My baby cries for at least two hours every day. He is almost inconsolable, and the noise has stressed me out. The doctor tells me it is normal, but I am finding it harder and harder to tolerate. I am concerned I may lose it one day. Is there any help out there?
It has been said by some parenting experts that new parents have two main jobs: to feed their baby successfully and to calm down the crying. Both these tasks are very challenging at times. And depending on who you talk to, the advice out there about the best way to accomplish these goals differs.
The usual level of noise of a crying infant is close to 100 decibels (dB) - the equivalent of being next to a lawnmower. Noise this loud triggers a stress reaction. The longer it lasts, the worse the situation can become. No wonder some moms are not reassured that crying is normal (The influential neurologist Dr. Brazelton, author of Touchpoints, reassures readers that it is normal for babies to cry for 1 to 1.5 hours per day).
The problem of the crying infant is not a small issue at all. The challenge of parenting such a baby can be rough on any parent. The mothers of these babies often complain of being exhausted; they more often experience nursing failures; the degree of marital stress is way higher; depression is more common; sudden infant death (SIDS) occurs more frequently; and the risk of child abuse is higher.
Mothers of crying infants may experience a reduced milk production, poor latching, a slower let-down reflex, and a further reduction in self confidence. Some mothers experience tremendous guilt when they cannot breast feed.
Dr. Levitzky and Dr. Cooper published data in Clinical Pediatrics (2000) showing that 91% of parents of babies who are fussy and unhappy for hours at a time experience marital stress.
Postpartum depression can also be predicted by the degree of crying. In fact, an unsupportive spouse is less likely to cause postpartum depression than a crying baby.
At this point, the data supporting the placement of sleeping babies on their backs - as opposed to the prone or stomach position - in terms of preventing SIDS is overwhelmingly positive. However, 50% of prone sleepers are put in this position because of excessive crying.
Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) continues to occur with too much frequency. According to data published in 2002 by experts on SBS, 95% of incidents are
triggered by crying. Close to 22% of SBS victims die and 62% suffer permanent damage.
In the old days (mid-seventies) some physicians prescribed sedatives and opium for the baby - and even at times for the mom as well! Recently at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics in San Francisco, a developmental pediatrician from the UCLA School of Medicine, Dr. Harvey Karp, offered some insights on what works well for the crying infant.
Dr. Karp has been very successful in convincing many parents and some clinicians that there is a condition which he refers to as the "Fourth Trimester". Karp feels that babies are "evicted" from wombs three months too early. In fact, he makes the point that even though babies are exposed to white noise while in the womb, society tries to keep a baby's environment as a quiet as possible after birth. Karp says that a lack of white noise is wrong. He feels that babies who fall asleep at noisy parties and sporting events, for example, proves his point that babies do not need deathly silence in order to fall asleep.
Karp has coined the term "The 5 S’s Calming Reflex", which works 95% of the time. In fact, while sitting in on his lecture I saw some dynamic videos which showed him on house calls, calming babies down within a few minutes. These were babies who were red in the face from fussing for hours on end.
The first step involves swaddling the infant - the cornerstone of calming. The infants have their arms at their sides and the swaddling is quite snug; overheating is avoided.
The second step is to place the baby on his or her side in the so-called reverse breastfeeding position (The baby is looking away from the caregiver). Next, Dr. Karp employs the shushing method, where he creates a noise close to the infant's ears equal to that of a vacuum cleaner (about 60-80 dB). Dr. Karp feels that shushing is the only universal learned method.
Following shushing, the infant is subjected to gentle repetitive swinging, not jiggling and not shaking. The final step of the five S's is using a soother. This is used only after the baby has been breastfed for at least one to two weeks so as to avoid nipple confusion.
Given the above method is based on an infant's innate temperament, it should be seen as similar to eliciting a deep tendon reflex (a knee jerk response which automatically occurs at the doctor's office, but only if the clinician does it correctly). Even tough it may be natural, there is a right way and a wrong way to induce the calming reflex. For some infants, not all S's need to be used; some babies respond well to only one or two reflexes or interventions.
The main benefits of this method - other than the fact that babies stop crying almost immediately - is that it helps mothers be more successful at nursing, they are more calm themselves, their marriages are not threatened, and less babies are shaken out of shear frustration.
All of these preventative changes have been estimated to save society millions of healthcare dollars by not having to pay for medications, hospitalizations, and failed marriages caused by stress. For more information on this amazingly simple and efficient method of calming crying babies see: www.thehappiestbaby.org.
One word of caution: it is always wise to make sure a doctor has seen the baby who cries excessively in order to rule out any medical conditions such as allergies, reflux, neurological conditions, urinary infections, and other potentially serious situations.
Access www.healthykids.ca for a terrific new resource in helping families raise healthy children - HealthyKids with Dr. Nieman will optimize your child's complete health.
An informed parent is ... an empowered parent.