“What am I doing wrong?” is a common question parents ask themselves when their baby won’t stop crying. No one is prepared for months of non-stop screaming. No one believes that there’s nothing they can do. No parent ever accepts the fact that some babies are just plain miserable during their first several months of life. For this reason, parents of colicky babies often blame themselves. They think they are doing something wrong because their baby doesn’t want to be held or cuddled or sung to or rocked. They think they are doing something wrong because this pattern wears them down and they start—dare we say it out loud?—hating the baby they love.

Help For Babies With Colic.

There is help for babies with colic; however, not all colicky babies who cry incessantly will immediately respond and stop crying so often, though some do. Every infant with colic will experience a different level of relief, and some babies who have colic will take longer to stop feeling miserable. Additionally, not all colic treatments or colic remedies work the same on every colicky baby. What works well for one baby who cries all the time may not work at all for another baby that won’t stop crying.

Am I a Bad Parent?

You want to do the very best you can for your unhappy infant, so it is VERY important for you to realize—and really believe this: It’s not your fault .

This is a problem your baby has, not you! And you are trying to understand it so you can help her feel better.

Friends and family often do not understand the dynamics involved with a baby that cries all the time. Instead, they tend to look at mom as being inept at parenting, or lacking parental “instincts” that mothers of quiet, happy babies have. Everyone’s got an opinion about what you’re doing wrong, as a parent, and why your baby cries all the time.

Do not believe them. They don’t realize the problem is the baby’s physiology, genetics, disposition, sensitivity, development ; not your instincts. They’ve never had (or never believed they’ve had) a baby that refuses to be consoled.

Even your family doctor, the baby’s pediatrician, may think, when you say “my baby won’t stop crying!” that the problem is a lack of parenting skills rather than colic. But it’s not true. The doctor may tell you there’s nothing that can be done, that “colic” symptoms are normal and will pass (or that there’s no such thing as colic), and that you need to just tough it out for a few more months.

Don’t let this “professional” opinion affect your view of your adequacy as a mother or father. You are a loving, caring parent, or you would not be discussing this problem with your doctor. And never believe that there’s nothing you can do! That’s not going to help you get through this difficult period in your relationship with your baby.

Don’t spend one more day feeling guilty, inadequate, or inept as a parent. That attitude can forever affect how you interact with your child. A million colicky babies can’t have a million inept parents who are all so unskilled as to not be able to find the right parenting “style” to make their baby quiet and cuddly. It’s impossible that so many parents could be so inept that their babies scream for no good reason other than their parents’ inability to properly nurture them.

Why Is My Baby Different?

If you compare your young screaming infant to only those infants who are quiet all the time, and yourself to only those parents who are well-rested (because their baby doesn’t scream 24/7), then you are measuring your self-worth and your parenting adequacies against the wrong measuring stick . All babies are different .

You cannot measure the success of growing an almond tree against the growth of a strawberry plant and say they are the same. They have different climate needs, different soil needs, different nutritional needs, and they do not grow at the same rate. Similarly, babies do not develop at the same rate. What someone else’s baby does isn’t the same as what your baby will do. They have different physiologies, different temperaments, different genetics, different rates of growth and development, even different IQs.

It’s just the way your baby is built. It’s not your fault. Love him anyway, because it’s not his fault either. He’s doing the best he can—and so are you.

Will My Baby Ever Stop Crying?

Yes! It will get better —that’s a given. When it’s all said and done, the most important thing for you to come away with, as a parent, is your self-confidence, and your love for the child who almost broke you; knowing that, while you may not have been able to completely stop baby’s persistent crying, you toughed it out with your little one while she fought her battle with infant colic. You remained by your baby’s side, consoling your colicky infant day and night, giving her strength, comfort, hope, love, support—everything that’s best about you. What you will have achieved is peace of mind because you will know, with confidence, that it is no one’s fault—not yours, not your baby’s. It’s just the luck of the draw.