Colicky babies can be soothed by Mother Nature

It's late at night and your little angel is acting more like a demon--shrieking, turning various shades of red, kicking, waving fists. He or she has already spit up an amazing amount of goop (making you wonder, what the heck was IN that kid? And how did so much fit in that tiny tummy?) and you're expecting that little howling head to spin around any second. Do you continue tearing your hair out with one hand while retrieving the pacifier your baby patooied across the room in a rage? Call an exorcist? Or stay up another night walking the floor, singing old tunes from your teens (maybe that's what's making the kid cry!) in an effort to lull the tiny tortured soul to sleep?

What your little progeny is suffering from is colic: the bane of parents world-wide, probably since cave people first grunted stone-age lullabies to their wailing offspring. The young digestive tract is still new to anything and everything put into it and is bound to reject some things. Add the air inhaled during feeding, whether Mom is the source or a bottle, and the stomach can get like a balloon, naturally painful to the infant. Then there are the possibilities--hard to track down when the patient can't communicate too well--of allergies or lactose intolerance. In some instances, what the nursing mother has ingested herself can come through in her milk and cause the baby some discomfort.

Stress in the family atmosphere, also, is not to be discounted. Infants are much more sensitive to ambient moods and tensions than most adults give them credit for. This can account for the reluctance of some babies to nurse. It's surprising how many parents give no thought to having yelling or loud music in the home around infants. Young ears being assaulted in such a way can be expressed through digestive complaints. In the same way, tobacco smoke is enough to cause multiple types of infantile illness, and colic can be one of them. The adults and older children may adapt to such dysfunctional home surroundings, but infants are not able to cope, resulting in illness.

In Grandma's era they used what was called gripe water. This formula usually consists of fennel, dill, sodium bicarbonate, peppermint, sugar, water, in a miniscule amount of alcohol (not enough to make your baby a pint-sized alcoholic, don't worry). These ingredients, for the most part, are well-known for soothing aching stomachs in all age groups. Other options can be chamomile, peppermint or ginger tea (cooled, of course) in small amounts.

Whatever method you decide upon, take relief yourself in the knowledge that your baby will outgrow colic eventually. It's rare to see an infant over six months old with this condition. Just think: in another sixteen years, give-or-take, you'll have other reasons to pace the floor late at night over your child, and you'll long for the time when he or she was right under your nose.

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Colicky babies can be soothed by Mother Nature