The screaming I mentioned in the one-month post? It’s continued, and gotten worse. For the past week Adrian has spent all his awake time either nursing or screaming. In the evening and at night he can go on for a good hour or two, and nothing seems to make a difference. (That is, until whichever parent is in charge decides that what s/he is doing isn’t working, and tries something else. The switch to something else invariably seems to make the screaming even worse.)

It isn’t even due to milk supply issues. Yes, there are some burps and farts, but they don’t seem to cause the screaming. When he finally stops it’s not after releasing a burp. It’s more like he stops he’s finally done screaming for some mysterious reason.

I guess this is what they call colic: a baby that “cries or screams frequently and, for extended periods, without any discernible reason”.

This is pretty stressful. I can’t plan any outings or errands at all for when he is awake, or anything else for that matter (such doing housework, or meeting friends, or even eating lunch). Barely a chance to talk to Eric in the evening.

Then suddenly yesterday Adrian wanted to just lie on his changing mat, and did that for a while, all quiet, without a peep. After a while he simply fell asleep there. I could hardly believe my eyes, or ears. And then he did it again a few hours later. Quite incredible. Of course in the evening we still had 2 hours of unconsolable crying.

Do I dare hope that things are turning around? I was just steeling myself for this going on for months, as colic apparently can do, and don’t want to get my hopes up too early.

The first two or three weeks Adrian spent pretty much all his time eating and sleeping. Honestly, he was like a newborn kitten, with his eyes closed all the time.

Now he is actually awake some of the time, occasionally over an hour at a time. The downside is that he no longer falls asleep without any effort from us. At first he would easily fall asleep no matter what; now it’s not that easy any more. But it’s nothing like Ingrid’s sleeping troubles: when he is tired and I put him in the sling, he generally falls asleep without much fuss. And with a bit of help (such as a dummy or someone’s finger to suck on) he can actually fall asleep lying down. But since I usually have more important things to do than to sit by his bedside, I often tuck him in the sling anyway.

Unfortunately Adrian spends much of his awake time crying and screaming due to tummy troubles. I have forceful letdown and plentiful milk supply, so he chokes, splutters, gasps for air, and generally struggles to feed. (No comfort nursing here.) As a result he eats way too fast and swallows a lot of air. I burp him several times during a feed, as well as afterwards, and every time he lets loose a huge burp more befitting a champion beer drinker. But it’s hard to get all the air out, so for a good while after every meal he cries and throws up as he tries to burp it out.

On the plus side, he’s developing good strong neck muscles, because he spends so much time upright, being burped or comforted.

He seems to dislike being naked, so he doesn’t enjoy nappy changes or clothes changes. Partly because of this he’s only had two proper baths since he was born. (The other reason is that there aren’t many opportunities: either he’s asleep, or upset, or I’ve got other, more important things to do.)

He has a strong startle reflex and is startled by many things. Putting him down on the changing mat, unbuttoning his body, tearing the nappy open, picking him up, and so on.

We now have a name: our son is called Adrian Felix. He is now a week old (minus a few hours).

Not only did the birth go very smoothly, everything else is going unexpectedly smoothly as well. Adrian falls asleep easily, and actually likes to sleep lying down. Breastfeeding is going well, too. It’s all so easy.

With Ingrid I was lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted for several weeks. Now within the first week Eric and I already been to IKEA, I’ve taken Ingrid to her dance group, etc, with Adrian hanging along. Eric’s actually going back to work on Monday already, since I feel I’ve got things under control here.

For us, going from one child to two was a much smaller step than going from zero to one. I know it’s not the case for every family. Perhaps it’s because Ingrid is already quite a big girl, and more mature than the average child of her age? She’s been very tolerant of the disruption to her life, and quite understanding of my inability to, for example, read her good night story when Adrian demands to be fed. (The birth hasn’t just brought inconvenience to her: now that the belly is out of the way, there’s room for Ingrid to sit properly on my lap again, and I can actually lift and hold her again.) She’s also very proud of being a big sister, and shows off “her baby” to anyone who will listen.