Surviving Colic

Posted: Jun 29, 2026 17:27:19

When people talk about having a baby, they often talk about the sweet newborn snuggles, tiny outfits, and sleepy smiles. What they don’t always talk about is colic. Colic turned our world upside down. From the outside, everything looked fine. We had a healthy baby, a roof over our heads, and all the things a family is supposed to need. But inside our home, there were days that felt endless. Days measured not in hours, but in crying spells. Our daughter cried. And cried. And cried. We tried everything we could think of. Walking. Rocking. Bouncing. Driving. White noise. Different feeding positions. Contact naps. Carrier naps. Late night Googling. Advice from family, friends, and strangers. Some things helped a little. Most things didn’t. The hardest part wasn’t even the crying itself. It was feeling helpless. As parents, we’re wired to want to fix things for our children. When they’re hungry, we feed them. When they’re cold, we warm them up. When they’re hurt, we comfort them. But colic felt different because there was no clear solution. There was no magic trick. No guaranteed answer. There were moments I questioned myself constantly. Was I doing something wrong? Was I missing something? Why couldn’t I make my baby feel better? The truth is that colic has a way of making even the most confident parent doubt themselves. There were days when I counted down the minutes until my husband came home so I could hand over the baby and take a break. There were nights that felt impossibly long. I remember pacing the floors while everyone else seemed to be sleeping, wondering if things would ever get easier. People would tell me, “It gets better.” I wanted to believe them. But when you’re in the middle of it, “someday” feels very far away. Then little changes started happening. Our daughter became more curious about the world around her. She wanted to look at everything. She started spending more time on the floor exploring. The crying didn’t disappear overnight, but slowly, almost without us noticing, there were more good moments mixed into the hard ones. And then, at seven months old, she learned to crawl. For many babies, crawling is simply a milestone. For us, it felt life changing. Suddenly she could move toward the things that interested her instead of waiting for someone to bring them closer. She could explore. She could chase toys. She could satisfy her endless curiosity. Almost overnight, it felt like we had a different baby. The crying eased dramatically. Our days became lighter. We laughed more. She smiled more. We finally started experiencing some of the joy that had been buried beneath months of survival mode. Looking back now, I don’t think crawling magically “cured” her colic. But I do think that gaining independence helped her tremendously. She was a baby who wanted to move, explore, and be part of everything around her. Once she could do that, she seemed so much happier. If you’re in the middle of colic right now, I want you to know something: You are not failing. You are not a bad parent. And you’re not alone. Some days your biggest accomplishment may simply be making it to bedtime. That’s okay. The season you’re in feels endless when you’re living it. But one day you’ll look back and realize that your baby grew, changed, and moved through it. The days that felt impossibly long eventually became memories. I won’t pretend those seven months were easy. They weren’t. But they taught me patience, resilience, and how much love can exist even on the hardest days. And when I watch my daughter zoom across the floor now, determined to explore every corner of the house, I’m reminded that sometimes the babies who challenge us the most early on are simply showing us who they’ve been all along. Curious. Determined. Independent. We survived colic one day at a time. And then she crawled.