A baby, a vacuum, and a witch doctor

When Caden was about 2 weeks old he found his voice, and it was loud!  He began crying and crying and crying.  He was crying so much (hours on end) that I became concerned and took him into our local baby clinic where the health workers told me he had colic and that there wasn't much I could do aside from wait it out for the next 4 months.

We tried everything to help soothe Caden - shushing, rocking, bouncing, dancing, singing, anti-colic bottles, anti-colic medicine etc. but nothing seemed to help.  That was until we discovered the vacuum!  Caden could be crying inconsolably but would be instantly (and I do mean instantly) soothed when the vacuum was turned on.  The only problem was that as soon as the vacuum was turned off, the poor little guy would immediately work himself back up again.  See video below...

We knew we could not spend the rest of our lives with the vacuum on so we decided to heed the advice of one of our midwives and take a more 'alternative approach' as she called it (a more 'hippy approach' as we called it) and visit an osteopath.  Now, I had never heard of an osteopath but the midwife described the therapy to me as a massaging technique that would help Caden be 're-birthed'.  Basically she said he had been 'taken too soon' and had had a hard time coping with his sudden entrance to the world.  Let's just say Joe and I had a hard time believing this given that he was 2 weeks late.  But days and days of crying called for desperate measures.

So we went in for an hour appointment and the osteopath basically just held Caden and rubbed his back.  Joe and I kept looking at each other across the room thinking this was the biggest waste of £70.  Then we got home and realized she had completely transformed our baby into the most laid back little guy ever.  It then became clear that the osteopath was not an osteopath at all, but was instead a witch doctor!  How else could you explain how our baby went from a tight ball of nerves to a little laid back rag doll just from having a baby massage.  Osteopath or witch doctor... we didn't care... we booked two more appointments right away in the hopes that she could help Caden overcome his colic and help us regain our sanity.

After the first witch doctor appt.

After 2 more visits to the osteopath/witch doctor (take your pick) we were amazed at Caden's progress.  Of course he still cried as all babies do, but he no longer had daily bouts of inconsolable crying for hours at a time.  The real test came the day after his final appointment when we had to fly 8+ hours to the states.  And if you read my previous blog you already know that he passed with flying (no pun intended) colors.

For any parent dealing with colic I would recommend looking into an osteopath.  I realize it will not work for everyone, but it was definitely a blessing for us.

P.S. Thank you to some of the other mothers who have dealt/are dealing with colicky babies and all the advice you gave me.  I appreciated it more than you know :)