Coping With Crying Baby
Why do babies cry?
Crying is one of the most difficult things about looking after a baby and it's very stressful. Parents find it completely stresses them, and it helps to understand that that's essential. If your baby didn't stress you by crying how would you know that they need something? If they just lay there quite happily, you would never need to feed them or look after them. So for babies it's a big part of their survival mechanism. Having said that, nature seems to have got it slightly wrong with probably about 10% of babies who actually do cry much more than average. It's said an average baby cries a couple of hours a day in 24 hours, and some babies it's more like three or four hours, so twice that amount and that's very hard for parents. But the good news is that all crying goes down after three months. Most crying is in the first three months and then it always goes down. So even if it's been a lot, it will be much less.
My baby cries for long periods and cannot be consoled, is something wrong?
About 10% of babies cry more than average, and are very difficult to comfort. Parents should never feel this is their fault, or the baby's fault. It can feel like the baby's doing it to wind you up, but that is never true. It can just be that the baby's finding it a little bit hard to take the world. It's also very hard for parents, if you've tried all the usual: rocking, singing, and so on, and the baby's still crying. Sometimes you just have to weather the storm. Sometimes the professionals call this colic - hours of crying where the baby is just inconsolable. There are lots of different explanations and research, none of them really proven, about whether it's dietary reasons, nervous system or immature reasons. The best that parents can do sometimes is just to cuddle, walk around with the baby and take turns. Any parent trying to look after a baby who's crying for hours on end will come to the end of their tether, so get somebody else to help. Pass the baby to somebody else who may just be able to calm them down, because they're feeling more calm. If it ever gets to a point where you feel like you're going to throw the baby out of the window, which parents do, that's the time to really take a break for yourself. Put the baby down safely in a cot and to go and take some time out for yourself so that you can calm down before you go back to the baby.
Should I console my baby every time he cries?
With very small babies, you need to go to them and console them every time they cry. Small babies do not cry to get at parents and they do not cry because they're spoiled. They need something. Even if it's hard to find out what they need, even if it's only a cuddle or a bit of company that they need, it's always best go to a very small baby. That's certainly at 3 months, and quite possibly 6 months, that you should be doing that.
