The Myth of the "Difficult" Baby

Now, before all the mamas of difficult children start throwing plates at the screen, bear with me, while I explain.

I've got one of those "difficult" babies.

He was always miserable and unhappy. Wanted to be carried everywhere. Waking up all through the night. Sometimes he screamed, and arched his back. Everyone said "colic" and after 3 months he'd grow out of it.

But he didn't.

It went on, month after month. Nobody seemed to have any answers. He developed excema and food allergies, which made it worse. I began co-sleeping, so that I could rub his back and help him back to sleep. Still he wriggled and squirmed, all through the early morning hours.

I got more and more tired...

(Sound familiar, anyone?)

Eventually, one of the MACH nurses uttered the dreaded words: "difficult baby". Apparently, they grow out of that, too. Ha. Cold comfort!

I was more determined than ever to find the answers.

It wasn't until I turned to alternative medicine, I heard the words "yeast infection" and even then, I didn't take too much notice.

And then recently, I happened to stumble across an old book, gathering dust in an op-shop. I started reading, and I started to have some lightbulb moments.

This book is called "Your Allergies can be Cured" by Phillip Alexander N.D.

Now, here's where we start to connect the dots, everyone...

Allergies are very closely linked to candidiasis (Yeast Infections, or thrush). They are possibly even caused by yeast infections.

Yeast infections feed on sugar (including fruits, which are high in natural sugars), yeast, simple carbs (white flours, etc) and alcohol.

Almost the entire population has some yeast growing in their digestive system. It is only when it grows too large, and gets out of balance with other bacteria in the stomach, that problems start to occur.

What are these problems, you ask?

A baby with a yeast problem will be colicky and unsettled, seems to spend it's first year crying and screaming for no diagnosable reason, and will have chronic "nappy rash". (Basically thrush on their bottom. If you had it, and couldn't scratch it, and couldn't tell anyone your problems, you'd be pretty darn "difficult" too.)

The baby will probably have a constant runny nose, recurrent colds and flu that develop into viral infections, especially throat infections.

The only way to get rid of it is to a) encourage good bacteria to grow, to restore the balance (this is basically the role of probiotics), and starve the infection of it's food sources.

I knew in my heart that I'd finally found my answer...

It's taken a few weeks of probiotic powder in his meals (a special one for kiddies), and cutting out all sugars (including fruit) and yeast, and his sleeping has slowly but surely improved. He's waking 1-2 times per night, which is a vast improvement on 4-5 times per night.

And even more than that. He has not been sick with a cold or flu, once, in the past few weeks, despite starting childcare! This is quite something, for the kid whose been sick just about every other week, up until now.

So, if you are also one of those sleep deprived mothers of "difficult" children, don't buy into the myth. Mothers know their children better than anyone, and if we say that something's wrong, then there is damn well something wrong!!!

I don't believe our babies were meant to be miserable and unhappy and sick all the time. They were meant to flourish and bloom.

If the symptoms above are ringing bells for you, I urge you to do some more reading on candidiasis.

And if not, then keep searching until you've found your answers, because these so-called "difficult" babies, are often the ones that grow up to be the kids who are always sick, suffer from many allergies and intolerances. We owe it to our children, to not give up, until we know the truth.