Lara - I had hoped when I was carrying her in utero that she would be an "angel" baby as in, Easy and not hard to cope with. I thought, after having my first born rather... er.. difficult, I thought God at least owed me one that was easy! But I must have been very bad in my past life because God had other plans.
First of all - the fact that she was born via cesarean section wasn't great. That's because, when a baby goes through the birth canal that's the normal order of things. How it's supposed to be. The skull plates overlap to allow the head to go through but then they open up again, making everything "just right". And, the contractions help expel all liquid from the lungs. So Lara was born with "wet lung" and had to spend the first 24 hours of her life in Neo-natal intensive care. As did Mira, but she was there for 8 days.
As I had a confinement nanny, who stayed for 6 weeks, she looked after Lara allowing me the time to recuperate from the operation, and also to ensure Mira wasn't neglected. So all was well. But when she left, it all went to pot.
I dislike the term "colic", it's rather negative. Lara had a very bad gassy tummy, it caused her so much pain, and was very difficult for us parents to cope with. When you baby is screaming so hard, and there's nothing you can do for her, well, it's awful. The other problem she had was acid reflux - still, it wasn't severe so that was good. And, her naps. Oh man, that was the big problem. Anything from 20-45 mins. The poor baby was exhausted.
I wasn't about to sit there and shrug my shoulders and go oh well. I shan't go into minute detail but here's what I tried :
- Osteopathy - they work on helping to mature her gut. Also helped to figure out what food Lara was intolerant to. As a result dairy and wheat are banned from my diet. They also discovered that Lara had an inflamed gut, so any work they wanted to do on her was impossible until this healed.
- Pranic healing - you can google this. I'd add the link but I'm still new at this blogging lark, sorry! A Pranic Healer, who knows my step mum, came to the house and waved his crystal wand and cleansed her energy. I didn't want to be a sceptic, it was all very strange for me, especially when he didn't touch her at all. I do believe that an individual's energy is very powerful, but it was still hard to digest seeing it first hand! Will find out tomorrow if her gut is healed, when we visit the osteo.
- Peadiatrician prescribed Zantac and Gaviscon for her reflux - I wanted to eliminate pain from that to see if it helped with her naps.
- Chinese Baby massage - as the video shows, they work on back, abdomen, hand and face. We had 3 sessions of this.
- Catnip & Fennel drops - organic and natural, fennel supposed to be an excellent natural medicine for gassy babies.
I had all given up hope on Sunday and said to the Backer, we'll just have to live with this and hope that when she gets a bit older, things will work out by themselves. Well.. today, Monday 12th October - Lara slept like a trooper! I mean, her daytime naps. Her nightime sleep has (I'm gripping tightly to a wooden table as I type this with one hand) have always been good.
I shan't write any more as I'm tired and the Backer and I are about to have Chicken Stew for dinner. Yummy! Yes you probably think we're weird having hot stew in the tropics but one can't live on salad leaves forever now, can one?
