Colic - Dover,DE

I had the exact same problem with my son, he hated the car, but once he was big enough to move out of the infant seat he did better, he was still rear facing, but liked the bigger seat so much better, so it may get better. As for the Alimentum, it is outrageously expensive, but watch the target ad, they will have sales on it and stock up when they do. I kept my son on it until after a year old and then slowly switched him to enriched rice milk, original not flavored. He still can't drink milk without getting sick, but the Alimentum really did help the colic. Also, if something does upset them, try Baby Bliss gripe water, its herbal but my pediatrician gave me a sample, my son is 3 and we still use it if he eats something that upsets his stomach, it is WONDERFUL for colic (which it is made for). Best of luck!!

3 months is a little late to be diagnosed with colic, as it is usually within the first 2 weeks of life that they show symptoms.

I'd bet dollars to donuts she has either a diary protein intolerance (which is common), or even lactose intolerance (which is very rare)

If it's colic they typically 'grow out of it' at around 2-3 months, though some continue to cry for quite a while (mine stopped around 4 months, my friend's kid took longer) The Happiest Baby on the Block stuff worked for me, which is doing some or all of the following (the 5 S's) Holding them on their Side, Swaddled, Shaking gently or Swaying, Sucking on something, and saying Shhh (using white noise)

Some kids hate the car, not much you can do about it except keep trips to a minimum.

Hi. I have an almost 7 mo. old son. He's a hungry boy and nurses and drinks from the bottle. He, too, was very fussy(not officially diagnosed with colic, but pretty sure)so I tried all the different formulas and finally ended up with the alimentum. It worked, but not immediately. His trouble was the formula made him very gassy and he had trouble burping. It was probably at least a few weeks before he seemed better, but I'm sure that's what worked. We are just now easing back into the regular similac and so far he seems okay with it. Also, we bought a case of the alimentum off Ebay(brand new of course)and we ended up paying around $17 a can. Awesome deal. My son also hated the car. I think that most babies do, but he's much better now. Around 4-5 months when he could play with some toys seemed to help. I also bought a small mobile(from Target)that works on the baby carrier. He loved it and it seemed to calm him down too. Hope this helps!

Hi J.. I would not settle for the colic diagnosis. In my opinion, all that really means is that the doctor doesn't know what is wrong. We suffered with a "colic" diagnosis for 3-1/2 months. My son would literally cry for 9 hours straight, wouldn't sleep at night, etc. I was breastfeeding and tried cutting out all kinds of different foods from my diet, then we tried probably 5 different formulas, nothing helped. Our doctor kept saying it was colic and he'd grow out of it at 4 months. Well, at 4 months it was worse than ever. I had read somewhere that acid reflux is often treated by doctors as colic. Although my son didn't have the traditional symptoms of acid reflux, I was at my wit's end and told my doctor that this "colic" is not going away at 4 months and that I really wanted to try treatment for acid reflux. We put him on the medication for acid reflux and the change was IMMEDIATE! He was a completely different baby and sanity was restored to our house. I wish I hadn't accepted the colic diagnosis for so long -- my poor son was physically suffering and I was sure suffering mentally. So, just another thought you might want to try - treatment for acid reflux. Best wishes to you!

We went through the same thing with my son and ended up switching him to Nutramagen or liquid gold as we called it. It was amazing how his colic stopped after that. If it doesn't clear up with the formula your daughter might have acid reflux, instead of colic, and might need medication for it. Good luck!

It sounds like your daughter has reflux, not colic. If you listen to the "experts", colic isn't painful. My daughter had reflux as a newborn and our pediatrician put her on children's Zantac and she was like a new baby! She also cried after eating and hated the car and now we realize that she had to be upright after eating or it hurt her.
I would ask your pediatrician to review your daughter's symptons and possibly prescribe Zantac or another reflux medicine.

I agree that 3 months is a little late to diagnose with colic. It's usually settling down by then. Either way, I used Enfamil Gentlease with my colic son. It made a big difference. Plus feeding him smaller amounts more often so he's not so gassy. We gave him milicon as well with each feeding.

The swing and the vaccuum was our savior! We would put him in the swing and turn the vacuum on high! The noise soothed him. Hope you find out what works for you. But I'd get a second opinion as well. You want to treat her for the actual illness. Especially since you are doing this on your own! I couldn't have done it without my husband. Our son starting crying at 6 pm and didn't stop until midnight. Over time it ended but always started at 6 pm and eventually ended at 11 pm, then 10 pm, then 9 pm and so on until no more! On the plus side, he was the best sleeper in the world after all that!

Hi Jamie,
My daughter also had colic and she was on Nutramigen (trust me about the expensive part, this was $30 about every three days!!!). This helped with her 'pain fits' because of a cow's milk allergy, but there is nothing that cures colic. Changes in formula may lessen her discomfort, but for my daughter, the colic disappeared when she turned 4 months, as it does will most all babies. She now just turned a year and is just fine! Hang in there, hard times will pass.

Hello, My daughter had Colic when she was 3 months old it lasted about a month, In England we use "Gripe Water" Which i do believe is available over here now. And it was a real life saver. Good luck helping your baby girl.

Hey J.!
I feel for ya girl... our first had it for 3 months, which I wish I wouldn've known the fix then... but my cousin found one after the fact. She SWEARS by this stuff called Colic Calm... cleared her little guy up within just a few doses. The website is Coliccalm.com.
Good luck!!
J. C
Mom of 2

I just wanted to add that I agree with the other posts - don't settle for a diagnosis of 'colic', especially at this age. You wrote that your husband is active duty (mine too!) - in that case you should be able to get a second opinion. Depending on his branch and the insurance you receive there are different ways to go about getting that. Maybe your husband can make the calls for you? Do you know the number to call to request a new physician?

Hang in there, otherwise - this too shall pass!

I thought Alimentum was for babies with bad allergy problems, not just colic. Our daughter had reflux, which often gets diagnosed as colic. She didn't have any lactose or soy allergies, but we found that she couldn't handle powdered formula. No matter how well we mixed it, she just bloated up and screamed. We eventually found that the ready-to-use formula worked fine. They were definitely more expensive than the powdered formulas, but a lot less than Alimentum. It might be worth a shot to give it a try, unless you know already that your baby has allergies.

J.,
My son was on Nutramigen and my daughter on Alimentum (after having poor results with Nutramigen) and they both did very well. If the symptoms of "colic" are due to a milk or soy allergy or protein intolerance the formula can be fantastic. If neither formula seems to make a big difference in alleviating the symptoms there is also Neocate (more expensive) but it also may be another underlying cause and not food related.

First off, one resource for purchasing the formula is on ebay. We bought ours that way for both children and usually paid between 16-18dollars a can. We usually got the ones that had 10cans or so to last a while. We had positive experiences purchasing this way about 95%of the time (once they sent the wrong formula and another was packaged poorly and was open when it arrived) read the feedback from others first!

As far as how long it takes to work... it can take a month for milk to leave your system (not sure about soy) and so it's possible, if milk is the cause of her discomfort, that it may take a little while for the formula to help. Some babies become different babies overnight. I'd expect to give it a week or two at least. That said, some babies do better on Alimentum and some on Nutramigen so you could also switch over to Nutramigen if Alimentum doesn't work in a while for you.

Another resource is going to a pediatric gastroenterologist. They can help assess if there are any reflux issues or digestive issues that may be physical instead of food related. And they can guide you through the food questions, too. I don't know how it works if you have insurance/health care with the military. We request a referral from our pediatrician.

If it's a problem digesting the milk or soy then that is something she can grow out of or at least do better with as her body grows and she is better able to tolerate it. If it is an allergy then it will depend. My daughter has outgrown hers (1yr old) and my son is much better but still has allergies to some (3yrs). Different for different people.

If food is the problem the formula won't suppress the symptoms it will fix the cause of the symptoms. Just like if you got sick every time you ate chocolate and you stopped eating chocolate and you were fine. And if you ate chocolate again you'd be sick again. If she is bothered by milk or soy and she eats something without it she may be great! Give her milk again and you'll probably see the symptoms again.

Like I said before, though, she may be ready for milk at age 1 if she outgrows it. You'll have to wait and see on that one.

If, however, the cause of her crying and other symptoms are not food related then you probably won't see her symptoms greatly alleviated with formula and you'll know to find other underlying causes for her pain. Again, I'd start with a gastroenterologist unless there are other symptoms you didn't mention.

Reflux is another common cause of the crying and pain in babies and some things that can help with that are keeping the baby upright at least 20 minutes after eating and having them sleep inclined. Some babies even sleep in their carseats. Not all babies with reflux actually spit up. They may just be having the problems in their chest/throat so you wouldn't be able to see that. I'm not trying to diagnose your baby :) just wanted to make sure you knew that reflux is another reason for the "colic" behavior.

I hope some of this makes sense. It is after 4am... I couldn't fall asleep again after my son fell out of bed. :)
Feel free to email me with questions. And good luck with everything. Having gone through the screaming/crying/bouncing/sleepless nights/dr appts/expensive formulas and many tears I know it can be a rough patch. If someone can come once or twice during the week for you to get a break while your husband's not home that would be great for you, too!!

As for the car. Ugh. I had a screamer and a sleeper at the age your baby girl is and they both stopped after a while. :) It does seem to help a lot when they get turned around but you have a while for that. I'll let someone else more successful in that dept. help you with that! Though if you can find music they love that can work wonders (some of my friends kids favorites = opera and Celine Dion) :) go figure.

Good luck!!
K.

Hi,
We were also told that my daughter had colic, and they told us to use Similac. However this made it worse. We switched to Enfamil and she was TONS better. I know its different for every baby, but we used the one for gas and fussiness (the purple container) and it was amazing at how much better she was.
Hope this helps.

Hi there,
I wanted to chime in a request for you to try out the book "The Happiest Baby on the Block." It's written by Dr. Harvey Karp, and tells you ways to soothe crying in ALL babies, colicky or not. It works, J., I promise you! It's crazy how it works! I'm the mother of three and stepmother of two more, and I'm telling you, the crying will stop instantly and your baby will start sleeping more! I went to Dr. Karp's seminar last night to figure out how to stop tantrums in my toddler, I believe in his work so much! I was introduced to his baby book with my two year old, and he just quit crying!
When the crying stops, switch back to your less expensive formula. It will tell you that in the book, that there's more of a chance that his ways will soothe your baby than the switch in formula, and then you save money and have a happy baby, too!
Good luck! Let us know what happens!

I am going to agree with some of the others. At this age colic is just not a diagnosis. My son screamed all the time and we found out he was allergic to the milk protein. We did the Similac Alimentum and he did great with it. It is expensive but some insurances will pay for it.

I switched different formulas, burped, swaddled, given gas and colic drops but nothing happened. I was going insane until I met the solution. Babies magic tea did the job and baby got relief.

I'm really surprised that they diagnosed her with colic at 3 months... that is usually a under three month issue... plus in a lot of doctor's opinions there is no such thing as colic, it is actually reflux. I would talk to your doctor about getting her tested for reflux. It isn't normal for her to not feel better on the alimentum... formula switches should see a change in one day because it goes through their little bodies that quickly. It sounds to me like she has reflux... especially since she hates the carseat... they don't like being bunched up like that (my son had reflux) I would def. go talk to the doctor and see if they can try her on some reflux meds and you can switch to a formula that is less expensive. We used gentlease with our son and also prevacid for his reflux and he did awesome!! The thing you have to remember with reflux is that not all babies spit up with reflux.. some just have the acid come up into their esophogus... which is just as painful for them as spitting it up.. the only difference is you can't see it.