Tough times

I can't say exactly when Toby became fussy. It kind of snuck up on us. When he was about two months old, we noticed that Toby's sleeping schedule seemed to be moving in the wrong direction. He was waking up more and more often in the wee hours and seemed very gassy  -- farting all night and spitting up all day. Some nights he woke up crying every hour or two. Other nights he could only sleep on one of our chests. The pediatrician suspected that Toby had a dairy allergy, and a little blood in his stool confirmed this. I cut all dairy out of my diet, and Toby's gassiness receded a bit. But he still spit up about a hundred times a day, and continued to sleep terribly. There were other issues, too. If Toby heard a loud noise, he would pause for a moment, then let out a blood-curdling scream, followed by whimpering that lasted for ages. He hated bright lights. And he couldn't bear to be around more than one or two people at a time.

Getting desperate, I contacted a developmental pediatrician I'd worked with in my social-worker job. He reminded me of all the things he'd taught me about newborns. Between 8 and 14 weeks is when babies are most likely to have "colic." His theory: Colic isn't actually a sickness, but rather a result of a baby's oversensitivity to stimuli during a time of very rapid brain development. Stimuli both internal (gas, other pain) and external (noise, light) could be overwhelming during this period. He reassured me that most babies become less fussy after this developmental spurt  -- although he also pointed out that his two children were sensitive way beyond their colicky phases. He made suggestions about ways to reduce stimuli in Toby's world (i.e., lowering lights, keeping noise to a minimum). Most important, he said, was for me to get rest and support. In other words, there isn't much you can do to change a fussy baby. You just have to get through it without going off the deep end.

In Toby's fourth month, his night sleep was much improved, but his naps continued to be painfully brief and the fussiness was as bad as ever. A new problem was also emerging: Toby had the world's youngest case of separation anxiety. If anyone other than my husband or I held him, he screamed his head off. Worse, he was developing a perpetually worried look-his face scrunched up in misery with the threat of tears always just behind his eyes. It was as if he feared we would abandon him. Sometimes he'd smile or laugh, but more often he seemed discontent. Once in a while he'd make happy, cooing baby sounds, but more often it was that miserable fuss sound  -- uhh, uhh, uhh. We became obsessed with getting Toby to smile. We also became obsessed with a question that would plague us for many months to come: Why is Toby fussing? For me, it was always followed by a more painful question: What am I doing wrong?

And then it got worse. When Toby was 6 months old, I went back to work part-time. We put Toby in a lovely home daycare near our house. My baby made his fussing sound for eight hours a day at daycare. The only time he stopped was to break into a full-fledged scream. He refused to nap. The weeks went on but he did not adjust. In fact, he appeared more and more panicked every time we left him. Within six weeks, Toby had been kicked out of daycare. I had to cut back to working just one day a week, when my husband was able to stay home with Toby. The other six days I listened to Toby fuss and wondered if having a baby had been such a good idea.

After Toby was ushered out of daycare, my self-doubt reached an uncomfortable height. Was Toby fussier than ever because I'd gone back to work? Was Toby picking up on some anxiety of mine that I was not dealing with? Did I just have no idea how to parent in a halfway decent manner? When we spent time with friends who had babies Toby's age, I felt worse than ever. I'd watch as our friends' babies smiled, babbled, and played happily, while Toby sat on the ground and made the fuss noise, too upset to even pick up a toy. What was the matter? Why was he so unhappy?

Most things people offered up to try to be helpful only made me feel worse.

"Wow, he really should be over colic by six months," one friend said.

"Maybe it's because he lives in the country, and you don't take him around other people a lot. That could be why he's so sensitive," another one offered.

Everyone had a theory. My husband and I had a hundred theories. I would lie awake at night going over them in my head. Maybe when those teeth finally broke through it would be better. Maybe when he could crawl it would be better. Maybe when he discovered object permanence and realized that my husband and I would always return, it would be better. Of course, even if one of these theories were right, there was nothing I could do to speed Toby through this awful phase. I had no control over his fussiness.