A baby’s cry can draw your attention if you are a parent and even if you aren’t.
A study revealed that our brain processes a baby’s cry much faster and in a more intense fashion when compared to other sounds which confirmed it. It is as if the sound is labeled important even before it’s processed.
If you think about it, that is one of the reasons why most of us immediately notice when a baby is crying. As a parent you want to have as little cry as possible and that is why I have prepared this detailed list of things that may cause your baby’s crying. I have also included instructions on how to behave in such situations. Here are the most common reasons why babies cry:
1. Hunger
Hunger is one of the most frequent causes of crying, especially in case of newborns. The baby can’t talk and communicates her/his needs by crying because that is the only thing s/he knows so shortly after birth.
2. Full Diaper
Another reason why your baby expresses discontent by crying can be a full diaper. To be honest, who would enjoy it?
3. Wet Diaper
Not every baby cries because s/he has wet her/himself. But if you let this go too far, it’s possible that the unpleasant feeling of cold and wetness cannot be even absorbed by the best diapers and your baby will tell you appropriately.
4. Accumulated Gas
The creation of gases in your baby’s stomach during food digestion is completely natural. This process takes places in every human body. Given the fact that the baby constantly encounters new food, gassiness can be higher. If this gas leaves on natural terms, it’s completely normal.
However, if it stays longer in your baby’s body, it can cause stomach pain accompanied by crying.
5. They Need to Burp
If an accumulated portion of air doesn’t exit from the bottom it has to go up. The topic of letting the baby have a burp just after eating has been discussed frequently. Probably the best answer was provided by Dr.Gellner who claims that a study on this topic was conducted in the past.
Parents in this study were divided into two groups. One let the baby have a burp after eating while the other one didn’t. The study revealed that there was no difference between babies who have been burping regularly and those who haven’t. In addition, there was no significant effect on health.
6. Colic
This term is used to describe a wide range of negative child emotions which are accompanied by crying. If your baby cries more than 3 hours every day and all tests at the doctor’s showed that it’s healthy, it’s probably one of the unlucky ones who has colic.
7. Sleep
Another reason for your baby’s crying could be the lack of sleep. It may sound unbelievable, but babies that didn’t get enough sleep tend to be upset and that’s why they cry.
Managing this situation isn’t as easy as it may seem. Your baby is crying because of lack of sleep, but paradoxically, cannot fall asleep for the same reason.
8. Cold
Cold can cause your baby’s grumpiness, especially during colder months. If you haven’t dressed her/him appropriately into the cold weather, or you aren’t heating up you apartment enough, it isn’t unusual that your baby complains about it via crying.
9. Warmth
On the other hand, it’s also not appropriate if your baby is too hot. Mothers are worried that their offspring will be cold, especially during the first months, so they add a couple of extra additional layers. Less is sometimes more.
If your baby is dressed appropriately and you add another layer, you risk overheating, which is even more dangerous than cold. Scientists from the Darmouth Medical School found out that, if a baby’s organism is overheated to more than 3 additional degrees, it can worsen breathing which can cause sudden infant death, also known as SIDS.
10. Tooth Pain
Every baby handles this situation differently. Some are only grumpy and from time to time cry, others don’t cry at all. It’s generally around the 7th month that babies start to feel the first teeth coming through their gums and thus cry mainly during the night.
11. Disease Onset
If you have noticed that your baby has a snot running down her/his nose or coughs more than s/he used to, it’s highly probable that this can be the cause of the never-ending crying. You know as well that a stuffy nose can ruin a day even for us adults. A baby that is only a couple of months old can complain only through crying.
12. Fear
Every impulse is new for your newborn baby. Some can draw her/his attention and others make her/him cry. They can often get scared by ordinary noises such as bag rustle or a towel on mom’s head.
13. Too Many Impulses
This reason is a little bit connected to the previous one. You all know it well.
A new baby has been born into the family and everybody wants to meet her/him. Everyone wants to hold and talk to the baby and it has to process all of these impulses somehow. If there are too many of them, the baby can be afraid and cry.
Some babies can handle visits calmly, but the experiences will come back to them in their dreams and therefore it’s not uncommon to get woken up by crying. Your baby is probably only processing all the experiences s/he has soaked up during the day.
14. They Want to Be Held
Some babies can also cry because they want to be carried. This situation occurs mainly when they are worried or overly sensitive; however, the pain isn’t that strong, so they don’t cry after being held in arms.
Although, it often happens that babies get used to being carried and then cry only out of spite, so you lift them up and pay attention to them. You can distinguish this cry easily.
Sometimes It’s Good to Let the Baby Cry
After a while as a parent you will learn how to distinguish the crying of your baby. You will know when the baby is crying out of suffering and when s/he only seeks attention.
There are many situations when the baby will communicate her/his dissatisfaction with crying, and it’s natural that you will want to stop this crying. You will for example want to teach your baby to fall asleep again on her/his when s/he has been woken up during the night.
S/he can only learn by crying. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you will let you baby cry the whole night. It’s a gradual process called “graduated extinction”. For those of you who are avoiding this method, because you need to have your baby at your sight at all times, I recommend using a baby monitor.
