And if you said "Oh, but it only last for the first three months or so", then you should be shot...or worse, put in a room with baby cries for 8 hour stretches just to punish you for such insensitive remarks!
For the rest of you...the only way to describe it is that your newborn cries a blood-curdling sob for long stretches of time and nothing you could possibly do helps.
Our baby, fortunately, seems to have a somewhat mild case...as in she screams on and off for the evening, rather than continuous screaming for hours and hours on end. And we are blessed with it not being bad every night! Did I mention that nobody knows the cause (other than that its more common in second children)...nor the cure? For a very mild taste of our fun...here is a short video...(if you want the true experience, turn up the volume and loop it 180 times...she was just getting warmed up):
Fortunately for us, there are old remedies that sometimes help. The one suggested to us could be picked up at the pharmacy for 1.60 a bottle (custom mixed....I love socialism!) and is called 'Eaux de chaux'.
The ingredients on the recipe supplied by the doctor had 2 ingredients: 'eaux de chaux' and 'julep gommeux'. What is this magic stuff? Well, a bit of internet digging gave us the first clues: Eaux de chaux is basically calcium carbonate..or your typical antacid for indigestion. Julep gommeux was trickier -- seems to be some sort of syrup (sugar and water...and babies love sugar!) and some other ingredient that is rarely specified. A bit more digging found that the other ingredient is opium....ahhhhhh....no wonder it mellows out baby!
Takes the edge of, ya know?
Turns out the modern version of this recipe substitutes orange blossom extract for the opium...and presumably works way less well. Fortunately, it still works....at least a bit!
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