The other day Andrew and I were tidying up after Coral went to bed when he said to me "Do you remember infancy and how hard it is?" I looked at him and said with a scared look on my face "yes...."
You may have noticed that there is going to be quite the gap between our first born and our second. Part of that decision was made by God when we lost a baby back in October, but a huge part of that decision was also ours. Andrew and I didn't get the typical baby blues a few months after Coral was born, in fact, we were down right scared to try for another for a long long time. Don't worry all you preggo first time mamas out there, We didn't have a typical infancy experience.
Coral was born exactly two weeks before her due date. She weighed a whole 5 lbs 14 oz, and was only 17 inches long. She was so tiny, and so perfect. We experienced the typical lack of sleep, I myself waking up to feed her almost every hour in the night because she was so tiny and needed to gain weight (note: she woke up every hour all on her own. I was so tired there is no way you could have convinced me to wake a sleeping baby at night at that point). So yes, I was tired, but she was a good baby.
Let's fast forward to when she hits the three week mark. I can remember when the crying started so clearly. We were at my friend Britts house watching the bachelor. Coral started crying, and no matter what I did, she wouldn't stop. Little did I know that she would continue to cry for the next three and a half months. I had had her for three weeks already. I knew her so well. I knew what every whimper, cry and face meant. This cry, was totally different.
Your baby is described as having colic if they cry at least three times a week for more then three hours at a time, typically in the evening. HA! That's jokes. That's a easy baby compared to what we had.
Let me paint you a picture. Coral gets up around 7 in the morning, and starts to cry. She continues to cry all. Day. Long. She doesn't nap, because she is to busy crying. She continues to cry throughout the evening, and then finally settles down around 1:00 am (if I am lucky) and goes to sleep, but wakes up every hour on the hour to be fed. And a colic cry, is not a typical try. It's loud, and there is no way to stop it. Let me say that again, there is NO way to stop it.
For me, that was the hardest part about being a new mom. A first time mom already feels like all eyes are on her, and everyone is judging what kind of mom will she be. Will she be a natural? Or will she struggle and have no clue what she is doing? I'm confident in saying I was born to be a mama, I'm a natural, but what Coral was doing was not natural.
I constantly felt like people were judging me. Everywhere I went people made comments. Comments like these: "oh do you think she could be hungry?" my response was "no she's colic" but in my head I'm thinking "wow thanks for the genius advice, if only I had thought to feed her then I wouldn't have dealt with constant crying for the last three months".
Or "maybe she's tired"....well of course she is, she doesn't sleep and she cries all day and night. If you can get her to sleep be my guest.
Or "maybe she's wet and uncomfortable." Good one, the thought of changing her diaper never crossed my mind.
Or "maybe she has gas?".....ya, she does. She's colic.
Let me tell you, it took everything in my sleepless mental state not to actually say those things out loud. I mean, sure, they were all well meaning, and just trying to help, but still, I felt like a new mom being looked down on, like I had no clue what I was doing.
I have had some moms with fussier babies ask me what I did do that helped. Each day was a new day, and what worked for Coral one day, wouldn't work the next. She spent a lot of time being held on her tummy, sometimes that helped. Sometimes it helped to swaddle her REALLY tightly, other times she needed her legs free. I ate a bland diet, which sometimes helped, and no diary. Gripe water did nothing, but some other homeopathic stuff did help sometimes....I tried them all. Rocking sometimes helped, bouncing on an exercise ball sometimes helped. Holding both her little feet and pressing her legs up into her tummy sometimes helped. All of these things sometimes helped, sometimes made it worse. Each day was different.
So that's the crying part of it. Now, did you know that if your baby has/had colic you can't sleep train them until they are over 8 months old? That means every single time your baby wakes up, you have to go to him or her and comfort or feed them. Coral was still, up until 8 months when she got sleep trained, getting up every single hour. I was beyond exhausted.
Between the crying and the lack of sleep, I hardly knew what was going on around me. Friends would come over to visit for the evening and I remember just sitting there in a fog, trying to keep my eyes open.
We had a pretty rough go for the first eight months of Corals life. Let me tell you, sleep makes all the difference, and baby Hodgson (ooooh you better not be colic) will be sleep trained as soon as he or she hits the required weight to be sleep trained (remember, I give birth to really small infants). I did however make myself write in Corals baby book and journal through out her colic, and even during the most difficult times I only had the best things to say about being a mommy. I still adored her. I still stared at that little crying face with love. I was still smitten through it all.
And so, as you can see, we did not have the typical first born, first parenting experience. It was hard, it took us a long time for us to want to do it again. But here we are, almost 18 weeks pregnant, and ready. Nervous, but ready. I feel like if we have a good baby, we won't know what hit us. It will be a breeze for us. Even if we have a fussier then normal baby it still will be a breeze for us. And if we do happen to have a colic baby, well, we're pros by now anyway right (but please someone come over and play with my toddler and hold my crying baby so I can shower).
And for those mamas out there who do have a fussy or colic baby, hold on, it does get easier. Umm, I'll be honest, not for a few months, but eventually it will get easier. And don't be afraid to just put your baby down in a safe spot like its crib, shut the door and let it cry (heck, it's crying anyway right) while you go have a coffee with some ear plugs in.
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