Controlled crying - cry out or pick up?
Written by Suzie Hayman, Family Lives Trustee
If you accept the evidence about attachment, as I do, you see that letting a baby cry is not the best response. Of course, babies will cry and will often continue to do so way beyond human endurance. A baby’s cry is designed for one thing – to scrape like a nail across a hard surface and raise every hair on the back of your neck. You are programmed to find that noise just about the most distressing possible, to galvanise you into action to try and stop it, and bring comfort to the source of the clamour. When it continues, you feel rapidly more and more distressed yourself. You feel guilty, incompetent, frantic, frustrated and eventually enraged. Your anger is at yourself, for being unable to come up with the magic that soothes your baby. It can easily and very naturally be directed at the baby for not accepting your attempts. That’s the point at which you may feel driven to moan, cry or shout at the baby, to shake it to please understand you are trying, to hit out. Or, to put it down so you can walk away and take a few deep breathes to regain your calm. And some experts will say you should leave a child in this state to ‘cry out’ because eventually the child will ‘self soothe’ – come to a point when they cry themselves to sleep, and that will teach them to cope by themselves at a later date.
In fact, the evidence suggests leaving a baby to cry simply floods them with stressful hormones. That doesn’t help them stop crying or go to sleep. They eventually wear themselves into exhaustion and drop off, of course. But the flooding with stressful hormones physically damages them after a time – it holds back or even prevents some of their development. A baby who learns not to cry by being left is learning that no matter what his distress, no-one will come. He learns he’s been abandoned and there’s no point in looking for relief. Self soothing is for later, built on a foundation of parental soothing now.
Controlled crying - what can you do with a crying baby?
We often say babies who cry, all the time or regularly at certain times in the day, are colicky. This is actually more of a description than a diagnosis since we’re not certain why some babies suffer from colic and others do not. But it’s not unusual. Colic is defined as a baby who cries for at least three hours a day, at least three times a week. That apparently describes 1 in 5 babies in the western world.
Check their diet - is this causing the crying?
There are theories about diet, both the baby’s if fed on formula or the mother if the baby is breastfed. Some studies have suggested breastfeeding mothers avoiding cow’s milk and giving the baby some probiotic drops has an effect. Food allergies and a sensitivity to some formula or a gastrointestinal upset have all been blamed. The first thing you need to do if your baby cries a lot is discuss with your health visitor that you’ve checked she’s healthy and that everyone who handles her has their techniques for changing, feeding and burping right. Are you all happy to jiggle her around, to sing and talk to her to soothe her, and go on doing so as long as it takes?
Crying getting stressful - be patient
Whether you call it colic or not, if all the medical reasons have been ruled out, your baby is unlikely to go on crying like this for longer than three months. That may seem a lifetime at 2am when she’s been wailing since early evening, but it is a beacon to hold on to. Keep telling yourself This Too Shall Pass...
To read the article from Family Lives in full please click on the link below
We think this news story will be of interest to our visitors. However, please note it is from another source and does not necessarily represent the views of Oxondads. If you would like to comment on this article please click on the "No Comments" below or alternatively E-Mail info@oxondads.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment