Source: supplied
Everyone knows that babies cry. The two go together like Ikea bookshelves and student housing. It’s so natural that doctors aren’t prepared to declare a newborn healthy until they hear the devastated shriek of a child who’s just realised it’s physically impossible to climb back up the birth canal.
But my son began his campaign of aural terror even prior to his official birth. His labour had been long and complicated and when I began to push I was told by a team of waiting paediatricians that he might have trouble breathing on his own — a sentiment that was interrupted by muffled screams.
It turns out my son was so keen to register his disapproval about his new living arrangements that he began to do it while still inside my vagina. If only we saw that level of commitment in modern politics.
In the six months since that first howl of outrage, he has barely paused for breath.
In the beginning
In the early weeks, when he screamed and clenched and peppered the atmosphere with explosive discharges, I was a picture of empathy. I got it: he’d been ejected from the climate-controlled nudist colony of the womb and would never again know the sweet indulgence of dinner by umbilical cord.
But as the days turned into weeks and the fourth trimester became a fifth and a sixth, my baby continued to cry. And it wasn’t cute anymore. Friends popping over for fawning viewing sessions left with ringing in their ears and regurgitated milk on their faces.
“It’s like something out of the exorcist,� murmured my husband. “Except there’s not a priest in Australia who’d be willing to take him on.�
So what wisdom can be gained from such parental suffering, aside from an encyclopedic study of vasectomy clinics?
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The diagnoses:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a screaming baby must be in want of a diagnosis. Sadly for the new mother, this dream is usually as distant as the prospect of one day wearing non-elasticised pants.
In the early weeks, you’ll probably be told your baby has colic, a medical term that means “three months of inexplicable misery.� You will be advised to feed less often to avoid vomiting, but also more often to avoid mastitis. You will be told you have an oversupply of breast milk causing diarrhea, but perhaps also an undersupply, causing hunger. You will be advised your baby cannot latch, latches too hard and has a tongue tie. You will be taught the Football Hold, the Madonna Pose and the advanced “Straddlevarious�, in which you attempt to recreate an entire novelty rodeo show in your living room. You will be urged to consume lactation cookies and brewer’s yeast, presumably in the hope your breasts will inflate to the size and consistency of perfectly baked dinner rolls.
You will be referred to osteopaths, naturopaths, chiropractors and physiotherapists. And you will see all of them and advise your husband it may be necessary to re-mortgage the house, assuming he hasn’t already left it.
And still more diagnoses…
But it doesn’t end there. You will be told to try swaddling, swaddle harder or remove the swaddle. You will be told to use a dummy but also that your baby has a dummy addiction. You will be encouraged to try co-sleeping and warned that you will suffocate your baby if you do so. You will be told to try a swing and that the swing will ruin your baby’s spine. You will use the swing and go back to the chiropractor.
You will also try white noise, womb noise, Mozart for babies, Beyonce for grownups, the dishwasher and the lawnmower.
Fortunately, however, as the magic six-month mark recedes into the distance, the diagnoses will change.
Now you will find out it wasn’t colic after all but reflux. Or a dairy allergy, a soy intolerance or – particularly popular among inner-suburban mothers – a developmental milestone! You will be told to feed more often, less often and in your sleep. You will be told to give your baby more solids, less wheat, probiotics, beef broth or – most dreaded of all – actual baby formula.
Eventually a well-meaning friend will press a copy of Save Our Sleep into your hands, and your trembling caffeinated claws will attempt to place it on the bookshelf next to your other six copies.
Source: supplied
Proper coping strategies
In short, life is tough with a screaming baby so it’s important to take your pleasures where you find them. I, for instance, take a particular delight in hearing other babies cry. Every time I receive confirmation that mine is not the only howling succubus being wheeled around in a NASA-designed pram that cost more than my car I murmur a silent prayer of thanks.
Last week, for instance, I managed to go for a walk on my own, having been briefly relieved of parent duty by the only person who could tolerate such tormented cries from a child – my mother. During this rare moment of peace I was actually pleased to hear the cry of someone whose operatic wails of lament rivalled my own. Unfortunately, when I turned the corner I discovered the sound was coming from my son. But my point still stands.
Alternatively, it can be helpful to surround yourself with other women who are experiencing similar wretchedness and offer such words of wisdom as: “Let’s just close our eyes and hold one another.�
There are also many effective coping strategies. My friend Olivia, for instance, recommends screaming into a pillow or biting a nearby window frame.
Reality check
For the horrible reality is that your baby might not have colic or reflux or an allergy to anything non-paleo. You might just have one of those babies who cry. And cry. And cry. It’s enraging and terrifying but unavoidably true. All the love and torn nipples in the world won’t stop them. Some babies are just jerks.
The good news is that unless they master circular breathing, they will have to stop at some point. At least I assume so.
In the meantime, I recommend saving yourself the mortgage-sized fortune spent on specialists, herbalists and optimists and instead invest in a quality pair of noise cancelling headphones.
And on those awful, endless nights when you feel like nothing you do is working and you feel profoundly small and alone, take comfort in the knowledge that somewhere out there in a house not far away, someone else’s baby is also screaming like an ice-addled banshee.
And it’s probably mine.
