What To Do When Baby Cries

[nikster]

Our son is 6 weeks old - born Aug 16 in Chiang Mai - and I wanted to share the best trick I found so far to stop him from crying.

Babys sometimes cry when hungry, wet, pooped, etc, but once all those reasons can be ruled out, they sometimes cry regardless. For these times, I have found a trick that works 100% and within 5 minutes:

I put him in my carrying cloth from didymos [ http://www.didimos.de/ ], start walking around, and within 5 minutes he's asleep. This cloth comes with instructions with all sorts of knots and ways to carry the baby but for now, I just use it as a simple sling and I keep the knot in it for whenever I use it.

He is sitting in front on me on my belly facing me, feet looking out, cloth supports him at the knees. Then I walk a bit back and forth and every single time, and no matter how upset he was, he will fall asleep. Or if he's not sleepy he will just sit and watch what's around him. So far this has worked every single time. It's magic.

I would love to take a closer look at how hill tribes do this - they are experts with carrying cloths after all... But I hardly ever see then with newborns. The older ones, they can strap to the back, but with the newborn that wouldn't work as the neck needs to be supported.

I also saw the video about the 5Ss and it seems the carry cloth fulfills 3 of them, so it's kind of the same thing: Swaddle, Stomach position, and Swing. The other two are shushing (which I don't do but I plan on it should goings get rough) and Sucking. Which come to think of it I could add as well. But it's not been necessary so far. Just walking around is fine.

[Boo]

when baby gets very upset & nothing else will work then there is no better way to calm them down than to swaddle (cotton works best as it has no give & in the heat can breath so baby doesn't get too hot).

Baby will struggle at first & it can be distressing for mum & dad but after a minute or two baby seems to just automatically calm down as they get used to being restrained. A very good tv show here in the UK called the baby whisperer explained that small babies cannot control their arms & legs so when they are upset do get more distressed as their flailing arms during a crying fit scares & confuses them, so by restraining them with a swaddle cloth, helps them to clam & soothe themselves.

My son too loves to be walked around in his baby bjorn carrier when he is crying but only forward facing (from 3 months old). Driving with him in his car seat will also always send him off to sleep.

Another good trick for babies under 4 months is to place them next to the hoover or washing machine whilst it is running. Babies like rythmic noises & my son would sleep soundly whilst I was hoovering around his crib but would wake up if someone did a quiet cough in the next room!!

Hope all is going well with the little one nikster. Have you looked at any of the babyexpert or babycentre websites. There is a whole host of useful info about kids on there too.

[sonicdragon]

Those carrying cloths look quite good. I've often thought about trying one.

As to the question, Boo makes excellent suggestions. Another idea when all else fails is to put them in the car and go for a little drive. That usually does the trick (assuming other reasons for crying are ruled out) with ours twins.

One thing to beware of, which is very hard to avoid, is if babies get used to being carried/held when crying, before long they will want to be carried/held just because it's pleasurable for them, and they will cry just because they want to be held/carried.

[bina]

sonic,

thats the point, its pleasureable... they wean themselves from that whent they start walking and want to explore stuff on their own... if u always carry them, the dont have that 'need' to be carried... its like freely eating chocolate so that u dont always want it afterwards...

[legag]

Some tips and hope it would help;

• Hold your baby in your arms. Keep his arms close to his body. Walk or rock the baby gently, while talking to him softly. Remember gentle! Shaking or bouncing too roughly can harm your baby, or even cause death.
  
• Sit and hold your baby face down with your hand under her tummy. Slowly rock your legs back and forth, or lift them gently up and down.
  
• Lie on your back and lay your baby on top of you with his tummy down. Massage or pat his back slowly and gently.
  
• Give your baby a warm bath, gently massaging her tummy with your hand, soap, or a soft cloth.
  
• Turn on a radio, vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, clothes dryer, or water faucet. Some babies are calmed by steady sounds and noises.
  
• Offer your baby a pacifier (again, remember to be gentle-you can injure the baby's mouth if you are too rough).
  
• Take your baby for a ride. If you use a car, be sure to place baby in a safety seat.
  
• Place the baby in a wind-up swing; be sure that baby's neck is supported.
  

Last, if you find that your newborn cries a great deal and no way you could stop baby cries, see a doctor to be sure there isn't a medical problem. Parents of colicky babies shouldn't be afraid to talk openly with their doctors. It's important to mention any concerns you have so you can put them at rest. In some situations a doctor may prescribe medicine, but there is not any medicine yet that completely cures colic in all infants. If medication is prescribed, ask your doctor to talk about the possible side effects.

Remember that the crying should happen less often as baby grows older, and be sure to ask others for the help you need during these difficult months.

Edited September 29, 2007 by legag

[markwhite]

but once all those reasons can be ruled out, they sometimes cry regardless.

I disagree. I think there is always a reason...

Babies cry because of unpleasant feelings. Be that hunger, a wet nappy, too hot, too cold, boredom and loneliness as examples. These are all things that can be resolved by the parent: feed the baby, change them, adjust clothes, play with them, and being with them. Etc...

Just like grown-up people really, but most of us have learnt how to deal with our own hunger, eliminatory needs, clothing and suchlike.

Another reason grown-up people cry is...well some people don't. But lots of other people cry because of fear, stress, intense disappointment, frustration, grief, or all of those other things that cannot be solved with a physical change. They all require an emotional adjustment, or acceptance.

Why should babies be any different?

Now, what you do about it is something completely different. I don't want to take anything away from the excellent ideas posted already, but this is my experience:

Baby Sip went out to the local market a week or so ago. People wanted to carry him, play with his feet, stroke his head and all those other things people like to do to babies. Loud motorcycles went by, there were new smells and smoke in the air. He just dropped out of it totally - seemingly dead to the world. We thought he was coping really well, but as soon as we got home he screamed the place down for nearly two hours. This happens whenever we take him out, to greater or lesser extents. Or the more we do new things, or he does new things, during the day. Lots of new inputs - evening crying, or many people would say 'colic'. Quiet day with nothing new - no, or little, evening crying. In a nutshell, he's crying because of stress (unpleasantness?) that has built up over the course of the day.

Just coming across this way of thinking has completely changed the way I view crying. I wasn't dealing with it very well and was very much stuck in the 'trying to shut him up' way of thinking. I view this as being different from the 'trying to soothe him to quiet' because I was getting a bit too angry with him and it was upsetting me, and obviously not helping him. I'd walk forfor a long time around the front garden after wrapping him and he'd scream for a while and eventually (if no motorcycles went by and no dogs barked) go to sleep. Then I'd walk for another 5 or 10 mins to make sure he was in deep sleep and he'd be out for a while.

Now I can sit with him as long as he needs when he's crying. I can hold him lovingly and gently, rocking him slightly, talking calmly and soothingly but without the 'making him stop crying' things I used to do. So now I'm happy to take charge of evening crying :-)

The longest I've had to sit with him is 20 minutes in about 10 days, though last night my wife wanted me to stop after 20 mins because he was very screamy so I 'soothed him' easily and quickly and he slept for 30 mins, then woke and cried for another 20 mins. I sat with him while he cried again. Then he slept a deep relaxed sleep for 4.5 hours.

It wasn't pleasant at first and I do still have doubts when he has a few minutes of real fierce screaming, but he'd do that whether I was jiggling him up and down walking round in circles outside, or just sitting and showing him he's loved even if he's clearly very upset and showing it, as I do now.

In the 10 days I've been doing this, he's calmer, I've found it much easier to bond with him, had no instances of getting angry with him, had no more than 40 mins full-on crying each day and he's sleeping for 4.5 or 5 hours for his first sleep of the night, from about 10:30pm until 2:30-3:30am, and once until 4am. He has a good big feed and sleeps again until 7:30-8am. Which is good for us too. And this has happened near enough every day :-)

Oh - he's 8 weeks old tomorrow.

All this came about because of this website and this quote (from memory):

http://www.awareparenting.com/english.htm

"A elderly neighbour's wife died and our 4 year-old son, who was friendly with him, went to see him. Afterwards I asked him what he did. 'I sat on his knee' was the reply. 'And what did you say to him?' I asked. 'Nothing' came the reply. 'I just helped him to cry'"

Edited September 29, 2007 by markwhite

[sonicdragon]

sonic,

thats the point, its pleasureable... they wean themselves from that whent they start walking and want to explore stuff on their own... if u always carry them, the dont have that 'need' to be carried... its like freely eating chocolate so that u dont always want it afterwards...

Yes, I know that's the point. It's also my point ! There's usually quite a long gap between them being carried/held and starting to walk. What I am saying is that too much carrying/holding every time they cry in the first few months will lead to them wanting to be held/carried at every opportunity later on, instead (for example) of playing with toys. A nice balance should be aimed for, but in practice it is difficult to achieve.

[lannarebirth]

Those slings work pretty good. i see hill tribe women using them for children up to 4 years of age. I'll bet they didn't pay $150 for it though. Jeeeeezus!

[nikster]

Those slings work pretty good. i see hill tribe women using them for children up to 4 years of age. I'll bet they didn't pay $150 for it though. Jeeeeezus!

I know - I am sure they'd fall over laughing if they heard that.

They are made in Germany - what do you expect I am sourcing alternatives from the chinese village tomorrow. They also have simple carry cloths at the local shops where the have the cotton diapers too. They cost 50 baht The material is not as nice though.

Mark - very good observation, my own experience is similar. We did lots of traveling - unfortunately - in the first 6 weeks and that was always cause for unhappiness. Not in the car - he's fine there - but after!

I also agree about calming the baby, making it feel whole and safe. If you stop baby from crying, you do it for the baby's sake not for your own sake.

The video happiest baby on the block explains why swaddling, side/stomach position, swinging, shushing or other white noise, sucking work. The theory is that baby is quite new to the world and used to the womb, and these things re-create the womb feeling. They call the first 3 months the 4th trimester. Tightness, the position, and the sound (rushing of moms blood), the motion are all there. Crying baby is not good - should need no explanation, all your instincts tell you that anyway.

I am not much into the "crying it out" thing. A lot of the aware parenting things sound great to me and it's the way I'd want it to be. There's also an underlying element of, well, self-awareness in awareness parenting and somehow to me this seems the most important aspects. Happy parents means happy children! I believe in self awareness, love, and common sense over any set of rules. I'll tell you how well that worked in 20 years

Edited September 30, 2007 by nikster

[simon43]

When baby cries? - I run for the pub!

Seriously though . . . . I've been the father of 5 kids, and they have all varied from being darlings through to monsters. When I was in the UK, if my wife/me couldn't get the baby to sleep, I'd put him/her in the car and drive around the countryside. The warmth of the car and vibration and sounds would always make them fall asleep, (although sometimes I would also be falling asleep...).

With my kids in Thailand, I've been rather lucky because they have been very good sleepers. All my kids have always slept in the same bed as me and my wife. We only put them into their own bed around 2 years old because it's around that age that they start kicking like mad in the middle of the night and I can't get any sleep!

Our current little one is 14 months old and as happy as a pig in a lot of wet mud....

Simon

[sutnyod]

Tricks from a former mother-in-law (with a 100% success rate for my children):

- when carrying the baby, wrap her in a cloth, so that there is no change in temperature when you place her in the bed.

- sing when carrying her and continue after she is sleeping in the bed.

- when putting her in bed, do it like you would do with a pumpkin. Don't be too gentle, just normally put her there.

- making domestic noises while she sleeps (washing the dishes etc) will also help to keep her sleeping on.

[markwhite]

I also agree about calming the baby, making it feel whole and safe. If you stop baby from crying, you do it for the baby's sake not for your own sake.

And there appears to be a fine line between stopping a baby/child from crying and teaching them that it's not okay to cry.

I am not much into the "crying it out" thing.

I bottled it after 30 minutes last night - I do have doubts when the fierce screaming is prolonged. But 2 minutes of soothing and he was asleep. There's clearly much more to this than I implied in my first post.

I believe in self awareness, love, and common sense over any set of rules. I'll tell you how well that worked in 20 years

That's pretty much the reason why the approach appealed to me. But no approach is the right approach for everyone and each to their own.

[samran]

In BKK we took our little one out on the balcony of our condo where the hum of BKK put her to sleep straight away. The womb isn't a quiet place, so they are comforted by background noise.

[Sir Burr]

Give it a dummy full of brandy.

[sutnyod]

It just occurred to me that he might be crying because of tummy-ache. In that case carry him the other way round: put him on your under-arm, facing down. This helps. You could also with the other hand massage his tummy.

[think_too_mut]

Our son is 6 weeks old - born Aug 16 in Chiang Mai - and I wanted to share the best trick I found so far to stop him from crying.

Babys sometimes cry when hungry, wet, pooped, etc, but once all those reasons can be ruled out, they sometimes cry regardless. For these times, I have found a trick that works 100% and within 5 minutes:

I put him in my carrying cloth from didymos [ http://www.didimos.de/ ], start walking around, and within 5 minutes he's asleep. This cloth comes with instructions with all sorts of knots and ways to carry the baby but for now, I just use it as a simple sling and I keep the knot in it for whenever I use it.

He is sitting in front on me on my belly facing me, feet looking out, cloth supports him at the knees. Then I walk a bit back and forth and every single time, and no matter how upset he was, he will fall asleep. Or if he's not sleepy he will just sit and watch what's around him. So far this has worked every single time. It's magic.

I would love to take a closer look at how hill tribes do this - they are experts with carrying cloths after all... But I hardly ever see then with newborns. The older ones, they can strap to the back, but with the newborn that wouldn't work as the neck needs to be supported.

I also saw the video about the 5Ss and it seems the carry cloth fulfills 3 of them, so it's kind of the same thing: Swaddle, Stomach position, and Swing. The other two are shushing (which I don't do but I plan on it should goings get rough) and Sucking. Which come to think of it I could add as well. But it's not been necessary so far. Just walking around is fine.

It's a hundreds years old known thing. Give a baby something to own. We used to give our baby a cloth when bathing her - she never cried.

Not a Hmong tribe woman had to tell me about that - but a lady from Phoenix, Arizona, a pure farang blond blue eyed woman who does not know where Thailand is.