Getting Started Pt. 3: The Tit Vampire

The first major struggle once we got Stella home was that she cried, a lot. We had heard of the dreaded “colicky baby” syndrome, and hoped and prayed that it wouldn’t happen to us. While doctors, even now, aren’t totally sure what colic is one thing we do know is that it involves massive amounts of crying from the baby. Often babies develop it after a couple of weeks of life, and it can last for weeks, if not months. And, lucky us, our baby had it.

We had set up our bedroom so that Stella’s bassinet was on the side of the bed, just about at bed height. This way, if the baby should need anything, we would know, right away. We shouldn’t have worried.

Almost from the first night Stella started to cry. And not just cry, but shriek and wail, in a way that was akin to one of those little air-horns that people bring to football games. This baby, so slight at birth, was a powerful little demon. Making matters worse it seemed that she hated to sleep. Whereas our baby books all told us that newborns sleep up to 18 hours a day our baby barely slept eight hours a day, if that. The rest of the time was either spent sucking on a booby, or crying. In fact eventually I started to call her the Tit Vampire, as she drained Randi not only of milk, but energy, and, eventually, patience. The result was an extremely stressed out mom and dad.

It also included a stressed out grandma, too. Randi’s mother Judy slept on our couch for the first two weeks of Stella’s life. She was here to help us, and do whatever it was that needed doing. As such she cleaned the apartment, did dishes, and bought groceries. All of this was a great help. But she couldn’t help us as Stella cried and cried for the breast. Once she’d get the breast she’d latch onto it with a fierceness until all the milk was gone. Then she’d suck on the dry breast, until the pain of it made Randi disengage from her, and then she would cry some more, getting red faced in the process.

Since it was too early to bottle feed Stella Judy was unable to hold her and feed her, which is a common thing for grandmothers to want to do. So she felt like there wasn’t all that much she could do to help us, which, I think, made her feel bad.

But the truth was, no one could help us. Nothing worked.

One night I put Stella in her car seat as she screamed right in my face, and gently, gently rocked her for about an hour. She would almost fall asleep, almost fall asleep, and almost fall asleep. Each time she would then awake from her near slumber madder than ever, and louder than ever, too. Finally, I got her to sleep, if only for a little while. I then smugly thought: I’ve got this baby all figured out. I would take the time, and gently rock her, every night. It never worked again.

Another night I held her and sang “The Summer of ‘69” for almost 25 minutes. Miraculously it worked, but I had to stop when Randi busted out laughing, as I sang, over and over, the refrain: “It was the summer of ’69, ohhhhh yeahhhh.” Eventually I started to sing it so slow and low that it resembled a Gregorian chant. Stella liked it, actually, but it was too much Bryan Adams for me to bear.

After several weeks we bought this stuff called gripe water, which is made out of, I think, sugar and ginger. It’s non-toxic, always a plus, and is supposed to calm a baby’s stomach down, kind of like Tums. That worked like a charm … for exactly two nights, and then it never worked again.

During one particularly nightmarish stretch Stella cried for, no lie, 36 hours in a row, sleeping, at most, three hours in that whole time. Randi held her, but couldn’t help her. Finally, she cried herself out, and slept for eight hours in a row, like a drunk that had been on some kind of insane bender. But our nerves were shot.

Despite the ongoing crying, and lack of sleep, Stella kept on putting on weight, and growing.

Every time we’d see the doctor, too, she’d be on her absolute best behavior, which was in a way, kind of irritating. On the one hand I was glad she was giving us a break, but on the other it made us look hysterical. I mean, we called our pediatrician’s office, during the first month of Stella’s life, at least half a dozen times, at our wit’s end. Often it would be night, or before the office even opened. The voice on the other end would tell us that “in case of an emergency” we could leave a number and the doctor would call us back.

But the word, “emergency” was hard to quantify. Isn’t crying for 36 hours an emergency? True the baby is eating, and doesn’t have a fever, but for god’s sake, this seems like an emergency to us! Then we’d get the doctor on the phone, and they would patiently explain that, despite what we think, the baby isn’t dying. I guess that can be a cue: lots of crying does not always equal dying.

Finally, Stella stopped her colicky episodes nearly as suddenly as they began. The reason? Randi stopped eating eggs. Well, whatever it takes.