Why Babies Cry and How to Help Your Baby Cry Less
By Kristen Brooke Beck
Content Updated on
July 3, 2010
When my children were babies, my husband and I were often told, "You're so lucky that your baby doesn't cry." That statement usually annoyed me. My babies did cry! Some days I would be a my wits end with the crying. Sometimes I would end up crying. But my husband and I dedicated ourselves to understanding our children and understanding why they cried, so we could help reduce their need to cry.
Yes, we were lucky that we were able to figure it out and learn from the experiences of others. We were lucky that our children's neurological development allowed them to learn when they needed to cry and when they didn't and allowed us to communicate with them in a way that helped us alleviate their need cry. We were lucky that we had the time and resources to dedicate to working with our babies to reduce their crying. But all of that "luck" also required a lot of hard work. In the end, though, all of that hard work was well worth it.
The Best Baby Book that Set Us on the Right Path
I had studied psychology, sociology, and child development. I knew how important the first years of life are for all humans. Children who aren't properly "attached" early in life may have a difficult time forming emotional attachments later in life. I also knew how this early stage in life can form the foundation of self-confidence and empathy. So I wanted to read everything I could to help me be the best parent possible and provide my children with the best opportunities for healthy development. After countless hours of searching and reading, I found the book that made it all fall into place.
The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two (Revised and Updated Edition)
Babies Have Needs
The most important thing to keep in mind when taking care of babies is that babies cry because they NEED something.
It always saddens me when I hear a parent speak about their baby's crying as if the baby is actually trying to annoy the parent. Babies aren't spoiled. Babies aren't trying to manipulate you. Babies aren't being selfish when they cry. Babies cry because they need something and they can't get what they need by themselves. They need help getting what they need, and the only thing they know how to to do to get help is to cry. It is your job as a parent and caregiver to try to give babies what they need.
Sometimes babies don't even know what it is that they need. This is especially true of newborns. They don't understand what that hunger sensation is. They just know that they feel uncomfortable and they don't like it. You have to help them learn what they need. Hunger, sleepiness, too warm, too cold, gas, pain, itching, sneezing, stress, anxiety, etc. are all new sensations for your baby. By trying various ways to satisfy these needs, eventually your baby will learn which sensations are satisfied by certain actions, and they will learn what they need.
This is an ongoing process. Even teenagers and adults need to learn that X emotion equals Y need, but it can be most frustrating during the early months of a child's life because there is so much they need to learn, and therefore, there is so much crying. Some days it seems like an endless struggle. But have patience. Take time for yourself when you need to. And remember that this is a temporary phase of development.
Stop Crying Before It Starts by Noticing Cues
Once your baby begins to learn which sensations indicate which needs he/she has, your baby will begin to develop cues. Cues are behaviors your baby does after he/she realizes that there is a need for something but before the crying begins. Each baby has a unique set of cues. Some babies make certain noises. Others have certain facial expressions. Some will move their bodies in a certain way. This is where you get to be a scientist by observing your baby and learning his/her cues. This may take a lot of time, trial, and error, but it's worth it because it will save a so much stress and energy down the road.
For example, if your baby girl chews on her hand and suddenly starts crying then quiets down when you feed her, then chewing on her hand is probably a cue that she's hungry. Next time you see her chewing on her hand, immediately feed her before she cries. Eventually she'll learn that she will be fed if she chews on her hand instead of crying. If you ignore your baby's cues and wait until she cries to respond to her, she will learn that crying gets the best results and will eventually skip the cues completely and go straight to crying in the future.
Babies cues can also change frequently, so you need to keep on top of them.
Helping Your Baby Learn Patience
Once your baby learns that you will respond to non-crying cues, they will often use those cues for longer periods of time when you delay responding to them. For example, if your baby boy uses the arm waving cue to tell you that he wants to play, and you don't respond immediately, he will probably wave his arms for a longer period of time in hopes that you will eventually notice the cue and play with him. However, if he keeps waving his arms and you still don't respond, he may become frustrated and begin to cry, which is what you don't want him to do. This is the tricky part of teaching your child patience.
To help your baby learn patience, you must delay responding to him, so that he doesn't expect that you will always satisfy his needs immediately, but you must also respond to him before he starts crying, so he doesn't begin to learn that crying is more effective than the cue.
I have found that the best way to do this is to gradually increase the time between the beginning of the cue and the response. So let's say that you normally respond to your baby boy's arm waving cue immediately. To introduce him to the lesson of patience, try looking at him to acknowledge that you notice his cue, waiting for awhile longer than you normally would, and then responding by playing with him. Over a period of time, increase the amount of time that you wait between the initial acknowledgement of the cue and the actual response. The time your wait depends on your normal response time, so for some you may need to wait 10 seconds while for others you may wait several minutes. Eventually, your child will learn that even if you don't respond right away, you will eventually help them, so they don't need to get frantic to get your attention.
Keep in mind that this is a learning process and takes time. Don't expect it to work overnight. However, it can do wonders for reducing the child's tensions when mommy or daddy can't drop everything to play with junior or prepare a bottle right away. Eventually, your little one will learn to relax and wait awhile rather than immediately crying.
Teach Your Baby Response Cue Songs
Another way to help your baby learn patience is to teach your child response cues. This is a way to communicate with your baby, "I'm going to help you, but you need to have patience right now."
One of the best response cues to use for babies is music. It's easier for a baby to understand melodies of songs rather than words. Think about a foreign song you may have heard. You can probably pick out the melody even if you can't understand the words.
A response cue song is a song that you sing immediately before and during the beginning of a specific activity that you normally do to respond to your baby's needs. For example, if you sing a very specific melody to your baby immediately before and during the beginning of every time you feed her, and don't sing this melody at any other time, she will eventually learn that when you sing this melody you will soon feed her.
This can calm a child who is crying because she is frustrated that you didn't respond to her cue when she expected that you would. The moment she hears the song, she'll remember, "oh yeah, that means I'm going to get what I need." This can reduce the child's stress and therefore reduce the child's need to cry.
In my home we had a different song for everything. One for changing diapers, one for taking a bath, one for eating, one for going to sleep, etc. Even though my children aren't babies anymore, they still get a calming happy feeling whenever we sing those songs to other babies. The human brain definitely remembers what comforts us.
If you use words in these songs, such as "we're hungry, hungry, hungry, so time to eat," you're baby will also learn that the words, in this case "hungry" and "eat," are associated with the action, in this case feeding, so this will help your child's verbal development as well.
Teach Your Baby Sign Language
I was amazed by the ability of babies to learn sign language. Babies can use gross motor skills (e.g. moving their arms and hand) sooner than they can speak words, which takes fine motor skills and much more neurological development, so they can actually learn how to talk using sign language before they can learn to talk using verbal words.
When we said the word "eat" or sang the "time to eat" song, we would also make the "eat" sign using American Sign Language. Eventually, each of our babies also learned to sign the word, and instead of crying or waiting for mommy and daddy to notice their cues, our babies would say "uh uh" to get our attention and then sign the word "eat" to tell us that they were hungry. It was a miraculous day in our home when we learned that our infants could finally tell us what they wanted or needed.
Some parents have said to me that they think sign language causes a delay in oral speaking skills, but as long as you are also using the spoken words with the signs, it will actually motivate your child to learn to speak the words verbally because caregivers don't have to be looking at the child to hear the word, so they'll learn that they get attention faster when they speak rather than sign.
We tried lots of different books and videos to learn sign language, and we were thrilled when we discovered Signing Times on PBS. The first DVD in the series, Signing Time Volume 1: My First Signs DVD
Sign language has lots of other benefits, though. It became a wonderful way to silently communicate with older kids when mommy or daddy was on an important phone call. Another amazing bonus was that years later when our children became friends with a hearing-impaired child, they were able to talk to her using sign language, so it's a very useful lifelong communication skill which opened up doors to new friendships. If they continue practicing sign language, it will likely become a wonderful skill to put on job resumes as well when they're adults.
Babies Feel What You Feel
It's amazing how your baby's emotions often reflect your own. If you are stressed out, your baby will feel stressed out. This added stress causes babies to be more sensitive and more prone to crying. You can reduce your baby's stress by trying to keep as calm, relaxed, and cheerful as possible. I know this isn't always easy to do when you're taking care of children, but there are plenty of things you can do to help yourself relax and have a positive attitude.
- Give yourself extra time to get stuff done. Tasks in the past which took you only minutes may now take an hour or more. Slow down and allow yourself extra time. You really don't need to rush as much as you think you do.
- Find time for yourself even if you're convinced that you don't have a minute to spare. Hire a babysitter, nanny, or doula if necessary. You deserve a break.
- Get as much sleep as possible. Even if you can't sleep, just resting with your eyes closed can be very beneficial.
- Avoid people who stress you out even if you feel that you and/or your baby are obligated to spend time with them. The well being of you and your child is more important than the demands of somebody who ultimately just stresses you out.
- Avoid watching or reading about the news, watching television shows or movies that don't leave you feeling cheerful, listening to radio shows that leave you feeling frustrated, or playing video games that make you feel on edge. This can be difficult to do because adrenaline pumping media is everywhere, and we are often led to believe that we must be tuned in all the time, but just remind yourself that the most important thing for you to do right now is take care of you and your children, and sometimes that means letting other people in the world solve the overwhelming problems with politics, environment, and culture.
- Make sure you have one clean, organized room that you can escape to if the housework starts to drive you nuts.
- Get some help. Find someone who will help you with the things that demand your attention. Recruiting family members and friends for free is the cheapest way to go, but there are inexpensive services that you can use. Credit counseling agencies can help you with financial stress. Hire a house cleaning service to do a one-time cleaning of your home. Pay a neighborhood kid to take care of your animals or mow your lawn.
- Give yourself some spiritual boosts in any way that works for you.
- Eat healthy food. Fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains are the place to start. Green tea is fantastic. Dark chocolate (not milk chocolate) is a mood booster (in moderation). And foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids, such as flax oil, can improve your brain function. Go easy on the salt, hydrogenated oils, corn syrups, and artificial ingredients.
- Get some exercise! We often feel like we don't have time to or energy to exercise, but study after study has shown that exercise reduces stress, and I have learned from my own experience that THIS WORKS! I was a very reluctant exerciser and was obese and exhausted all the time, but getting some cardio exercise in, such as walking, biking, jogging, elliptical machines, skiing, hiking, etc., did wonders for me. Don't worry about being an athlete. You're not training for a competition. You just want to do something that gets your hart pumping a little for 30 minutes a day. You don't even have to do it all at once. Try splitting it up into 3 ten-minute sessions throughout the day.
Babies Cry! It's Not Your Fault
Even if you are a perfect, model parent, your baby will cry. Accept this now. All babies cry for one reason or another. When they become toddlers, they'll cry. When they go to preschool, they'll cry. When they enter school age, adolescence, adulthood, etc. they'll cry. Everyone cries. It's OK. It's natural. It's a part of how humans are designed to respond to highly emotional situations. Some people naturally cry and fuss more than others. Sometimes people, including your baby, just need to let off some steam.
There's nothing wrong with crying once in awhile. We just want to reduce the need of crying, so that our babies, and ourselves, are not crying all the time. We need laughter, seriousness, and silence too.
So even if you're doing everything you think you're supposed to be doing, don't feel like a failure as a parent if your baby cries. Parenting is 90% doing the best job you can and 10% letting go of the things you can't control. Sometimes, crying has nothing to do with parenting. Practice letting go of those moments.
Related Items
Similar topics
See other Kristen's Guide topics in this category.