Baby will not stop crying!

1. Know that this can be 100% normal, that baby could be perfectly normal, that you are not to blame.

Many new parents rush to the doctor thinking the worst, that their baby has something wrong with him or her. Why else they wonder would baby cry so much? The fact is, babies cry. I know it sounds like a terribly unhelpful explanation but it is the truth.

 2. It doesn’t hurt to take them to the doctor to get checked anyway! 

The Purple Crying Phase

This is something really worth looking up! It doesn’t mean what you might think it does at first. It has nothing to do with baby crying till they are purple, rather the word purple helps explain this phase. The research behind it goes something to the effect of this; Dr. Ronald Barr, a developmental pediatrician, showed that other breast feeding animals have this crying phase too. It is normal! It isn’t anything your doing wrong and your little princess is actually ok.

Baby crying is normal!

The Purple Crying Phase goes from 2 weeks till about 3-4 months and it peeks around 4 – 6 weeks.

Guess how old my baby is now? 5 weeks!

This is our 5th baby and she is sure teaching us a lot. With our other babies we would catch then fussing and sooth right away, thus they hardly cried. We thought that was key, helping them not cry taught them that they didn’t need to cry. Turns out crying might be normal. This baby unlike out others has no fuss, she goes from quiet to gut wretching screaming in .2 seconds. She is also a bit harder to sooth and nights have been harder this week than others so far. She doesn’t like to be put down and that is FINE, it really is, she is a baby mammal and being put down is not normal for mammals of our kind. However it would be nice to have her fuss to let me know, not scream bloody murder. -sigh-

When I learned about the Purple Crying Phase I was so relieved. Why are doctors not talking about this more? Why are hospitals before letting parents go home with newborns not giving out some kind of heads up?

   What to actually do when baby is crying.

Sooth the Baby!

Just because crying is a normal part of development for this age doesn’t change the things we do. We sooth baby. We pick them up, we change their environment, we rock them, sing to them, repeat all the loving words over and over because repeating things is soothing. We put on music and dance gently with baby as motion and rhythm remind baby of the easier life in the womb. We take them on drives, and walks and really just getting outside even at 3 am can do wonders.

   We remember to be kind to ourselves!

We remember that what worked before may not always work. We accept that sometimes nothing may work though we keep trying. We remember that it is a phase and will not last forever. We remember it is ok to ask for help!

While my family is an attachment parenting / Crunchy parenting one and we don’t force our babies to “cry it out” the science is really sound on this one, babies shouldn’t be left to cry it out. So we try everything we can to sooth and we remember this will not last forever. You can do this, so can baby.

Tip: Babywearing is fantastic for helping keep baby calm and baby. It helps me get out into the world and gives me two hands when homeschooling my little ones. Baby rarely cries when skin to skin!