What Nobody Tells You About Severe Colic: When “It’s Normal” Doesn’t Feel Normal

There are two words I came to hate hearing as a new mum.

“It’s normal.”

I know those words were probably meant to reassure me.

But they didn’t.

Every time I heard them, I felt a little more trapped.

“It’s colic.”

“It’s normal.”

“Go home.”

“Come back in three months.”

But what was I supposed to do for those three months?

Because from where I was standing, there was nothing normal about what was happening in our home.

My baby wasn’t simply a little unsettled in the evenings.

She could cry for hours.

Her cry was loud and piercing. Her little face would scrunch up. Her body would tense. She looked uncomfortable, and sometimes she genuinely appeared to be in pain.

There were times when nothing seemed to console her.

And while all of this was happening to her, something was happening to me too.

I was exhausted.

I was frightened.

I was barely sleeping.

I was desperately trying to work out what my baby needed, and I felt as though nobody could give me an answer.

What I needed wasn’t somebody to tell me that colic was common.

I needed somebody to explain what colic actually meant.

What Actually Is Colic?

One of the things I wish I had understood earlier is that colic is not necessarily an explanation for why a baby is crying.

It is a term used for a pattern of excessive, prolonged crying or fussing in an otherwise healthy infant when there is no obvious cause.

You may have heard of the traditional “rule of threes”, which describes crying for more than three hours a day, on more than three days a week, for at least three weeks.

More recent clinical definitions have moved away from relying solely on that rule. Current approaches focus more broadly on recurrent, prolonged periods of crying, fussing or irritability that occur without an obvious cause and that caregivers cannot easily prevent or resolve.

That distinction would have meant so much to me at the time.

Because when somebody told me my baby had colic, I heard it as a diagnosis.

I thought somebody had worked out what was wrong.

But I was still left wondering:

Why is she crying?

Why does she look so uncomfortable?

Why is she sleeping in such tiny fragments?

Why can’t I soothe her?

Is there something else going on?

And most importantly:

What can I actually do to help her?

Is There Such a Thing as Severe Colic?

This is something I have thought about a lot because I would absolutely describe what we experienced as severe.

But I also want The 1AM Club to be a place where I distinguish my personal experience from established medical terminology.

There does not appear to be a universally accepted clinical grading system that simply divides colic into “mild”, “moderate” and “severe”.

That does not mean every family experiences colic in the same way.

Far from it.

Healthcare professionals and researchers can assess things such as how long a baby cries, how frequently the crying happens, whether the baby can be soothed, associated symptoms, feeding and growth, and the impact the crying is having on the baby’s caregivers and family.

There are also research tools designed to measure crying patterns and colic symptoms.

So when I use the words “severe colic” on this website, I am using them descriptively.

I am describing the intensity of what we lived through.

Because the word “colic” alone never felt big enough.

The Same Label Can Describe Very Different Experiences

This was one of the loneliest parts for me.

People would say:

“Oh yes, my baby had colic too.”

Or:

“My baby cried a lot.”

And I know most people were trying to help.

They were trying to relate.

They were trying to tell me I wasn’t alone.

But sometimes it had the opposite effect.

Because I felt as though people had experienced a fraction of what we were experiencing and assumed that meant they completely understood it.

There is no competition in suffering.

A struggling parent is a struggling parent.

But there can be enormous differences in intensity.

There is a difference between having a difficult evening with a crying baby and feeling as though crying, discomfort and sleep deprivation have consumed almost every part of your life.

I couldn’t simply put my baby down and have a shower.

I struggled to eat.

I couldn’t sit down and watch a film.

I dreaded nighttime.

I remember wishing somebody could take my baby from me for a while and somehow make everything better.

Not because I didn’t want her.

Not because I didn’t love her.

Because I desperately wanted somebody to take away whatever was making her so uncomfortable.

And at exactly the same time, I felt that nobody else would be able to cope with her or understand her needs the way I had learned to.

That is an incredibly isolating place to be.

I Felt Like We Were Being Sent Home to Suffer

I want to be fair when I talk about our experiences with healthcare professionals.

I have a healthcare background myself. I understand evidence based practice. I understand that doctors and nurses cannot always provide an immediate explanation or treatment, particularly when a baby is otherwise healthy and growing normally.

But I also know what those conversations felt like as a mother.

When I heard:

“It’s normal.”

“Go home.”

“Come back in three months.”

I didn’t hear reassurance.

I heard:

“There is nothing we can do.”

“You just have to live with this.”

“Go home and keep suffering.”

That may not have been what anybody intended to communicate.

But it was how it felt.

I felt unheard.

I felt trapped.

Most of all, I felt like my baby was suffering and I was powerless to help her.

It was one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced.

I wasn’t asking somebody to wave a magic wand.

I wanted somebody to sit with me and say:

“I believe you.”

“I can see how difficult this is.”

“Let’s keep looking at what might be happening.”

Colic Is Not Always an Explanation for Why a Baby Is Crying

Something else I wish I had understood is that excessive crying can exist without anyone ever finding one single underlying cause.

Researchers have investigated many possible contributors to infant colic and excessive crying, including gastrointestinal factors, feeding issues and differences in the gut microbiome.

Other conditions can also cause symptoms that parents may initially interpret as colic.

That is why persistent or unusual crying should not automatically be dismissed simply because the word “colic” has already been used.

Reflux or gastro oesophageal reflux disease, cow’s milk protein allergy and feeding difficulties are among the things healthcare professionals may consider depending on a baby’s symptoms.

That does not mean that every baby with colic has reflux, an allergy, an intolerance or another underlying condition.

And it certainly does not mean parents should attempt to diagnose these things themselves.

It means the whole baby matters.

Their feeding.

Their growth.

Their stools.

Their vomiting.

Their behaviour.

Their crying.

Their sleep.

And whether anything has changed.

The label “colic” should not stop a parent from going back for medical advice if something feels wrong.

I Became Obsessed With Finding an Answer

I searched everywhere.

And I mean everywhere.

There were nights when my baby would finally settle and instead of sleeping myself, I would sit there searching Google.

Eventually I was reading papers on Google Scholar.

Research studies.

Articles.

Anything I could find.

I wasn’t trying to become an expert in infant colic.

I was exhausted.

I needed hope.

I needed something that might help my baby.

We spoke to doctors.

We went backwards and forwards seeking help.

We looked at feeding.

We changed formula.

I breastfed.

We tried anti colic drops.

We massaged her tummy.

We held her upright.

We walked.

A lot.

Fresh air and being pushed in the buggy could sometimes provide a distraction.

Baths became incredibly important because water was one of the things that could sometimes calm her.

Music helped.

And one of the best gifts we ever received was a white noise machine.

The sound of swishing water and white noise helped enormously with settling and sleep, and we ended up using it for a very long time.

None of these things suddenly transformed our lives.

But when you are living in survival mode, even a little bit of relief matters.

We Also Saw a Baby Reflexologist

We also started looking beyond the conventional things we had already tried.

One of the complementary approaches we chose to explore was seeing a baby reflexologist.

I want to be particularly careful about how I talk about this.

My personal experience is not the same thing as scientific evidence.

There has been some research into reflexology for babies with colic, including small clinical studies reporting improvements in crying or colic symptom scores. However, the evidence base remains limited. That means I would not tell another parent that baby reflexology is a proven treatment for colic.

I also would never suggest using a complementary therapy instead of having a baby medically assessed when assessment is needed.

But I will tell you honestly about our experience.

Personally, I felt that baby reflexology helped us a lot.

And some of that was about something I hadn't expected.

Connection.

When you have a baby who cries for hours, your relationship can begin to feel like an endless list of problems you are desperately trying to solve.

Feed her.

Wind her.

Rock her.

Walk her.

Settle her.

Get her to sleep.

Work out why she woke up.

Try again.

There was something about having gentle, calm time with my baby that felt different.

It gave us moments where I wasn't frantically trying to fix something.

I could just connect with her.

That mattered enormously to me.

Can I tell you that reflexology cured my daughter's colic?

No.

I cannot make that claim.

Can I tell you that, personally, I felt our experience with a baby reflexologist helped us?

Absolutely.

Both of those statements can exist at the same time.

And that is something I want to be very clear about throughout this website.

I will tell you what we tried.

I will tell you what I felt helped us.

I will tell you when something did not help us.

And then, where research exists, I will look at what the evidence actually says.

I think parents deserve both.

I will also be writing a separate article about our full experience with baby reflexology, including why we decided to try it, what the experience was like, what I personally noticed, how I felt it affected my connection with my baby, and what current research does and does not tell us about reflexology for infant colic.

It Wasn't Just Time That Changed Things

This part is extremely important to me.

Because when I look back now and see my daughter happy, sleeping and thriving, it would be very easy to wrap our story up neatly and say:

“She eventually grew out of it.”

But that isn't how I experienced it.

Things did not improve simply because we waited long enough.

There was a lot of hard work behind what eventually changed.

We researched.

We asked questions.

We spoke to doctors.

We explored different approaches.

We changed things.

We watched what happened.

We learned our baby.

We advocated for her.

Some things made no noticeable difference.

Some gave us small amounts of relief.

Other decisions had a much bigger impact.

And eventually, when my daughter was around ten months old, we decided to work with a sleep consultant.

It was one of the best decisions we made.

Again, it wasn't a magic wand.

It took work.

But for the first time, we had structure.

We had guidance.

We had a plan.

And we had hope.

Slowly, sleep began to improve.

Our lives began to change.

I started seeing more smiles.

More laughter.

More of my daughter's personality.

And slowly, I started finding myself again too.

So yes, time was part of our story.

But time alone is not the story I want to tell.

Our story was also persistence.

Research.

Advocacy.

Professional support.

Trial and error.

Learning.

And refusing to stop looking for ways to make life better for our family.

The Impact on Parents Matters Too

I don't think we talk enough about what relentless infant crying can do to a parent.

The focus is understandably on the baby.

Is the baby feeding?

Is the baby gaining weight?

Does the baby have a temperature?

Is the baby medically well?

Those things matter enormously.

But there is another person in that room.

The parent.

And sometimes that parent is falling apart.

I know because I was.

I became severely sleep deprived.

I dreaded the night.

I remember calling 111.

I remember ringing one of my closest friends and crying because I simply did not know what to do anymore.

Eventually, I experienced postnatal depression.

I don't say that lightly.

And I don't say it because I didn't love being a mum.

I loved my daughter enormously.

That was part of what made the experience so painful.

I loved this tiny person more than I could explain, yet I couldn't work out how to make her feel better.

Research supports something parents living through this already know instinctively: persistent infant crying can have a significant effect on parental stress, sleep, mental wellbeing and family life.

Supporting the parent is therefore not separate from supporting the baby.

It matters.

When Crying Should Be Checked

This is one area where I never want this website to rely on personal experience alone.

Most crying in babies is not caused by a serious illness, and colic itself is generally considered a benign, self limiting condition.

But a crying baby can sometimes be unwell.

Seek medical advice if you are worried about your baby, particularly if the crying is suddenly different from usual or is accompanied by concerning symptoms.

Urgent assessment may be needed for symptoms such as difficulty breathing, unusual drowsiness or difficulty waking, seizures, a baby who appears seriously unwell, significant feeding problems or signs of dehydration.

Other concerning features can include persistent or forceful vomiting, green vomit, blood in vomit or stools, poor weight gain, a swollen abdomen, or a significant change in your baby's normal behaviour.

For very young babies, fever also needs particular attention.

And there is one thing I wish more parents were told:

If you are worried, you are allowed to go back.

You are allowed to ask again.

You are allowed to say:

“This isn't normal for my baby.”

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

I wish somebody had explained that “colic” didn't mean I was imagining the intensity of what was happening.

I wish somebody had explained that two babies with the same label could have very different experiences.

I wish somebody had told me that I wasn't weak because I was struggling.

I wish somebody had acknowledged that being told to wait can feel unbearable when every day feels like survival.

I wish somebody had encouraged me to keep asking questions while also reassuring me that this stage would not necessarily define our entire future.

And more than anything, I wish I had found another mother who could say:

“I know what this feels like.”

Not somebody promising me a miracle cure.

Not somebody telling me to buy twenty different products.

Not somebody making me feel guilty because their baby slept through the night at eight weeks.

Just someone who understood.

That is why The 1AM Club exists.

A Letter to the Parent Reading This

If you've found this article at two o'clock in the morning because your baby won't stop crying, I want to speak directly to you.

I believe you.

I believe that it's hard.

I believe that sometimes the word “colic” doesn't begin to describe what your home feels like right now.

And I know how frustrating it can be when somebody tells you:

“It's normal.”

Because sometimes you don't need to hear that something is normal.

You need help getting through it.

Please keep asking questions.

Seek medical advice when you are worried.

Go back if something changes.

Ask for support for yourself too.

You do not have to prove how exhausted you are before you deserve help.

And please remember that my story is just that.

My story.

What helped my family may not help yours, and your baby's circumstances may be completely different from ours.

But there is something I can tell you from the other side of this experience.

My life did not stay that way forever.

I went back to work.

I slept again.

I watched films again.

I became myself again.

And the baby I once spent hours desperately trying to soothe grew into a happy little girl who could go out into the world, go to nursery, laugh, play and do the ordinary things I once worried might never be possible.

Getting there wasn't passive.

It took time, yes.

But it also took work.

It took asking questions.

It took professional support.

It took learning.

It took advocating.

It took trying, failing, adjusting and trying again.

So if you're in the middle of it right now, I want you to know this:

There is life beyond survival.

And until you get there, you don't have to feel invisible.

You're in the right place.

Welcome to The 1AM Club.

Important: This article shares my personal experience and general educational information. It is not a substitute for individual medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you are concerned about your baby's health, feeding, behaviour or crying, contact an appropriate healthcare professional.