Crying in Infancy

The first way an infant communicates is by crying. In the delivery room, a good strong cry assures everyone that the newborn is doing well and has come through a potentially stressful birth process in fine shape. In the first few days of life a crying infant stimulates the mother to feed her. In fact there is probably no more effective way of communicating than crying--at almost any age of infancy through childhood a good loud wail is more apt to call immediate attention and bring a quicker response than any other way a child (or an adult) can communicate. Thus babies cry to tell us he's hungry, she's cold, she's uncomfortable, he's wet, she wants to be held, he's tired or he just needs to blow off steam, she wants to be left alone, he's frustrated. Each of these cries will eventually be different. Yet as parents, we may not always be able to tell what a baby wants--particularly infants under two months--and if a baby cannot communicate his needs it can be extremely frustrating to both parent and infant. For example, if an infant is crying because he's tired and unable to fall asleep, yet his parents think he wants to be stimulated and walk about the room bouncing him. He may be temporarily distracted from being excessively tired or briefly become interested in some new sight, however,

You can see the potential for a disastrous night coming as a tired infant is stimulated more and more. Eventually he'll begin wailing out of frustration and cry until he or his parents drop from exhaustion. Unfortunately, sometimes that scenario is repeated and repeated to everyone's dismay.

Commonly parents ask "What's normal crying?" . . . "How will I know what to do?" . . ."What's abnormal crying and what are some of the causes?" The answer to the first question is easy, but more than you would have ever believed. At two weeks of age, an average baby cries one and three-fourths hours a day.

This increases to three hours a day at 6 weeks of life, levels out and stays the same until about 3 months of life (It seems interesting to me that this is about the age most babies can effectively communicate their needs).

Think about it . . . three hours a day!

That's only an average!

Some babies will obviously cry more than the average and yet be normal. Three hours! That's a long time, particularly if it's concentrated within a single part of the day--usually the evening when everyone else is beginning to tire. This is particularly true of breast fed babies where in all cultures, ranging from the industrial western society to primitive tribes of Borneo, breast fed babies tend to concentrate their crying in the evening.

How will you know what to do when your infant cries? The first week to ten days of age it's easy. It will be pretty obvious--the baby will either be hungry, in need of a diaper change, or you will be provoking him by sponge bathing, getting him dressed, changing his diaper, or just undressing him to his naked state (Something all young infants seem to hate but older infants love). After 10 to 14 days of life, it's not so obvious and a plan is needed.

If a physician could reliably tell you what to do for crying babies, that person would either be rich or achieve sainthood. It can be very frustrating being the parent to a fussy baby--particularly one that cries inconsolably. At some point, many parents feel frustrated to the point of wishing they weren't parents at that particular minute, inadequate because they can't soothe the infant, angry towards each other or the baby, or guilty about having such feelings. These are normal feelings. The majority of the time there is nothing seriously wrong with you or the baby, and the crying will improve with time. In the meantime, get as much rest and help (in the form of relief, not advice) as possible. There are some things that can decrease the crying.

Each parent and each baby is an individual, and while collective experience can offer suggestions that may help, every parent has to individualize these to his or her self and child. There are some basic needs that all infants have: The need to eat, the need to suck, the need to be cuddled, and the need to sleep and rest. You should stop and think of which of these basic needs your baby most likely might need at that moment and try to meet these in a quick fashion before the baby becomes frustrated and begins crying out of control because "my parents just don't understand" [Now you know the origin of that comment so commonly spoken by teenagers].