A Little Less Alone
The baby has been fussy. Like cries all day and screams all evening. I’m not exaggerating. He cries all. the. damn. time. I suspected that he had tongue and lip ties when he was about two months old. We went to the local pediatric SLP, discussed with a colleague who happens to be a lactation consultant, had a lactation consultant come to our home, took him to a dentist who specializes in tongue and lip tie corrections, had the ties lasered in November, and completed stretches 6 times a day for the next 6 weeks. We were told it should help with his feeding, his reflux and fussiness. Well, you guessed it… no change.
So we took him to the pediatrician. We tried baby-led nursing, probiotics, gripe water, Ovol drops, keeping him upright after eating, elevating the head of the bed, reflux medication, bicycling his legs, warm baths, warm compresses, tummy massages, foot massages, baby wearing, carrying him in the colic hold, “body work,” cutting dairy, caffeine, chocolate, and peanuts out of my diet, starting solids, stopping solids, swinging, shushing, car rides. We’ve tried it all. Or nearly all. And nothing has worked. So please don’t give me any suggestions unless you can 100% guarantee that they will work.
Our little guy is not happy the majority of the time. And it makes me sad. It makes me frustrated. It makes me feel like a failure. Conventional wisdom is that colic or fussiness should get better around three or four months. So I waited for three months, four months, now five months. I know it won’t last forever. We won’t be walking the floor with him at fifteen. But for now it sucks. It’s hard to talk about. Partly because I don’t want to sound like a broken record. I don’t want to complain incessantly to my friends and family about the same old thing. I don’t want to seem ungrateful for our little miracle guy. Partly because I don’t want to be criticized. And I think partly because I feel a little bit ashamed. Ashamed that I don’t have this figured out. That I can’t help him. That I get frustrated. That this is so hard. That I don’t know what I’m doing.
The baby was inconsolable recently, and I was home alone while my husband worked an overnight. I went through the repertoire. Nothing was helping. So I laid him down. I said, “I’m just going to take a little break buddy.” And I hid under the blankets. Literally. Hid under the blankets and scrolled through my phone. I’d get up and talk to him. Say, “I’m sorry, buddy. I don’t know how to help you. I’m here if you need me.” I’d pick him up and give him a cuddle. Then hide again. I realized I couldn’t change things or fix things. All I could do was be there. Available. I could listen. Support him. Love him. Stay calm. Take breaks. I could try (or maybe not try so hard). Eventually he fell asleep.
I’m not always able to stay calm. When things get really bad, I end up comparing my “high-needs baby” to my friend’s babies. The babies that are fairly content, the ones that nap for long stretches and sleep through the night. I end up feeling sorry for myself and wondering why things have to be this way, why things have to be this hard. Our first-born was also fussy and didn’t sleep through the night for quite some time. I start to wonder what on earth I am doing wrong (again, please don’t tell me because I’m not in the frame of mind to hear it). When things get really bad, I get short-tempered and rammy.
A few people have told me that reading my blog reminds them that they are not alone. And that makes me happy. So I want to keep being real. About my life. About parenting. About the messy stuff. The stuff that is hard to talk about. I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer. I don’t want to complain. But I do want you to know that things are not always what they seem. I don’t post photos of my baby screaming his head off. I don’t tend to talk about when I’m at my wit’s end. When I’ve yelled. Most of us don’t. Because we don’t want to complain or seem ungrateful. We don’t want to be judged. We’re ashamed. So we don’t talk about it. But maybe if we did, we’d feel a little better. A little more normal. A little less alone.
