Soothe Your Colicky Baby With This Viral TikTok Hack

There’s crying, and then there’s colic. Crying crosses the border into colic when a healthy baby under 3 months of age cries for more than three hours a day, more than three days a week, for more than three weeks in a row for no apparent reason.

If your baby is struggling with colic, you know you’ll try almost anything to soothe baby. From formula swaps to medicine, bicycle legs and more, if these remedies aren’t working for you, a new, viral colic hack just might.

TikTok mom Danielle Manton-Kelly (@enchantednanny) shared the simple trick in February, where it has since garnered over 17.8 million views and 2.2 million likes. In the video, Manton-Kelly records Lucy Ross-Browne, DO, doing some adorable exercises with her newborn.

While slowly moving the stomach and lower half of baby in a controlled clockwise motion, Browne explains, "If tummy’s don’t have movement little bits of milk can move too slowly through there, and it can ferment and produce wind in their tummies, and that’s painful. So anything that you can do to help move the milk around, it’s going to help.”

Once Browne finishes with the circles, she moves on to a figure eight motion, creating what she says are the big three, movement, length and space. “When they aren’t crawling, when they aren’t walking around, they need that movement,” Browne says.

Browne also addresses the popular “bicycle legs” stretch often recommended for colicky babies. “If they are in discomfort, that is helpful, but in-between times, you want to get as much space in the tummy as possible because space gives everything a chance to move around.”

In the captions within the video, Manton-Kelly goes on to say that she has been using the technique on her newborn between naps since he was 4 weeks old. Testifying that “He now sleeps, has regular nappies and seems so much happier. He’s nearly 11 months old, and it still works like a charm.”

If you suspect your baby has colic, give this hack a shot or try some of the remedies recommended in our Colic 101: How to Help Soothe Your Colicky Baby article.