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Comforting Your Crying BabyComfort Techniques That WorkIf snuggling a contented baby is one of the chief joys of parenting, trying to calm an inconsolable, howling infant is one of its greatest trials. 
Comfort and TouchWe have already mentioned that researchers have found that babies across cultures begin to cry with the same frequency, but they spend less total time crying in a twenty-four hour period in cultures where they are held more.1It was also found that within Western culture, the babies who cried less were those whose parents responded immediately to their cries and also fed them more frequently. If the babies were fed on a frequent schedule but not responded to immediately; or if they responded to them immediately but did not feed frequently, the duration of crying was longer than if both actions were done by the mother.2 Another researcher found, that on average American mothers intentionally ignore their infants cries 46% of the time.3 It is ironic that parents frequently allow their infants to cry, thinking if they respond to the cries they will be reinforcing the crying behavior, when in fact the opposite is true. Comfort Techniques for a Crying BabyFor years parent educators have taught infant comfort techniques that have mimicked the uterine environment. Actually, many of these techniques have been employed by parents for a long time, such as rocking, using the “shhhh” sound, or bumpy car rides. Over the last decades, mechanical devices that imitate the womb sounds have appeared on the market.Harvey Karp, a pediatrician known as the "Baby Whisperer", has promoted the 5 S’s as a method for calming the distressed infant under the title, The Happiest Baby on the Block. This information is available in book form, CD and DVD, and some YouTube summaries. So what are the magical 5 S's?
One down side of this technique is that it promotes the use of pacifiers. Pacifiers have been demonstrated to reduce the duration of nursing.5, 6 Parents may use Karp’s technique but forego the pacifier and focus on the other comfort strategies. Or if parents decide the pacifier is beneficial and want to use it, it is possible to employ the pacifier only when the infant is crying and while utilizing the other techniques at the same time. In this way, the infant is less likely to become attached to the pacifier as an object routinely to be held in the mouth. A few other comforting techniques have also become popular in recent years. Infants enjoy being held while a parent bounces gently on the fitness ball. Indeed, in some households the ball has replaced the rocking chair. And what household is without an infant swing? These swings have certainly improved over the years and come in a end-less, ever-changing assortments. Dr. Karp himself as an interesting swing called a Smoo. There is also the stork bundle, a free technique that costs nothing more than a standard baby blanket. This technique, however, is limited to newborns under a few weeks old. The simple technique is to lay the blanket out, put your baby back-side down in the middle of the blanket, and pick up the four corners. The baby curls up into their in-utero-position, much like the highly-acclaimed stork bundle. And how many thousands of parents have discovered their infant falls asleep in the car? Swaddled in their own private place with the hum and vibration of the car - it's the perfect imitation of their former uterine-habitat. It should be stated that no technique, however, can replace the simple value of picking the baby up and holding her. Swaddling blankets, infant carriers, rocking chairs may all have their place, but nothing can replace the value of human touch. Dozens of different devices are on the market to allow women to hold their babies as they go about their daily chores. I remember how amazed I was when my two week old started to fuss and calmed immediately when he saw me pick up my front-holding baby sling. He knew that meant we were going for a walk outside, the only time I used it. Crying SpellsWhat to Do When You Can't Stop a Crying SpellIn spite of our knowledge regarding the importance of responding to an infant’s cries, and the number of techniques and objects to assist the parents to do so, it is obvious that some babies are still going to cry.Colic, the condition where an infant cries inconsolably for hours a day for no physically known reason, continues to mystify professionals and distress parents. While it was assumed previously that the baby was crying from gas, it is now believed that the gas is a by-product of gulping air while crying and not the cause of it. Gas drops, changing infant formula, and countless other techniques have been employed without tremendous success. However, we don't want to insinuate you should not try any of these things: we celebrate whatever success you might find. But so far, a cure-all-technique for those dreaded colic-induced crying-spells has not been found. Some success has been achieved by training parents to respond to the infant’s cry in the first few minutes. Checking right away to see if the infant is hungry, bored, distressed, or uncomfortable may prevent the cries from reaching the point of no return. However, once the infant reaches the point of inconsolable crying, the parents may find nothing is successful to stop the crying spell. It is interesting how advice to parents has changed over the decades. At one point parents were actually encouraged to let their children cry it out alone. It was felt that crying was healthy for an infant. Indeed, stories circulated of parents who did not let their infant cry and the child was reported to have died of undeveloped lungs. This scenario is simply NOT true. If such a child did exist, the death was likely caused by Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, a well-researched tragic illness that is not tied to a lack of crying. Today, it is known that infants need parents to respond to them and that crying it out alone leads to infant-withdrawal and decreased emotional health and sometimes failure to thrive. However, it is also realized that some infants have inconsolable crying spells and the parents become distressed and frantic. Child abuse is more likely to occur in such situations. Therefore, if the infant’s crying becomes inconsolable, parents are often advised to go ahead and lie the baby safely in the crib, close the door, and try to relax or take a break themselves. It is interesting that both pieces of advice produce the same scenario: the infant is crying in his crib and the parents are an emotional wreck in the other room. I doubt that mothers in previous decades were terribly consoled to think their screaming child was developing his lungs. Nor is it much more help today for a mother to think she needs to get away from the howling baby to prevent her from becoming a child abuser. But the truth is:
When Your Difficult-to-Console Infant is NOT CryingWhen the crying spell is over, the parents should make deliberate efforts to recognize the different cues of the infant in order to enter the positive cycle. This isn’t to say that the crying spell was necessarily caused by them missing a cue. To date we aren’t sure why these occur so there is no reason to add guilt to an already tense situation.However, the parents and infant both need more success and bonding that comes from the positive cycle to neutralize the distress from the crying spell. You and your baby can both enjoy a little extra snuggle time when the crying is not happening. Consider taking a walk together, enjoying face to face communication, having some splash time in the tub, or giving an infant massage. References on Comforting Your Baby
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By Karen Newell Copyright 2003 - 2012 Better Childbirth Outcomes - All Rights Reserved
Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, USA | ||
