Baby Crying? Loving Tips to HELP STOP a Crying Baby!
Why is your baby crying?
Babies cry whenever they want; it seems to be one of the perks of being a little ball of innocence. A crying baby can be cute and adorable, but it gets a little too much when they cry in the middle of the night because they’re hungry, uncomfortable, or just bored and want company.
There goes your sleep!
The best way to calm your baby down is to look for the source of the discomfort, fix it, and hope that he/she becomes comfortable enough to drift back into sleep again.
Here are some of the most effective techniques on how to stop a baby from crying at night:
A gentle massage: Nothing can be more comforting to a child than the touch of a parent.
Gentle strokes, back, and belly rubs are just some of the ways you can help your uncomfortable baby become calmer.
You can also learn some different kinds of soothing massages not only to pacify your baby but to help in his/her body development.
A relaxing rhythm: Music is also a good tool to help in comforting newborn babies.
Even light swooshes of the wind or a fan could also create relaxing sounds for your child.
Shushing sounds create the same whooshing noises that the blood flowing near the mother’s womb creates, therefore giving your baby a calming environment, making them feel as though they were safe and sound inside the womb.
Movement: While snuggling your baby close also provides comfort, rocking or cradling is also a good way to relax them.
A pram is also a good tool for comforting your child. Just like shushing sounds, swinging motions also recreate the time when they were in your womb, as every step you take and every motion also brings a familiar comforting feeling.
Pacify: Sucking is usually comforting for babies. Offer a pacifier or a bottle.
They instantly find comfort in sucking.
Just make sure they don’t carry the behavior past their toddler years, as sucking can be a hard habit to eliminate once they’ve gotten too used to it.
These are just some short term techniques on how to stop a baby from crying at night. Long term solutions involve changing the baby’s sleep patters, such as eliminating long daytime naps that tend to keep them up at night.
Baby sleeping disorders, on the other hand, are a different story.
You may need to look further into other factors that causes your baby to wake up in the middle of the night. In these cases you should consult our pediatrician and general practitioner to find out what causes your child’s discomfort during sleep.
A doctor can help you come up with the suitable solution to ease the discomfort.
Long term solutions also require consistent routines, especially on the baby’s sleeping schedule, as well as other soothing bedtime rituals to ensure a continuous sleep without having to worry about how to stop a baby from crying at night.
Why Do Babies Cry at Night?
Newborns are little bundles of joy; you smile when they smile, laugh when they laugh and your heart breaks when they cry.
Crying is totally normal.
In fact, even excessive crying is typical on a case to case basis.
Why do babies cry at night, you wonder?
The reason is almost always the same — they need attention.
Whether you give them that attention or not is up to your style of upbringing and discipline.
If you still can’t wrap yourself around why baby cries at night, then you need to understand some of the typical behaviors of a newborn or growing infant.
It is believed that a baby’s cry is just a typical way of getting someone’s attention, much like how you’d call out for somebody when you need something.
It’s just that babies use crying instead of words, for the obvious reasons.
It is just a matter of learning what your baby’s cry means – whether he/she needs a nappy change, is not feeling well, is hungry, or just needs a simple touch.
Crying is pretty much acceptable during the day, but can be a real nightmare during night time. A simple explanation of why baby cries at night would be night feeding, although you might still find yourself waking up to your baby’s cry even when their night feeding phase is long over.
Again, this may be due to simple reasons.
Perhaps your baby woke up alone, lights dim, with no one around to signify comfort.
Perhaps your baby is just not sleepy.
While nocturnal crying is very common, you still need to check for any physical distress or maybe an illness before acting on lessening the night crying.
Remember that crying is simple a tool – a ringing siren that your baby needs or wants something.
Though it can be heart breaking to just let your baby cry it out through the night until they he/she is tired enough to go back to sleep, this can be an effective way to lessen nocturnal crying.
This teaches your baby how to get back to sleep by themselves, without the need for your constant presence. It is essential, though, to check on your baby once the crying changes or stops to assure safety.
If you can’t stand just letting your child cry it out, you can try a different tactic of letting your baby cry for a minute or two before attending to him/her, with just a gentle pat and some comforting words.
This way, they will know that they are not alone and can fall right back to sleep knowing that your comforting presence is there.
Once you get a hang of your baby’s crying patterns, you would soon be able to figure out a routine to completely eliminate the behavior.
As an infant grows, many changes in sleep and other behavioral patters occur, although behaviors can be different from child to child.
It is also best to consult the experts when your child’s crying becomes uncontrollable, as this may be coming from physical distress and reasons other than the normal crying behavior.