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How to calm a crying baby

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All Babies Cry

All babies cry, but if you're going to keep your sanity as a parent, it's important to find ways that you can calm your crying infant so that he's not crying all the time. No one wants to see this face, prelude to the screaming jag, but there are lots of things you can try to calm your baby down. Not all the solutions will work and you may find, as we did, that a solution that worked yesterday might not work today. It's important not to give up hope, and just keep trying different things.

Colic is a Four Letter Word

But Not How You Might Think

I hate the term colic. It is a catch-all word that means any baby who cries for long stretches of time with no discernible cause. In a sense, if your doctor diagnoses your baby with colic, she is as good as saying "I have no idea what's wrong." And what good is that to you?

A baby is usually diagnosed with colic if he cries inconsolably for 3 hours or more 3 or more times a week.

And your friends will diagnose your baby with colic even faster. Chances are the first time your son or daughter starts crying in front of them, they will begin clucking knowingly and saying, "is she colicky? She'll grow out of that in a few months." Then they walk to a quieter part of the house as you frantically try to shush your child.

Who cares if she is? Does it help to have a word for the problem? Instead of diagnosing the problem and then nodding and walking away, wouldn't it be great if your friends offered suggestions for what to do? Calming the baby is what most people want. And in my experience, telling the baby "you're just colicky" doesn't stop the screaming.

So the next time someone asks if your baby is colicky, ask her if she has any suggestions for how to calm him. If she doesn't, tell her, "no, my baby isn't colicky, he just doesn't like the air in here."

A Fast List of Ways to Calm Your Crying Child

A list of some of the many options you have for soothing your fussy child. Not all work for every child every time. So if one doesn't work, try another.

As with all things with your baby, if you think she might be sick, call your pediatrician. Don't wait until she's cried for 5 hours straight and you're both ready to fall over from exhaustion.
  • Nursing - sometimes the baby is just hungry. Yes, he may have just eaten, but nursing can be soothing as well as nourishing and if the alternative is 30 minutes of screaming. Try to calm him down before you start to nurse, as it's hard to suck when you're screaming.
  • Rocking - rocking the baby in a rocking chair or just in your lap can be very soothing to both of you.
  • White noise - this can be anything from saying (loudly) "shhhhh" in your baby's ear to the vacuum cleaner to special white noise tapes.
  • Swaddling - infants, especially really young ones, like to be wrapped very tightly, typically a lot tighter than you would think could possibly be comfortable.
  • Sucking - even if you can't nurse the baby (say, you're the father...) you can still give her something to suck. My son loves to suck on my thumb, he hates pacifiers.
  • Mirrors - infants find faces fascinating, and sometimes staring into a mirror at themselves can stop the crying.
  • Burping - many times crying can be caused by gas. If you help get rid of the gas, you'll help reduce the crying.
  • Adjust your diet - if you're breastfeeding it may be something you're eating that's causing her discomfort. Common suspects are milk/dairy, nuts, and any food that makes you gassy.
  • Adjust his diet - if you're formula feeding the baby might not like the formula you're using. This is especially true if the formula is based on cow's milk. Try switching to a formula with a soy or other non-dairy base.
  • Sing - you may have to sing loudly, but babies often react differently to songs than just talking.
  • Dance - put on some nice music and slow dance with your baby. The swaying and closeness may help.
  • Wear your baby - some babies don't like to be left alone for long, and being close to you, especially in a sling, like a Moby wrap, can help calm her down.
  • Take a walk - going outside, whether in a sling or a stroller, can give your baby something else to think about than screaming.
  • Take a bath - this helps to calm both you and the baby, and you both get clean in the process.
  • Listen to your baby It's hard when he's screaming louder than a jet engine, but if you pay attention you can figure out what's wrong. And if you try to address the problem before he's out of control, you can avoid the crying jag altogether.
  • Teach your baby sign language. The hand motions are interesting to him and he will grasp very quickly what you mean. And once he can make the signs himself, being able to tell you "I'm hungry" or "Change my diaper" is very liberating for kids.
  • Take a shower - the feel of the water hitting his back can be very distracting.
  • Blow on her face Sometimes the air flow can surprise her and calm her down. This is especially useful if she's been crying for a while, as sometimes the crying feeds on itself, and if you can break the loop the crying will stop.
  • Take a break - if nothing seems to be working, find someone else who can hold her for a while. The change will do both of you good, and the new care giver may have better luck with some of the techniques, while you get some rest and recharge.

Just Say No to "Let Her Cry it Out"

Calming a Baby Isn't the Same as Ignoring a Baby

You will meet many people who are very nice, they wouldn't dream of torturing kittens, but in their well-meaning way they will suggest that you torture your baby instead. They'll hear your baby crying and tell you that you're spoiling him by soothing him. Or they'll see how exhausted you look and say "why not just let her cry herself to sleep?"

Babies Can't Tell You What's Wrong
Babies don't cry because they want to manipulate you or torture you, they cry because that is the only means they have of communication. If an infant is crying, he needs something. It can often be very hard to figure out what that is, but as the parent or care-giver it is your job to try and figure it out.

When you let a baby cry himself to sleep without attempting to soothe him, you are in effect telling him that his needs are not important. You are not teaching him to be self-sufficient or not manipulative. Young infants are simply not self-sufficient, they aren't built that way. And expecting them to be is just setting yourself up for heartache.

Have you ever cried so much that you just can't cry any more? I have, and it's no fun at all. Yes, you end up so exhausted that you have to sleep, but is that how you want your baby to fall asleep? And with a baby, she doesn't know why you're not coming, only that you're not. So in a sense you're torturing your baby (and possibly yourself) because she has no idea why she's in pain and no idea why no one seems to care.

Babies Cry Less When They are Soothed
If your child knows that you are going to take care of her, she is less likely to cry when hungry or lonely. First she'll try other cues to let you know what she needs, relying on inconsolable crying as a last resort. So don't worry that you're spoiling her or making her manipulative. You're not! You're just meeting her needs so that she doesn't need to cry as much.

Sometimes you won't be able to stop the crying. But holding a screaming baby and rocking her and singing to her and trying all the various tricks you know to get her to calm down is very different from ignoring the cries as you let her cry herself to sleep.

When you are soothing your baby, he learns that you care for him. If he's crying because you ate beans and the gas is extremely painful, then no amount of rocking or sucking is going to help. Nothing really will until the gas subsides. But if you're holding him and talking to him and telling him with words and actions that you love him, the pain won't be so bad. Crying in the arms of someone who loves you hurts a lot less than crying alone in a crib.

So the next time someone asks you why you don't let your baby cry herself to sleep, just tell them that you love her and want her to be happy. And ignore them if they tell you you're spoiling her.

How do you respond when someone tells you to "let him cry it out"?

When my mom asked me how long it would be until I just let Jaryth cry himself to sleep in his room, I told her that my house was just too small. "It hurts me to hear him cry like that, and there's no where in the house I can go to escape his cries." She still thinks I'm crazy, but at least she's not asking that anymore.

  • Shelley May 12, 2008 @ 10:12 am | delete
    P.S. What I wrote is what worked for my child, but I do not think it necessarily applies to all children. I had my child 11 years ago, and things change with new information. My mother had issues with the way I chose to interact with my daughter at times, and she stood firm that I should be doing things the way she did them with her babies...even though she had her last child 30 years earlier. Again, things change with new information.
  • Shelley May 12, 2008 @ 9:34 am | delete
    I followed advice I read somewhere about this issue. When my daughter was a few months old, if she was still crying 10 mins. after I put her down to sleep, I would pick her up. Children learn to soothe themselves this way, however, it is not appropriate for newborns. The only time my daughter cried over 10 mins. (she usually didn't cry at all) was if she had an ear ache or was teething and I would not have known about either if I let her cry for an hour before she exhausted herself and fell asleep.

    There's a delicate balance to how long you let a baby cry, and ultimately, the mom usually has the right instinct. Of course, as Jaryth gets older you will know when he is manipulating you and you can deal with that if it happens. Jaryth is still too little to be manipulative and he should be responded to. You cannot spoil a little baby, who has no ulterior motives other than to eat, sleep, poop and feel warm and loved.
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Nursing Calms Many Crying Babies

Nursing is almost always my first choice when trying to soothe my son. The hormones released by breastfeeding help calm me down as well as him, so if the nursing works we both feel better.

We had a long, difficult labor, and Jaryth was 11 pounds when he was born, so his head was very bruised at first. That meant that nursing in certain positions was very difficult for him, and he hated us touching his head. As our midwife said, he had "quite a headache" for a couple days afterwards.

What that meant was that if he was upset, sometimes nursing could get him even more upset. Especially if he was hungry, but couldn't get a good enough latch because he couldn't bend well enough. We tried several different holds until we found a football style hold under my arm with him laying on a pillow.

Before I had Jaryth, I naively thought that breastfeeding would be easy if a baby is crying. After all, his mouth is already open, right? Wrong! Well, yes, his mouth is open, but if he's screaming hard enough he might not even realize that he's near the breast. And if eating hurts him for some reason (GERD, thrush, and other issues can make babies uncomfortable eating) then he won't want to latch on.

If this is the case, and you think that he's crying because he's hungry, then you'll need to distract him first. I've found that tickling his nose with your nipple can distract him enough, as the smell of breast milk is very powerful to babies. You can also try some of the other soothing methods suggested to calm the crying down a little and then try feeding.

As always, if you think your child has an illness that is causing the crying, like GERD or thrush or anything, call your pediatrician

Web Resources for Calming Your Crying Baby

But there's still more. There are lots of other resources on the Web to help you soothe your colicky baby.
How To Calm Your Crying Baby
Learn to recognize what your baby's cries mean and how to soothe them. From the About.com Guide to Baby Parenting.
Top 7 Ways to Calm a Crying Baby
Crying babies are no fun. And let's face it, they all cry at some point. Here are some ideas to try to help calm your baby and your nerves. From the About.com Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth.
Your Crying Baby
Review why you might have a crying baby, why babies cry, when crying is too much, and how you can calm your crying baby. From the About.com Guide to Pediatrics.
What Do I Do When My Baby's Crying?
New dads can feel a little out of their league when the baby cries and cries and cries. But dads need to know why babies cry and what they should and should not do. From the About.com Guide to Fatherhood.
How to Use the Football Hold to Calm a Baby Video
Looking for an effective way to calm your fussy infant? Learn how to hold your baby in the football hold.

What worked for you?

What have you tried that's helped your baby stop crying?

  • Teddi14 Jun 20, 2008 @ 3:32 am | delete
    Breast feeding my son and that anti-gas product--the name escapes me at the moment--but they both worked for me.
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htmljenn

Hi, I'm Jennifer Kyrnin author of the Web Design / HTML site at About.com. Alongside of my Web design work, I am also a mother to Jaryth, a high-needs... more »

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