Happy Kids, Cathy Glass [best ebook reader for ubuntu .TXT] 📗

that baby can’t be ignored, is fed and therefore survives and thrives. We have to accept that babies cry when they need feeding.

But why is baby still crying when it has been fed and changed? Good question. While baby manuals and child psychologists offer a wealth of possibilities for a baby not settling – from the trauma of birth to sheer bloody-mindedness – no one knows for sure. Other reasons may include being too warm, or cold, needing to be held, boredom, tiredness, thirst, colic and illness, but the end result is the same: crying.

Baby has just spent nine months tucked up snugly in a warm, wet womb, and no matter how pretty the nursery, it’s hardly a good substitute for this previous all-enveloping embrace – well, not to begin with at least. If baby is to settle when you put him to sleep or go back to sleep if he’s woken he will require a lot of reassuring. You will need to reassure baby that his needs will be met, as well as teaching him what you want in respect of routine, sleeping, etc. This can be achieved by using the 3Rs.

Request, Repeat and Reassure

Assuming baby is not ill (in which case seek medical advice), that the room is the right temperature and that baby is fed and clean, resettle the crying baby using the 3Rs: Request, Repeat and Reassure. First, Request baby to go back to sleep by tucking him in and settling, preferably without picking him up. Come out of the room, if baby has his own room, or move away from the cot if baby is in the parents’ room. Keep the lighting to a minimum – just enough for you to see what you are doing – and don’t make a lot of noise. It was dark in the womb and relatively quiet, and a sudden noise or bright light will startle baby.

If baby now settles and goes back to sleep, then you don’t need the second two stages in the 3Rs – well, not this time at least. But if baby is still screaming, then go to stages two and three. Repeat the procedure by going quietly into baby’s room or to the cot, and Reassure by tucking him in and resettling him. Then come out or move away. If baby is colicky, then change his position and wind him to release the trapped air, preferably not by taking him out of the cot but by leaning over to do this. Then come out or move away.

Still screaming? Do it again. Repeat and Reassure. This time with some verbal reassurance – ‘Sshhh, sshh, there, there … sleep time’ – in a low, calming voice. Just a few words so that baby doesn’t feel alone and is reassured by the sound of your voice, which he will already be used to, having heard it in the womb and since birth.

Still hasn’t settled? Repeat the procedure by going quietly into baby’s room or to the cot, and Reassure by tucking him in and resettling him. Repeat the procedure for as long as is necessary each and every time baby cries for an extended period. The time needed to resettle will quickly become less and less, until after a few nights (no more than five), the baby will settle within moments of being put to bed and go back to sleep after being fed.

What not to do at night

The above assumes that baby isn’t sleeping in the same bed as its parents, which is true of the majority of Western homes. I have never practised or encouraged baby sleeping in the same bed. It can be a difficult habit to break, and parents need some privacy, given that the rest of their lives have been taken over by the new arrival. It is also unnecessary to have baby in the same bed if baby is resettled and reassured by using the 3Rs.

I have never, and would never, leave a baby to cry itself to sleep, and this is something I feel most strongly about. Not only is it distressing for the baby not to have its needs met by being reassured and resettled, but it is also very distressing for parents to listen to their baby crying. No caring parent could happily turn over and go back to sleep with a baby shrieking in the room next door. Not having its needs met can engender insecurity in a baby, and guilt in the parents for not meeting its needs. Some mothers report feeling physically sick if they hear their baby cry and don’t answer its call. After all, Mother Nature has designed the cry to be responded to and it’s far easier (and loving) to get up and Reassure baby than lie there trying to blot out the shrieks.

Some of the saddest cases I have seen as a foster carer have been when babies were left to cry themselves to sleep, before they came into care, often as a result of the parents being too drunk or drugged to hear or answer their baby’s call. After a while the baby stops crying, completely, having learned there is no point: its needs are not going to be met, there’s no one coming, so it may as well shut up. These babies lie almost lifeless in their cots, in absolute silence, staring at the ceiling with blank expressionless eyes. Even when you go into their rooms they don’t look at you or smile.

Extreme cases, yes, but if you ignore baby’s cries for long enough, baby will stop crying – you wouldn’t keep asking for something that never ever came. I’m not suggesting you rush in at the slightest murmur – baby may turn over and go back to sleep. But if baby is crying for no obvious reason, then resettle using the 3Rs.

Daytime routine

Don’t be surprised if you have to resettle baby occasionally even after you have established a routine