Witching Hour and Colic – Part 1

WOW! Do you know what a constant cranky baby can do to a MOM? I hope not! We dealt with something similar in our house…and I felt like I was walking around like a zombie every day from exhaustion and from the anxiety of an encroaching evening ahead…

Today I wanted to talk about, in general, Witching Hour and Colic – and hear from all of you what your experience was. To quickly summarize it, I found that a HEALTHY baby’s regular pattern “fussiness” from about 6 weeks to 12 weeks (sometimes earlier, sometimes later) can be categorized as the following (either way you categorize it, it can be challenging):

1)      Witching Hour (which from what I gather) tends to be an every evening thing when your baby cries to release all the pent-up energy/stress/anxiety; and this cry is not hungry, gas or change me cries. This is just plain old crying! (as far as I can tell this is NOT ONLY AN HOUR event, so that is a BAD name!)

2)      Colic, don’t even get me started on colic…what the heck is it? This is crying for longer than three hours a day, for three days or more a week, for three weeks or more. This typically is every evening, but can be just a regular thing at a certain time each day too. This too is not a cry for food or change me, again it is a fussy cry.

Or does your baby cry because he/she is a baby, and babies cry? (Seriously doctor! I was about to pull my hair out and this is what you tell me?) And how do you know there is nothing else wrong? Do you put all the faith you have in the doctor and hope they are right?

I mean seriously – what are either one of these or why can’t we solve this problem? Why is it that something can’t be done to sooth your child? Or is it just a catch-all for all babies that are fussy with no diagnosable reason (YES, I feel it is)? My brain is black and white when it comes to math and science and to me this is not either – this is a GRAY! And gray is hard for this Momma to manage.

And if you have dealt with it I commend you and you are my hero. Now you probably look back and think “no big deal”. But, if you are dealing with it PLEASE don’t feel bad about the stress and anxiety and PLEASE ask for help – make sure you get a night off just to sit quietly and have tea (or wine)! And that is why I am writing this, this is a big deal to new mommies or for those who had “perfect” babies the first time around and now are trying the navigate the colic road map (or lack thereof). And that here on RGV Mom’s Blog you can find the support you might need and you must remember you are NOT the only one going through this.

My next post will be about my experience, but whatever you want to call it, how did you handle it? What type of soothing activities did you do? What worked, what didn’t? Did you have family or friends nearby to help? Did you not have any issues and rocked through it? Or did you cry your way through? We would love to hear from you!

Here’s to a fussy free evening!