Let me start by saying I know EXACTLY how hard it is to have a child that is colic. My daughter now 21 months old and a great toddler suffered from painful acid reflux. AND I was a single mom at the time. So needless to say I spent the first 4 months of her life with her sleeping on my chest and then the next 2 with her sleeping on a big pillow next to me right on my bed. So I will be honest with a colicy baby you try EVERYTHING, be it the swing, a baby carrier, hair drier (I ran up a hefty electric bill), the late night car rides so on and so forth! And you are so sleep deprived you do NOT care if any of this will faulter them from nicely transitioning to a crib bc well you are too tired to franky my dear give a damn! And if I will add they transition just fine and life does go on! :)
BUT now I have my son, 4 weeks this week. Mr. Cool I like to call him. Just a real easy baby. And has allowed me to enjoy these first few months. Something with my daughter, yes I am going to say this and its ok bc all moms of colicy babies will understand, I just didnt enjoy it with her. But recently my son has decided he HATES sleeping on his back...HATES it. You would think I would know, hey they all adapt eventually not to worry let him do this or that...but NOPE. I like every other mom was on google straight away..."sleeping in the swing all night ok??" haha You know we've all been there, I hate these decisions, I mean you would think we were helping him choose his college!
My husband being from Ireland a different culture than the American paranoids, says well just throw him in the middle of us. Or put him in the swing he loves that. Instantly I think, ok whats worse he gets used to being in between mom and dad OR the constant motion of the swing???? I stew and stress, I research and probably bc he is so good I think I cant "ruin" this great baby!!!
Then I wake up read some wonderful mom blogs (MUCH better than any books!!!) and realize what I knew all along, every baby is different and all parents are different. So I will end this post with letting you all know what we decided to do. Wrong....Correct??? Who knows! All I do know is that as long as your kids are healthy and make it to tomorrow well really you have done your job! :)
"Solution": My husband and I decided on a few things. During the day the baby will take one great nap in the swing so he can get that needed rest that he does need and want. Then we discovered he LOVES his vibrating music player so any further naps/ nighttime sleeping (before mom & dad go to sleep) this will be placed in his bassinet. Then at night IF he is fussy he WILL "co sleep" with us in the middle. However, since I know from the child psychology I majored in, in college (so at least I have some educational knowledge to back me up) children do not develop separation anxiety until 6 months old. So I will cut out the co sleeping by 4 months (usually when babies start coming into their own anyway). This will most likely avoid that struggle of transitioning him to his crib. Which might I add I did transition my daughter to her crib at 6 months after EVERYONE said she would never go in a crib bc she had co slept with me, and guess what she was...FINE! :)
I think it may be a "first child syndrome." My son was extremely difficult, but my daughter was a dream. Now I'm wondering -- was the first child really that difficult, or did they teach us that we CAN do this and any children after are a piece of cake?
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