Let me draw a picture of the circumstances around which I experienced colic. During my last month of pregnancy with my second child, I was pressing certain stressful issues with my first child that was going turn two years old, ten days after the baby was due. Potty training was still in the near finalized stage. There were some day-time accidents, mostly when I didn’t haul my daughter fast enough down the hallway to the potty. That was the biggest problem with the potty training; she always needed to be accompanied.

Our other issue was her transition from a crib to a toddler bed. This was a tough transition. Don’t frown at me, she was my first child and I probably didn’t develop proper sleeping habits with her. Since the time she started sleeping in a crib until shortly after the baby was born, my oldest girl needed to hold my hand until she fell asleep. Ask any parent and they will tell you, potty training and toddler bed transition are huge steps to go through, let alone rush through them because of an impending birth of another child. Now add to it the change in my husband’s work schedule which didn’t bring him home until nearly four in the morning.

The due date came and the c-section went well as planned. This allowed me five days and four nights to slowly re-enter mommyhood with a newborn baby. The hospital’s light fare was far from filling but that was the idea since they wanted me to drink plenty of water because of my choice to breastfeed. Let’s fast forward now to the first week at home. My personal dairy intake was nearly back to normal. I am originally from Wisconsin, milk at every meal and cheese on everything. My husband’s vacation was over and he returned to work.

Just as this occurred so did the nightly crying stints that lasted from two to four hours at a time. I did not experience anything like this with my first daughter. I thought something was seriously wrong. At the newborn’s two week check-up everything seemed normal. I inquired about the strange (and long lasting) crying behavior. I was told to practice techniques to help the baby expel gas.

Another couple of weeks went by with no improvement. I made several calls to the nurses at the hospital, to the doctor’s office and to other mothers that I know. Gas, Gas, Gas. Well, everything that I tried to relieve my angel didn’t work. I was getting no sleep and the crying started moving to all hours of the day and night. This not only affected me, but now my older daughter was suffering too. Instead of giving her attention, I was constantly pacing the house with a crying babe. My husband did what he could to relieve me but there wasn’t much he could do. Everyone was in a state of short temper. This, of course, is quite normal for the circumstances.

Eventually, my six week post partum appointment came up. My doctor was asking me questions that were all related to post partum depression. I could hear my baby crying from the waiting room in my husband’s arms. I broke down and cried uncontrollably myself for several minutes. I explained to my doctor what was going on at home. This woman got teary-eyed with me as I told her everything. She said she went through the same ordeal more than a decade ago with one of her children. She went through my diet with me, suggested that I cut out ALL dairy. I was stunned at the advice but at this point I would have done nearly anything. She then told me to call her in a week and tell her my progress or the lack of.

On the way home, my husband and I talked about the possibility that our baby might be temporarily lactose intolerant. This condition was completely foreign to me, the dairyland princess. The idea of cutting out all dairy felt similar to someone quitting smoking or drinking. I truly did go through a dairy withdrawn. I didn’t get the shakes but I most certainly have the mood swings from it.

There was no change after the first couple of days but after five days, suddenly I noticed her sleeping better and was less fussy. After about two weeks of being lactose free, my baby’s mood was different. She did have a lot of gas still but she did not cry nearly as much as she did. I would occasionally slip up, drink a glass of milk or sneak a slice of cheese, her crying would begin when her body would try to process the dairy and end when it would leave her system. We finally made it to her fourth month and I was told to slowly introduce yogurt back into my diet. Little by little and month by month a new dairy item was brought back into my life and hers. Now at ten months old she is drinking two ounces of cow’s milk out of a sippy cup every other day.

Here is my advice in helping to cope with colic. Be persistent with doctors, nurses, helplines and other parents. For everyone in your family to be healthier and happier, you have to get to the bottom of what is going on with the constantly crying child. Ask for help from family, friends or neighbors. Whether it is help with your other children or making a meal, there is no shame in asking for help. Most importantly, give yourself down time. You are not a bad parent for setting the crying child down safely in a crib and walking away for five minutes.

If there is absolutely nothing you can do to console the child, give yourself a few minutes break. It makes all the difference. I wasn’t told this piece of advice until it was nearly the end of the colic chronicles. I wish someone would have told me it was okay to let a crying child cry. The good news is that we all survived. Although that was the longest four months of my life, at least I can say my baby has excellent lungs (and still does).

Imagine all the neat little things that you can make with the assistance of your little one. How much assistance you receive would probably depend upon the age group you are crafting with. For instance, as of late, pirates seem to be quite trendy. There is no age group requirement to cut out a small black eye patch, tie it up with some yarn, pair it with an empty cardboard roll from toilet paper or paper towel to be a “scope” and suddenly there is hours of “argh”some playtime searching for buried treasures.

Children love to imitate their parents; they adore owning the same kind of items we believe are quite common. For example, when I decided to move away from carrying a bulky diaper bag everywhere, I moved all my essentials to a slightly oversized purse. Little did I realize what kind of effect this had on my nearly three year old. She had to have a purse too. Well, needless to say, I pulled out the felt swatches; let her select the colors and beads for adornment. In less than thirty minutes, we crafted a simple bag using braided yarn as a shoulder strap, had some quality time, used our imaginations and satisfied a need.

There are many personalized gifts as well that even the least crafty person could probably handle. For those children that are nearing the stage of losing teeth, make a tooth pillow or small wall hanging for above their headboard. If you are making a pillow simply cut to size of about 5”x5”, sew on a pocket about 2”x2” with thread, then sew the pillow together with yarn, and don’t forget to use a little stuffing. The wall hanging could be made the same size, along with the little pocket, sew or glue on some ribbon to hang it and glue beads or sparkly gems to decorate it.

If you are feeling particularly handy, make a paper template of an animal such as a bunny or teddy bear. Using the template, cut two pieces of felt to make your stuffed animal, sew, stuff and decorate however you wish. This is a great little project that you can do with children or without. The stuffed animal is great to decorate birthday gifts, baby shower presents, and stocking stuffers for Christmas or even as Easter basket buddies.  Adding a pocket on the belly could make a cute tooth pillow as mentioned earlier.

The ideas are limitless. Creativity comes to everyone, inspiration drives it.

My oldest girl is not overweight …yet. I attempt to have “running around” time where I chase her around the apartment. I do stimulate her creativity with arts and crafts, and inspire her imagination with actually playing with her and her toys. Somehow I feel it just is not enough. Somehow I feel I have to deal with the temper tantrums and turn off that television for several hours out of the day.

I have now noticed that my nine month old will actually pay attention to the television as well. I wonder if I have done my children a great disservice by allowing them to fall into the television trap. Honestly, my two children are very intelligent. My oldest daughter does know the basics in operating a computer keyboard and mouse. She also knows how to open up her favorite games on the computer.

I recall when I was a child. Television time was monitored strictly. I was the remote control. I was also constantly told to go outside and play. I seem to recall the phrase, “If you are bored, I could give you something to do to cure that condition!” However, those just cannot be and will not be options that my daughters face. This makes me seriously wonder if they are missing out on something.

I’ve watched all of the shows that I allow my daughters to watch. I have nothing but positive thoughts on the shows hosted on the PBS station. I have some reservations on some of the other shows. As an example, SpongeBob SquarePants is one of my oldest daughter’s favorite shows. I think the show is funny, rarely disturbing but also has taught my little girl things I was not ready or prepared to deal with.

She knows that hitting is wrong, but SpongeBob and his friend, Sandy, play karate spars and seem to have so much fun doing it that my daughter thought it was okay for her to do around the house as well. Perhaps it is not my maternal ability in question after all. Perhaps a sign that I am a decent parent is the fact that I am worried about such a small issue in the lives of my daughters. I reinforce manners, teach the alphabet and numbers, sing songs, play, laugh and learn every day with my girls. I am hoping the time we spend together will hopefully make up for that darn television that has become a part of our family.

I also considered this idea when my daughters were born, but I did not want to pay the ridiculous cost for the wooden letters. Even the unpainted ones were pretty expensive, especially if the child’s name has a lot of letters.

For my first daughter, I crocheted small (5”x5”) pillows and “cross-stitched” a single letter upon each pillow and used different colored ribbons to hang them. This made it personal and did not cost nearly as much as the wooden letters. For my second daughter, I used scrap fabrics to create pillowed letters of her name and again used different colored ribbons to hang them.

If you happen to not be as handy with a needle or hook, there are certainly many more methods out there so that you can personalize these decorations. Wallpaper sample books are usually tossed out or given away by DIY-type stores. Stencil out the letters you wish to have and using a hobby knife cut out the letters from coordinating patterns and/or colored samples. They could be hung using ribbons or thumbtacks. The same stenciling method could be used on colorful magazine pictures or even photographs. These cut-outs could be then inserted to matching pictures frames and hung on the wall.

Once you have an idea of what basic materials you want to use, do not be afraid to explore. Beads, sequins, gemstones, pearls, ribbon, buttons, silk flowers, or chain links could be added to spice up the lettering. Taking a walk through a hobby shop could provide great ideas. Creativity comes to everyone, inspiration drives it.