“It’s just a bit of colic,” they said

Abstract

The first four months of our daughter's life were very difficult. She cried constantly during the day, napped for only five to 10 minute durations, breastfed for two to five minutes at a time, hiccupped at least 50 times in one go three to four times a day, and made strange grunting noises in her sleep. When I sought help from healthcare professionals, they always began by asking if I was a first time mother. I was. They would then sigh and tell me that my baby's behaviour was completely normal: "It's just a bit of colic, it'll pass." I began to feel as if they'd labelled me as a hypochondriac because my daughter was my first child. I wanted them to investigate, to ask for details about when she cried, how much she cried, whether there was anything else we were worried about; we wanted them to explain colic. On the suggestion of other mothers, we got our daughter's posterior tongue tie and lip tie lasered, and took her for cranial osteopathy, but they didn't help.