Why Babies Cry
them what they need.
The first thing your baby needs is for you to help him learn what he
needs in the first place. Hunger, sleepiness, too warm, too cold, gas,
pain, itching, sneezing, stress, anxiety, etc. are all new sensations for
your baby, and he doesn't know what they are.
You need to help him learn that the hunger feeling means that he needs
to eat. Then you have to teach him how to eat. Your baby needs you to
teach him how to interpret that tired feeling as meaning "I guess I need
to sleep" and how to sleep.
Your baby even needs you to teach him what boredom is, how to play,
what communication is, how to interact with people, what fear is, how to
feel secure, and everything else we take for granted. It may take many
months and even years to teach them these basic lessons, but that's
your job as a parent. You must be patient and persistent.
Stop Crying Before It Starts with Cues
Each baby has unique cues to indicate what she needs. Pay attention to
your babies cues to figure out what each cue means. (This may take a lot
of time, trial, and error and requires you to be very
observant, but it's worth it because it will save you a lot of time and
energy down the road.)
If she 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. Babies cues can also change
frequently, so you need to keep on top of them.
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.
If you normally respond to her cues, your baby may still cry, but this will
most likely be caused by frustration if cues are not responded to quickly
enough. For example, your baby is chewing on her hand frantically,
knowing that when she normally does this she gets fed, but you happen
to be looking at a magazine instead of your baby, so you don't notice her
hunger cue. She may become frustrated that you are not feeding her
even though she is giving the cue and will start crying.
This does not mean that she will instantly resort to crying in the future
because you ignored one cue, but you do want to keep delayed
responses to a minimum. This also doesn't mean that you must sit and
observe your child 100% of the time, giving up the need to shower, eat,
and have personal time, but you should always have your child nearby
you or another caretaker and be aware of what she's doing even when
you aren't directly looking at her. (This is a skill that takes time to
develop and is known as having "eyes in the back of your head".)
Slings are great for keeping your child close enough to you so that you
can quickly notice and respond to her cues while still having your hands
free to do other things around the house.
Teach your child your own cues too. You can use songs, words, and sign
language. Sing to her a very specific melody while using specific hand
gestures immediately before and during the beginning of every time you
feed her, and don't sing this melody at any other time.
Eventually, your child will learn that when you sing this melody you will
soon feed her. This can calm a child who is crying because she is
frustrated because you didn't respond to her cue when she expected
that you would.
In my home we have a different song for everything. One for changing
diapers, one for taking a bath, one for eating, one for going to sleep, etc.
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.
This will not hinder your baby's ability to communicate with words, and
this will actually teach your baby words and what they mean if you sing
them along with the melody. For example, when you feed your baby you
can sing the words "baby's going to eat now". If you also make the sign
for "eat" while you sing the song, your baby will eventually learn to sign
to communicate with you. (Babies can use sign language that involves
gross motor functions sooner than the can speak words, which requires
fine motor functions and is more complicated. This also promotes
communication skills.)
Being a model parent doesn't guarantee that your kid won't cry because
all babies cry for one reason or another, but it will definitely reduce your
chances of having an unhappy child.
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Keywords: baby needs, boredom, cold gas, crying babies, cue, cues, fear, gas pain
, hunger, job, new sensations, sleep, stress anxiety, time trial, trial and error.
