Saturday (12th July) Ian spent the afternoon and evening at a couple of friends’ wedding, which meant that I was on my own putting both kids to bed for the second time ever. With Conrad so little still, we didn’t feel we could leave him with a babysitter. I was dreading bedtime, expecting Conrad to be right in the middle of his early evening colic when I’d have to put Jessica in bed. And he did start to grumble after his 4pm feed, needing lots of burping and rocking and singing to calm down. Thankfully, Jessica was happily playing on her own (apart from bringing a few books over to me on the sofa and trying to put them on my lap at the same time as Conrad was there having his bottle, and at one point jabbing him slightly in the ribs in the process, which didn’t go down too well with the baby…!).
Since the beginning of the week I give Conrad a double dose of Infacol before each meal, which seemed to help for a few days but not anymore. So I decided to try some gripe water. This is supposed to be good at easing acidity too according to a friend of ours, who used it for her baby, actually in combination with Infacol – Infacol needs to be taken before a meal, to line the stomach, but gripe water can be taken during or after the meal, so one can try Infacol first and if it doesn’t help also go for the second option.
As Jessica now feeds herself pretty well with a spoon, she had her dinner all by herself without spilling very much of it while I was busy jiggling Conrad. I danced around the living room singing a song I used to do folk dancing to when I was little (actually the same song I used to sing to Jessica when she was a baby and upset after feeding – very good as you can do a bit of bouncing to it, which sometimes helps bringing baby’s wind up) and managed to both get Conrad settled and Jessica giggling at the same time (me obviously looking very silly in the process!). The gripe water seemed to do the trick. Conrad cried for a while after having been fed but was happy enough to take his new medication, and when he dozed off after a while and I put him in the carry cot he stayed soundly and peacefully asleep for another couple of hours, giving me plenty of time to look through a few books with his big sister, and get her ready for and tucked in bed.
The night turned out so completely different to the previous! Conrad slept peacefully in-between feeds and even for 4 hours in one go between 8pm and midnight. I carried on giving him gripe water towards the end of each feed and it didn’t take him long to settle back to sleep, giving Ian and myself a much more relaxed night too.
Gabriella