Perhaps the biggest mistake you can make is to use tricks to get your baby to
sleep. You know them, the time-honored ploys of beleaguered parents: rocking,
feeding, walking and singing the baby to sleep.
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Give Yourself a Break
In addition to the distress of the infant, experts worry about the less obvious ramifications of colic. Many parents are pushed to their limits by night after night of endless crying. Add sleep deprivation to this mix, and the potential for a normal, loving parent to lose patience is great. Colic can seriously impact the parent-child bond.
"It can be crazy-making to have a child with colic," says Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. For Markel, reassuring the parents is the most critical step. The first point he makes to them is: "You're a good parent. You didn't do anything wrong."
Recognition of this can go a long way toward easing the parents' nervousness. He also uses supportive coaching, working with parents to identify ways to reduce stress. "Take a break," he says, "share the workload, ask the grandparents to spell you."
For Carolyn Giannini this wasn't so easy. Her son James, now 3 years old, cried incessantly during his first year. Geographically isolated from a typical support network of family and friends, the first-time mother had no one to tell her what to do about her son's crying bouts. There were times when she would just have to walk away, leaving James in the care of her husband, Lindsey. "As much as I love him, I had to get away for my own sanity," says the 39-year-old Giannini. "At times it was absolutely unbearable, and I felt like I would do anything to get away from his crying."
Recognizing that colic impacts more than just the babies, the IBCS Program takes a family-centered, multidisciplinary approach. Parents are seen along with infants, and treatment combines aspects of psychology, behavioral pediatrics, child and adolescent psychiatry and social work. Echoing Markel, Boukydis advises parents to remember that their own needs matter. "When you become a parent, you still need to maintain your own life," he says. "Difficult as it can be, you need to schedule time for yourself. If you can't afford a babysitter, draft someone in your family for the job: an aunt, a grandmother or even a good friend."
So, Giannini's instinct to spend some time apart from James was absolutely right. In doing so, she may have strengthened their bond while saving her sanity. Their closeness is obvious today in the way she strokes her 3-year-old son's hair and in the loving way she watches him play and explore. Sometimes, though, she wonders if he would have been a happier infant if she had known what to do to relieve his colic.
In the IBCS waiting room is the program's Wall of Fame, a large bulletin board
filled with cards, photos, and notes from past patients. Children and families
beam at the viewer in photo after photo. The recurring themes are "Thank you for
treating my child's colic," and "We're so glad we found out about the program."
For Zachary's mom, the turning point was learning to put Zack down at the first
sign of tiredness. Using the tactics learned at the IDC, she watched her son go
from inconsolable to adorable. Within a few weeks, the combination of down drowsy
and gastroesophageal reflux treatment turned the desperate crier into a champion
sleeper. 
Beth McCombe, a freelance writer in Providence, R.I., is the mother of a
formerly colicky 2-year-old boy.
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Come Clean