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Is it Colic?

What is colic? Ian St James-Roberts, Emeritus Professor of Child Psychology, explains more.

 

The word ‘colic’ is used to refer to unexplained crying in babies less than 5 months old. The crying often occurs in the afternoon and evening, but can happen at other times too.

It used to be thought that the crying was due to gut pain (the word ‘colic’ comes from the Greek word for the gut).

What does the research say?

  • Careful research studies have found that most babies who cry a lot are healthy and well. They put on weight normally and have normal long-term development.
  • Studies of the crying itself have not found that it sounds abnormal or is a sign of pain.
  • Many ‘remedies’ are claimed to stop the crying, but there is no evidence they work.
    Instead of the idea that a few babies have colic, the evidence is that babies in general have a crying ‘peak’ in the early weeks, followed by a big reduction at around 3 months.
  • The graph below shows this for 60 normal London babies that were followed from birth. On average, the babies spent over two hours crying and fussing per 24 hours at 5 weeks of age. The same kind of patterns of crying have been found in many other countries.

 

It is stressful, it’s when they cry and cry for ages and you are just kind of like “Oh my god when is it going to stop”….. But it does, it does stop eventually.

Kimberly,

(Parent with an excessively crying baby)

It was a complete shock…I’d never met a baby that just cried, never. I know babies cried obviously, a lot, but I didn’t expect them to cry for most of the day for several months. I expected it to calm down a bit.

Susanne,

(Parent with an excessively crying baby)

Now I can look back at it, two and a half years later I can look back and think ‘it happens, it’s just one of those things, you get through it’, at the time you feel like it’s never ending. Because a day can feel like a week

Aisha,

(Parent with an excessively crying baby)

Research

As well as this peak in overall amount, crying in normal infants aged 0-4 months has 2 other features:

 

  • It occurs more in the late afternoon or evening than at other times of day.
  • It includes bouts of fussing and crying which are long-lasting and hard or impossible to soothe.

Some babies show the crying peak and have ‘unsoothable’ bouts more than others (just as some are heavier than others). But these patterns of crying occur to varying degrees in normal infants in general. They disappear without any treatment when they are 3 or 4 months of age.

Taken together, this research shows that there is nothing wrong with most babies who cry a lot in early infancy. Rather than being a sign of illness in a small number of babies, the crying is probably part of normal development.

A crying baby can be very stressful.  But what often upsets parents most is not the amount of crying but their inability to control it or understand what causes it. The long and ‘unsoothable’ crying bouts make parents feel helpless.  They feel frustrated that they cannot stop the crying, and worried that they are not good parents. But there is evidence that even trained professionals cannot always stop the crying.

Since this type of crying cannot be prevented and it does not mean there is anything wrong with the baby, it does not need to be cured.  Instead, it is important to focus on helping parents to cope with the crying during this stressful time until it stops. Click here for advice and tips on coping with a crying baby.

Most babies under 5 months of age who cry a lot are healthy.  However, a small number – about 1% of babies overall – cannot tolerate cow’s milk or other foods. These cases are rare and usually easily detected by symptoms that a baby is unwell – such as frequent vomiting and failure to gain weight. The Health Checklist can help you identify if your baby has this kind of problem.

Parents should always seek help from their Health Visitor or GP if they suspect their baby is unwell.

Tara shares her experiences of what is was like to have a crying baby

Tara

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"I felt so lonely and isolated."

Susanne

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“I felt I was failing as a parent.”

Rebecca

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"It came as a shock when my third son was very unsettled."

Alison

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"She cried just about every waking minute."

Caitlin

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Myth:
“The crying must mean my baby is still hungry”

Fact: 
Most babies who cry a lot put on weight and grow normally.
Except in rare cases, the crying does not seem to be due to what or how much babies eat. Breastfeeding mums especially may think their milk isn’t providing enough to eat. However, the peak in crying during the first month or two is found in bottle-fed as well as breast-fed babies.

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