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Cry Baby

Rachel Rainbolt, M.A., CEIM
www.OhanaWellness.com

Your baby is crying.  Your heart is breaking.  You are tired and your head is aching.  All of a sudden you hear the voices of all those baby-trainers in your head:  Your mother-in-law, saying you are spoiling him by holding him too much.  Your neighbor, telling you that if you pick him up every time he cries, you are teaching him to cry.  The “expert” you read about, saying that if you want to sleep through the night, you have to… dramatic pause… let him cry it out.  You put your baby down, walk away, and it feels like your heart is breaking and millions of years worth of maternal energy is crying out in your soul. 

This is a scenario that many new parents fall victim too.  You want to do what’s best for your baby but what is best?  Why is she crying and what can you do for her?  You feel conflicted between all the advice you’ve been given and in all the noise you can’t seem to find your own voice.  Crying is not a manipulative behavioral tool employed by the little human in your life.  It is not something to be dealt with or ashamed of.  Crying must be honored and valued as a form of communication and an opportunity to deepen your attachment, strengthen your relationship, and teach your baby about the world.

Every new parent comes to the table with a whole suitcase full of other peoples’ truths.  Loving family members, close friends, and well-meaning strangers all fill your suitcase full of what they think you should and should not do.  Unpack them and lay them all out on the table.  Pick each one up, look at it, talk about it, try it on.  Does it feel like a good fit for you?  If not, toss it.  If so, integrate it.  If you don’t shine a light on these other voices within they will whisper in your ear in your most vulnerable moments and undermine your wisdom.  You are the world’s foremost expert on your baby.  Listen to your innate wisdom.  Release yourself from worrying about what’s “right” and do what feels right for you and Junior.  You cannot spoil a baby.  Think of the advice and expectations of those around you in your circle of support, including experts like me, like parenting tools: the more tools you know about, the better.  You may not need one tool now, but it may come in handy to pull it out in some situation in the future.  You can pick and choose whatever tools work for you for the task at hand.  And some tools you know you will never use, discard them or they will only weigh you down.  Remember, you can acknowledge that someone’s advice is not right for you while still respecting the person from whom it came.

After giving yourself the honorable and deserved place of world’s expert on what’s best for your family, you must change the way in which you understand and approach crying.  Crying is not a behavioral issue that needs to be controlled.  Crying must be honored and valued as a form of communication.   Crying is a new baby’s only means to communicate.  Really think about what that means for the way in which you respond to your baby’s cries.  Every time your baby cries, he is reaching out to you, taking a risk, testing the world to see what happens when he communicates a need.  How will you respond?  What will you teach him about trust?  The famous developmental psychologist (upon whose work all other theories are based) Erik Erikson told the world that an infant’s entire developmental task is to learn to trust.  You can send your baby the message that they can trust in you and that the world is a safe place by responding sensitively to baby’s cries.  It is important to understand that responding sensitively does not mean that you will always be able to meet baby’s need (or willing to meet the want, as baby gets older).  What’s important is not that you fix the problem but that you send the clear message that you are there for him during his times of need; you’re there, you hear him, and you care.  This is truly harnessing the gift of opportunity your baby gives you every time he cries.  Each time your baby cries he is opening himself up to you, reaching out his hand to see if you will hold it.  He wonders, “Is she listening?  Does she care?  Will she help me?”  What a gift for every new parent to deepen their connection with their baby and teach them that the world is a safe place.

So now that we understand that babies cry to communicate and to provide opportunities to form and deepen secure attachments, why?  From an evolutionary perspective, these are all survival promoting behaviors.  A cry is much less likely to be ignored than a whisper, ensuring they will receive the care-giving attention they need.  Babies are wired to sucker us in to loving them.  The more a caregiver is in love with their baby the more likely they will be to care for that infant, increasing their chances of survival.  But what is causing the distress babies experience that leads to the cry?  The transition from womb to world is a tough one.  In the womb baby has no needs.  They are always held, warm, full, and complete inside the body of mommy.  All of your existence up to this point has been spent in this euphoria when over the course of only a few short hours (although it may not seem like it to the laboring mother) baby is thrust into the cold, bright world of autonomy.  Hunger, stimulation, fatigue, and separation are all thrust upon your helpless new baby.  For example, the digestive system is forced to work for the first time that like a new machine in a factory frequently has kinks it needs to work out.  The reasons for crying can generally fall into one of two categories: physical or emotional.  Babies cry for physical reasons, such as if they are gassy, tired, cold, or hungry.   Physical causes for crying are what we usually try to rule out first when attempting to meet a crying baby’s needs.  They also cry for emotional reasons, such as if they are lonely or in need of some physical contact.  It is important to accept and send the message to baby that their emotional needs are just as heard and validated as the physical needs.  Babies are dependent by nature and parenting that acknowledges this dependence eases the transition from womb to world and infancy to the independence sprouting stage of toddlerhood. 

Lucky for us nature provided a sensitive window of time in which we can teach our babies that non-cry communication is all we need to elicit an attentive response.  All babies are born with a 90 second pre-cry.  Once you know to listen for it, you can hear it in all new babies.  When a newborn attempts to communicate a need to their caregiver, they make noise for 90 seconds before they break out into a cry.  The particular style and tone of the pre-cry is different for every baby and you will get to know your baby’s signals.  During this pre-cry period, baby may pant, grunt, take shallow breaths, clench fists, vocalize, etc.  Here is the important part: if you respond sensitively to baby during this pre-cry period, baby will learn that the pre-cry (non crying communication) is enough to get their needs met and they will extend the pre-cry period.  If you do not respond sensitively to baby during this 90 second pre-cry window, the pre-cry period will shorten.  Eventually, it will disappear completely and baby will go right into crying when he has a need.  Respond consistently and sensitively to your baby and you will teach him that he doesn’t need to break into a full blown cry every time he has a need. 

Your most valuable strategy against crying is prevention.  Set your child up for success.  To do this you must know your baby.  Don’t try to squeeze in a grocery trip at a time of day baby tends to be hungry.  If baby gets easily overstimulated, don’t go to a busy lunch without a sling.  It’s not about limiting your life but including your baby (who they are) in your plans.  If you set your baby up for success you lay the groundwork for a harmonious relationship.  Parent and baby in harmony equals smooth, loving days. 

One final concept that is important for new parents to understand when dealing with a crying baby is the concept of mirroring.  Mirroring is the name for the phenomenon that exists for all humans whereby when we are faced with another human being, we mirror their emotional state, as communicated through body language, verbal cues, and touch.  What this means for you as a new parent is that when you walk into a room and are faced with a tense, screaming, grimaced baby, you will unconsciously tense your body, grimace your face, shorten your breath, and your speech will become harsh.  This does not make you a bad parent, just a human one.  While this phenomenon can make things worse by creating a negative cycle, it can be harnessed by parents as well because it also holds true for babies.  If they are faced with a parent whose touch is relaxed and rhythmic, whose voice is calm and soothing, whose face is relaxed and content, whose breath is slow and consistent, they will unconsciously be drawn to mirror your state.  I tell parents to “be” the state you want to see in your baby.  With you leading the way, they can follow you from panic to peace.   

In addition to responding consistently and sensitively during the pre-cry period, there are other things you can do that will lessen your baby’s need to cry and create more harmony in your home:

• Infant Massage:  Research shows that babies who are massaged cry less.  Visit www.OhanaWellness.com to read more about how babies benefit from Infant Massage and how you can learn this fun, healthful bonding activity. 
• Babywearing: Wear your baby in a sling.  Research shows that babies worn in slings cry significantly less.
• Breastfeeding: Breastfed babies cry less for a myriad of reasons that would take more than the space allotted to list. J
• Signing: Babies can sign before they can speak words.  Sign with your baby and you can give yourself another tool for communication, for understanding your baby’s needs, reducing frustration and the need to cry. 

You can also try Dr. Harvey  Karp’s 5 S’s:

• Swaddling: demonstrate
• Side/Stomach Position: then onto back once asleep
• Shushing Sounds: white noise cd/nature/sounds of the womb
• Swinging: babywearing is a great option for this movement
• Sucking

So to all you mamas with your cry babies, I say to you congratulations.  Your baby is communicating!  He is giving you an opportunity to hear and validate him.  Each time he reaches out to you he is giving you a valuable opening to deepen your attachment.  What an honor.  And that is why we honor baby’s cry and we should all be so lucky to have a cry baby.

Want to learn more?  Try reading The Fussy Baby Book from the Sears library or the Happiest Baby on the Block, both of which have been helpful resources for many families. 

Pre-Cry
 

Mirroring
 

--------------Want to bring home something to help ease your baby's cries today?-------------------

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