I have 2 kids both who have given me what I feel are the extremes of allergies. I was a young mom I had my first son at 18 he is now 7 and is named Gianni, he had severe colic and reflux disease. The first 2 weeks of his life were so simple. Poop, pee, feed, sleep. But the day he turned 2 weeks all hell broke loose! That night and every night after that for the next five months he screamed in agony for 4 hours MINIMUM! By then Google was not so popular, and I took him to the doctor the first awful night he gave me. I had not slept, and I had no idea what was wrong with him, all I know was he spent 6 hours crying from 12am-6am, and woke up like nothing happened. The worst part of it is, it’s so frustrating to have a screaming newborn, much less to be taking care of him with little to no paternal help. My mom, and sister attempted to help me but had no idea what to do when he wouldn’t stop. Every night I nearly lost it, and ended up crying with my child. I tried EVERYTHING laying him in certain positions, burping him, giving him gas relief drops… nothing. The only thing I can swear by that did shorten the crying time was… White Noise. I’m not crazy when I say that, my doctor told me many babies feel relieved to be in a car or hear the noise of a fan or the blow dryer. Obviously I was not going to run the blow dryer every night, but I somehow found a white noise CD. And he liked loud water fall noises. My doctor changed his formula to one called Nutramigen which is the most god awful taste you can think of. My poor baby the things I did to him. I remember feeling like I was feeding him burned plastic, and all the milk did was make him pee constantly and make him hungry every hour and a half instead of every 3 hours. Aside from all of those disadvantages, it was very expensive about $27 for a 12.5oz container of powdered formula, and me being a young mom, that just couldn’t happen. Little by little up until 5 months his crying time became less, and finally he out grew it. He was allergic to milk, and although that expensive milk works for some babies it didn’t work for mine. And in the end I think my doctor thought I was crazy, and when I explain to some childless people about being on the borderline of insanity with the crying and screaming, no one will ever understand me… unless it happened to them. And it was after he turned 1 that I found out that there are colic support groups. On many of those crazy tear filled nights, I would get so angry with him and I felt like I did not have the beautiful relationship many parents seemed to have with their babies. And thus I felt alone, and like maybe I was being dramatic and the crying in agony was not so terrible. But it was. As years later I overheard my mom telling her friends that she felt that I handled his colic extremely well, that she would have lost it and maybe not lasted as long as I did, my Sister also said the same. I am however, left with guilt because I actually felt so detached from him at times, like why couldn't I help him!? And now that he’s older, I sit and think of all the what ifs. But I have come to the conclusion, we all would loose it in that situation. It’s okay to put him down in the crib and walk away to take a breather. And it’s okay to cry. If you really feel he’s not okay, you can take him to the Emergency Room.
