Month 4

January 2008

The colic continues. Every night, we spend anywhere between 2-6 hours trying to get DD to sleep. Many nights she falls asleep in exhaustion around 3:00am after hours of screaming. She seems to be a little happier when she's upright, so we walk the house with her on my shoulder. Then when she falls asleep, I lay her down... and she is awake within 5 minutes, screaming.

She begins spitting up multiple times a day. Nothing projectile (usually), just a LOT of spit-up. It seems to come and go; some days she doesn't spit-up at all, some days it seems almost constant all day. Being a new mother, I have no idea that this might signal a problem (along with the colic)... and her pediatrician seems to think she's fine, so we continue our struggle with the puke and screaming.

January 9
I go to a weekly support group at Valley Medical Center (where DD was born) to get some socialization time for me and DD. At this week's meeting, another mom mentions that her son was really colicky and spit-up a lot, and her doctor told her to stop drinking milk. I thought, hmmm- that's weird. I read SO many books while pregnant, and some (older books) had mentioned certain foods that can make your baby cranky (later disproven), but none that said anything about milk in my diet while breastfeeding. But I thought it was worth a try... so the next day, I stopped drinking milk. I was still eating other forms of dairy though for a couple weeks.

Over the next week, DD's colic symptoms seems to get better! She is screaming less, and seems generally happier.

January 19
I decide that I need a milk replacement (so that I can eat cereal for breakfast), so I stock up on soy milk and start drinking it every day. DD's symptoms immediately get worse again. :(

I had also been eating a lot of eggs, and after researching I found that they can be an allergen for baby too... so I now decide to take all dairy, soy, and eggs out of my diet.

Things rapidly improve. Looking back at her symptoms, I realize that everything that she's been going through - the colic, screaming, green poos, cradle cap - can all be attributed to an allergic reaction! I'm glad that I'm finally figuring this out, but really frustrated and angry that the pediatrician hasn't picked up on any of these symptoms.