I took a road trip recently with three of my kids to visit my son, who is a whitewater river rafting guide for the summer. I knew as soon as my son told me he was going to be a guide that I would have to go on the river and face my fear of the rapids.

When my daughter was born I was expecting lots of things - sleepless nights, baby smell, baby snuggles and a whole heap of chaos thanks to having a lively three year old daughter as well.

Hello, Colic.

What I didn't expect was colic. Colic. A word that will scare any parent half to death. And a word that can mean a whole heap of things. But basically it means crying. Inconsolable crying. Often fromt eh time the sun goes down until midnight, but really any period of crying for longer than 3 hours on a regular basis is considered to be colic. But no one knows what causes it. Some say it's gas. Some say its an immature digestive system and some say it's an immature nervous system.

Goodbye, Easiest Baby in the World.

Colic didn't strike until my baby was two weeks old, which I hear is quite common with colic. So there I was, enjoying the easiest bby ont eh planet and wondering why I had such a hard time with my first baby when newborns sleep all the time, and suddenly it was upon us.

I Love My Hug-a-Bub

I'd have periods where I would be walking the floor with her for 8 hours straight. Not pleasant. I tried every medicaton I could get my hands on. I tested her for reflux, tried Infants Friend, Infacol and endured two weeks of hell otherwise known as the elimination diet. And through all of that there was only one thing that would calm her down. And that was bieng in the heart-to-heart position in the Hug-a-Bub.

Which makes sense really. It's like a second womb. A happy baby means better digestion and anything that was going to alleviate the stress on that immature nervous sytem was going to also help her with her wee tummy. All snug in there and upright which helped with gas, she would sleep (even if on a bad day it was fitfullya nd I had to remain on my feet the whole time!) She lived in it. I struggled to get a photo of her not in the hug-a-bub because she was always in there. And then almost like magic at the 6 week mark something happened.

Welcome Back, Easiest Baby on the Planet

I'd read that block feeding could help colic. So I started doing that. Block feeding means you feed on one side for two hours before swapping to help with over-supply. And it doesn't matter if they only feed once in that period or five times you just keep to the one side until the two hours is up. The theory is that over-supply can lead to a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance and that if the baby is getting too much foremilk the sugar can ferment int eh belly and cause gas. Now I'll never really know if it was the block feeding or she just grew out of it. But at 6 weeks, there she was. The easiest baby on the planet was back and the colic was gone.

But the easiest baby on the planet still loves her snuggles and spends a decent portion of her day in the hug-a-bub. Which I love too. I'm a snuggly kind of girl.

When my first baby was born she hated the car. That is until I figured out that I had her strapped in too tightly and then she was the easiest traveller on the planet. She would just drift off happily in the car. Hated traffic. But I think that's pretty normal. Although I joked that she'd picked up my husband's hatred of traffic. Luckily we live on the Central Coast so there's not a whole lot of traffic to be had. So it came as something of a shock to me when my second baby hated the car. Actually the car hatred didn't start until she was about 8 weeks old. So I was lulled into a false sense of security with the whole thing. 

And then all of a sudden I had a baby who would scream from the time she hopped into the car until the time the car stopped. And that was 45 minutes to preschool with my three year old, three days a week and then back again. I'm glad that it didn't seem to bother the three year old but it was very stressful for me. Going out became an activity of military precision. I had to pick just the right time, I had to feed the baby just before I put her in the car and then start the car as soon as possible after getting the baby into her capsule. I had to hope that we didn't get too much traffic on the way. But mostly I just hoped against hope that I wouldn't have a screaming baby on my hands for the full 45 minutes. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't. But it's fair to say I tried everything.

I tried giving her the dummy, not giving her the dummy, putting her in sleepy, putting her in wide awake, playing music, not playing music, a variety of toys (once she was old enough to hold on to them), a mirror so she could see herself, heating up the car before I put her in and even getting her to have some sleeps at home unswaddled so she could get used to it.

Only three things seemed to make any great impact. A toy cube with crinkly faric bits, handles, things to chew on and a mirror. She loved that cube, so I worshipped the thing. And I never brought it into the house so that it was something novel for her when she was in the car. An endless supply of dummies. And babywearing. Not in the car, obviously. But I would put her in the Hug-a-Bub wrap about half an hour before we had to leave. Sometimes she would sleep, sometimes she wouldn't but it would put her in a happy disposition and she was much more likely to happily sit in the car for the full journey.

All it took was a few months of babywearing before our car trips and then she started to tolerate the car a whole lot better. And now she doesn't even really need a dummy, she just plays with her cube and chats to herself or her sister. She still hates the traffic though. Some things just run in the family.