fennel, ginger and chamomile so it's all natural.

As awesome as the gripe water is on most days, it doesn't always give us much relief. I say 'us' because listening to your little baby cry and knowing there is very little you can do about it can be upsetting. There were times when a cried with him just because I felt so helpless. But thankfully I found another remedy ... breastfeeding. I think it's called 'comfort nursing' though. He doesn't always feed when he is latched on, sometimes he just pacifies ... which is fine with me because it means he isn't crying. However, that has it's own downside.

The last two days were rough as far as the fussiness etc went and the gripe water wasn't giving us very much relief so I just kept attaching him to a breast when I couldn't stand the crying anymore. Yesterday morning I woke up with a bruise and cracks on my nipple from all the pacifying. It does make actual breastfeeding painful, but its worth it if it makes my baby feel better.

I am not yet sure how today is going to go. He is currently napping, and since its only 9am I have yet to really see what his mood is like. I do hope that he is feeling better today so that we can both get some relief from the colic and crying.
Yesterday I started cutting some gas causing foods out of my diet. Foods that cause me gas and foods that are known to upset the baby tummy through the breast milk. Chocolate, caffeine and iron are known to cause upset tummies, which sucks because I have been eating chocolate like it was going out of style for weeks! Hopefully cutting those out will help. I am also cutting down on dairy products since I am lactose intolerant and wheat products due to the high roughage content. Of course there is also the obvious brocolli, cabbage and onion! So I (ummm ... Josh) will be getting creative in the kitchen!

Fingers crossed! As long as colic could go on for, I could never get used to listening to my poor baby cry  :(  Thankfully it's just a phase that a lot of babies go through and even if it wasnt a phase, he will learn to talk eventually and can tell me where it hurts :)