Its the sound that mums and dads hate to hear.

The sound of your bub crying.

It can send you into a panic, raise your anxiety, or sky rocket your stress levels to the moon.  Especially if you don’t know why or can’t figure out why your bub is wailing.

When I discuss crying with my clients I ask them these questions first:

When you hear your bub cry what is the first emotion that comes to you? 

What does that emotion resonate inside you?

Do you know how you were responded to as a child when you cried?

What if each time you hear your child cry, you were able to switch that emotion around to calmness instead of anxiety?

As you know crying is one way your baby communicates.

Crying is also a late sign of hunger, overtiredness and over stimulation. Simple things such as a wet nappy, tags on clothes, a hair wrapped around a finger can irritate.

I also say to approach any crying with curiosity. Take a breath and listen to the cry and understand what your baby is trying to communicate to you. 

Babies arrive in the world with the ability to express feelings and reactions using a preverbal language of nine innate signals.

These are expressed through a combination of facial expressions, sounds and body language. From birth the following signals are a child’s language of need and want:

-interest                                                                     -anger

-enjoyment                                                                -fear

-surprise                                                                     -shame

-distress                                                                     -disgust

-anger                                                                         -dis-smell

So you have eliminated hunger, a wet or dirty nappy, teething and definitely not sick so what else can you consider?

1. Your baby is crying because she’s too hot/ or too cold. Yes they do cry about this. Some babies are REALLY sensitive to their environment- well actually all babies are. Ideal room temp is 18-22 c for sleeping, and make sure you use a togged wrap/swaddle/sleeping bag to prevent night time chills or over heating.
2. Your baby is crying because she wants a cuddle. She has spent 9 months inside, and simply needs some human touch.  If your bub has slept through the night she will have a little petrol tank of touch that needs to be filled up.  Nurturing touch is how we communicate as well. Sometimes all is needed is a hand placed on her tummy just to tell her she is not alone. It reassures our bubs they are safe and secure.
3. Your baby is crying because she has wind pain. Undeveloped digestive tracts are sensitive, so wind pain does occur. Learn different winding techniques to help your baby. Baby massage techniques really help with this. The colic routine, cycling legs, and identifying upper wind and lower wind can also help. Also be aware that over tired baby’s can appear as if they have wind.
4. Your baby is having a growth spurt. Growth spurts can make your bub unsettled. Sometimes they sleep less as they practice their new found development. Become familiar with your baby’s milestones so that you can support them through them. Often they need to feed more, and cuddle more. These often cause sleep regression.
5. Your baby is overstimulated. Learning your baby’s personality does take some time. Some bubs are easily distractable, and are sensitive to the smallest change immediately. If your baby is calm natured they will tolerate their environment for much longer than a baby that is more highly spirited. Notice if your bub is sensitive to light, noise and smell. Often to much stimulation will stress and over whelm your baby. Sometimes it is actually accumulative. So your bub might start the day well, but by the end of a busy “out” day loses the plot at 9pm at night by having a screaming melt down. They might need an extra quite, dark, soothing environment to help that little neural system calm down.
6. Your baby is simply overtired.  The MAIN reason for crying and often completely missed by parents. Baby’s that are over tired, simply don’t just fall asleep. They need help from us to switch their little brains from “over alert” to snooze. The easiest way to prevent over tiredness is to know the age appropriate awake time for your baby, and what the recommended hours your child needs sleep wise. One of the most common comments I get is “I didn’t realize exactly how much sleep she needs”.