Having a child with colic is tough and tired business no matter what, but it’s unnecessary, cruel and unusual hell for first time mothers. We’re neurotic, worried, tired, possibly hurting because there are stitches in our VAGINAS (or perhaps a gaping hole in our stomachs), and we feel like we don’t know what in the fresh hell we are doing. Your comments and well-meaning advice are only adding to the shit pile of tired and stinky misery.
This goes double if you’re doling out advice attached to a penis. I’m not man-hating, I’m just telling you that you can’t possibly identify with the feeling of birthing a child from your stitched up VAGINA and then feeling like that child, who you would walk through fire to save, hates your guts.
1. Have you tried swaddling?
Are you kidding me, yo? If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me this, or for every time I did it (and it did not help my crying baby), I could have hired a nanny to deal with that shit. I think swaddling actually pissed him off more.
This question used to make my husband homicidal. He would always give me that look only I understood that said, “Are we seriously getting this question again?” It became a darkly comical joke after awhile.
2. Have you tried riding him around in the car?
Well yes, we did try this. However, my colicky baby hated the car and his car seat as much as he hated everything else. In fact, he would sometimes cry so hard in the car seat on our way to visit his grandmother, or on my way to the grocery store, or on the way to EVERYWHERE, that I had to change his clothes upon arrival. He was always soaked in sweat from the fit. If we went anywhere, I cried the whole way too.
Read the other eight from our friends at BabyGizmo.com: 10 Things You NEVER Say to a Mom with a Colicy Baby