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Dr. Howard Chilton: Sleep Remedies
I’ve been a newborn doctor for the last 30 years. After about two of them I lost count of the number of babies I was seeing with so-called ‘colic’. So many endless nights, so many tears, so much screaming… and that was just the parents. Because of these poor families I ended up developing a full-blown obsession to tell the truth about this disorder. You see, for decades the cause has been known and there is overwhelming evidence on its cause in medical literature but few are listening.
Frankly it’s driving me crazy. Sometimes I think that if I hear another nurse or doctor telling a parent that their screaming baby has ‘abdominal pain’ or ‘heartburn’ I think I’ll scream louder than the baby! Colic has never been about pain in the abdomen or anywhere else for that matter; it’s not about heartburn or ‘wind’. It certainly isn’t about the baby’s stomach. Neither is it anything to do with the mother’s mental state, nor the food she eats while breastfeeding, nor the brand of formula she gives to her baby.
The situation of babies screaming in distress, primarily in the evening (‘6 o’clock’ or ‘evening’ colic) has been around for hundreds of years. It starts when babies get to around four to six weeks of age, rises gradually to a maximum over the next couple of weeks then abruptly ceases about three months of age (happily ‘3-month colic’)
Premature babies have it earlier and more intensely. It was through the study of this group of babies that developmental psychologists started to unravel the problem in the fullterm. As premature babies near term they can become very distressed when their environment presents them with even minimal increases in stimulation. If you pick up such a baby, look at him and talk to him, he will often start straining, crying and arching as he overloads with your input. With such as him, you can either pick him up or look at him or speak to him. You can’t do all of them at once.
The fullterm baby psyche is much more resilient than that. But he still has his limits.
But let’s start at the end and work backwards.
At and beyond three months of age babies usually develop the ability to ‘self-sooth’. You can see this at work in a four to five month baby who is fed and happy and sitting in a little prop-up chair. He wants to play with his mother so he gazes at her across the room, chuckles and waves his arms to attract her. She can’t resist and approaches him, their eyes lock and soon they are talking nonsense, looking deeply into each others eyes and are totally engrossed in one another. The intensity of their interaction rises. The stimulation then increases to a level that makes the baby uncomfortable. There’s just too much adrenalin in the system for him. Suddenly he looks away, switches off and totally ignores his mother. He looks at the ceiling or at his hands in his lap as his mother wanders off. The baby sits, propped up in his chair, his shoulders tense and his eyes downcast. Then over the next few minutes he relaxes and starts to throw glances at his mum. His glaze lasts longer and longer as he relaxes more. Then the cycle starts again. He laughs and waves his hands to attract her and back she comes.
The baby has learned that when he gets overstimulated and uncomfortable if he looks away and shuts it out he can calm himself down. This is an invaluable lesson, as it is the start of the ability to concentrate without distraction on a task.
Now, back to the beginning.
The colic syndrome starts at four to six weeks of age. Before this the boundaries of his attention do not stray much past
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