Can you distinguish the reasons for your baby’s cry?
In this article we will focus on why do babies cry, how to diversify between hunger and other reasons such as anxiety, pain or just being tired….
When your baby is born, it is heart wrecking to listen to its cry. Even more, it is difficult to distinguish the needs from it. Don’t worry, you will get to the bottom of it eventually with time. It is a specific mixture of tone, intensity and length. All the cry variations have one thing in common – they represent the communication skill, which functions well all around the world. I offer you a few hints, hot to decode it.
Hunger
Most women attribute the crying to a hungry baby. The fear that the baby is hungry stems from a bad start in the maternity ward, when the mother’s competencies and her ability to feed her own baby are often impaired by staff. Women carry on this fear long after they leave the maternity hospital building. Every time a baby cries, they offer their breasts, without thinking about other possible causes of crying.
When the baby does not accept the breast, they question the sufficient production of milk and resort to being fed with a bottle. Thus, they trigger a cascade of associated breastfeeding problems, the most common abdominal pain, complete breast rejection, sleep rhythm disturbance. However, the baby’s hunger is recognizable – children with low milk intake do not gain weight, are apathetic or, on the contrary, very irritated, do not pee or mothers find urine crystals in the diaper and suck on anything in order to drink. If you do not notice these signals, look for other causes of crying. If you have symptoms of a hungry baby and want to improve your production, follow the instructions below:
First aid if you feel your milk production needs to be improved
- Take a skin to skin approach, get naked (both you and the baby) and get under the blanket together, cuddle, kiss, and rest.
- Shorten breastfeeding intervals, 3 hours is a long time for the baby
- Help baby to latch on properly and empty the breasts fully by compressing the breast with a hand. It will increase the milk flow
- Change breasts multiple times for a feeding as long as baby is willing to latch
- If you are supplementing, do that with catheter
- If a baby refuses to latch on, pump your milk and feed baby with a cup
- Use herbs for milk production: Fenugreek, Thistle or Moringa
Do not forget to watch the signals of your baby, which may result in other problems like colic, tiredness, reflux, or sleepless behavior. If you need to consult in person, contact me or any other lactation consultant from Mamila
Inappropriate sleeping habits
We are often overwhelmed with a newborn by its sweetness and we forget the baby had no stimuli in your abdominal. All it new was your voice, dimmed red light and boredom. Keep it for him in the postpartum period. Do not overexpose him to visitors, bright lights, laud noises, etc. When a baby sleeps, do not wake him up. If he is awake, let him discover boredom.
Newborn is awake about 15 minutes, 2 month old baby makes it to 45 minutes.
Stay with him, the child is not evolutionarily adapted to be alone. It sleeps better when you are around. Human evolution has not prepared the babies to sleep in own rooms, own cribs. Babies always used to be around others who responded actively on babies’ needs. Let the baby sooth and fall asleep on your breast. As much as it requests, latching stimulates milk and makes the baby’s sleep relaxing. Baby is designed to be carried and cradled on hands, teach him on lullabies. Touch has a positive effect on various biological functions – digestion, brain growth, breathing. Manipulate with him softly and gently. No rapid moves, no shaking is recommended.
Pain
The origin of the pain is difficult to identify. It can have emotional or physical origin. Sometimes they reflect the mood and mental state of the parents. They can suffer the trauma of hospitalizations without your presence. Other times, they suffer from body asymmetry with muscle blockages. Therefore, make sure that they do not prefer one side, do not have a head tilt, do not react sensitively to the touch of a specific place on the body.
Pay special attention to digestion. All children have poorer digestion in the first weeks, but none should feel the cramps and cry inconsolably. Give them a gentle massage of the abdomen before each feeding, leave them without a diaper for a while, often try different safe manipulation positions. For children with reflux, help them by frequent feeding, after each feed keep the head elevated for at least 30 minutes. I teach details of proper handling during pre-natal preparation or during a post-natal personal visit to your home. I also cooperate with MC Bublinka, center of experienced therapist for children specializing in psychomotor development corrections. Find more details on Baby hugs