What if your baby is in intense, frequent distress while appearing otherwise healthy? That inconsolable crying may be a sign your baby has colic.
As a parent, I understand how helpless you can feel because it seems like nothing we do soothes them. Thankfully, there are remedies like Colic Calm and gripe water.
Both treatments can be useful, but which one works better? Let’s take a look at both remedies to break down how they work. This way, you’ll have enough information to choose the right product for your baby.
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Top Colic & Gripe Water Products
Is Colic Calm and Gripe Water the Same?
Colic Calm and gripe water are similar products as Colic Calm is seen by many as a type of gripe water.
Both treat gas and fussiness in babies with colic symptoms. Still, let’s break them down individually to understand how each works.
Colic Calm
Colic Calm uses eight homeopathic ingredients meant to help your baby’s body heal on its own. The natural ingredients aim to work their way through your child’s digestive system, absorbing the likes of toxins and gases to relieve your baby’s symptoms.
The use of vegetable charcoal makes Colic Calm standout. It’s used as an inactive material that passes through your baby’s intestines without being absorbed, and this is what helps the remedy collect toxins.
It does cause the formula to look black, however, so you’ll notice your baby’s stool turning a darker color.
Gripe Water
Gripe water is water mixed with various herbs. It works to alleviate common colic symptoms like stomach pain and gas.
This time-tested remedy dates back to the mid-1800s. It featured alcohol as a primary ingredient. Thankfully, science proved the harmful effect of alcohol on babies, and people ceased using it in gripe water.
Different products use diverse herb mixtures. Some popular herbs pop up frequently like chamomile and ginger. Quality gripe water products do lack the use of gluten and sucrose though.
Can Gripe Water Help with Colic?
Indeed, there isn’t much scientific exploration in the effectiveness of gripe water. Instead, popularity comes from word of mouth and a history of relieved parents.
Even though there’s no one set cause of colic, it’s believed that an upset stomach is a major indicator that your baby suffers from it. As such, the herbs involved in gripe water targets that discomfort to improve their digestive system.
There are calming herbs used in many gripe water products like peppermint and fennel. These are among many herbs recommended for gut health. It stands to reason that they calm your baby’s tummy, relaxing the intestines so that the pain subsides.
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Which Brand of Gripe Water is Best?
Many gripe water brands use similar formulas, so it’s tough deciding which one is the best. You can take certain considerations to heart such as natural ingredients, lack of dye and gluten, and how gentle the solution is for young babies.
I searched around to find three top-rated gripe water brands that may be worth your time.
Little Remedies Day and Night Gripe Water
The nighttime gripe water formula puts lemon balm and chamomile to great use to soothe your baby to sleep. Both daytime and nighttime include natural ginger flavor to promote overall digestive health.
Another high point in Little Remedies Gripe Water is the limited amount of ingredients used. This helps if you’re still discovering food allergies in your baby.
Both formulas are also designed dye-free, gluten-free, and gentle enough for newborns.
Zarbee’s Naturals Baby Gripe Water
You’ll notice that Zarbee’s includes the usual herbs like lemon balm and ginger. It goes a step further with natural ingredients such as elderberry and dark honey to provide your baby with additional nutrients.
The fact that the man behind the product is both a father and a pediatrician may provide parents with further peace of mind that the gripe water is safe and effective.
Wellements Organic Gripe Water
This uses a simple combination of organic ingredients like ginger, fennel, and chamomile. A highlighted ingredient is sodium bicarbonate, otherwise known as baking soda.
Baking soda doesn’t seem as widely used in gripe water like it was years ago. Still, it’s known to help break down acid. Used in Wellements Gripe Water, this may help soothe a colicky baby who has too much acid build-up.
Choosing Between Colic Calm and Gripe Water
There’s no easy way to choose between Colic Calm and other gripe water brands. Neither treatment has any real proven backing besides anecdotal evidence from parents who have used them.
Perhaps a good way to choose is to read the ingredients. It’s true that many products use the same ingredients, but you’ll notice some differences when comparing Colic Calm to other gripe water solutions.
Colic Calm uses eight total ingredients that include caraway to help with indigestion and vegetable carbon for toxin removal.
Many popular gripe water brands lack those ingredients but still focus on organic herbs like ginger, peppermint, and fennel.
You can further narrow down your choice based on if you want to use sodium bicarbonate with your baby since not every product has it.
If you still can’t decide, consider speaking with your pediatrician. Since every baby is different, a doctor may help you go over the ingredients and figure out if they’ll be of use or harm your child.
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Conclusion
There’s no single way to treat colic, but many have long praised the use of gripe water in soothing symptoms. The type of gripe water, as in the case with Colic Calm, goes a long way in how it may work in your baby’s system.
Keep in mind the ingredients used and how they work together to help you decide which is best for your baby. Don’t forget to consult with your doctor beforehand.
You may also wish to look into the best formulas for colic. This may reduce the occurrence of colic symptoms altogether which may remove the need for things like gripe water.
