How wonderful it would be to know what is troubling your baby when they cry at noon, scream in the evening, and howl at night. Unfortunately, children at that age cannot yet articulate themselves. But no child cries without a reason. So, if you have been able to rule out all potential physical causes with a pediatrician, but the crying continues, it might be worth considering baby therapy.
Baby therapy as a way out?
The emotional life of the child begins long before their birth. Embryos are sentient beings who already perceive a great deal in the womb. It is entirely possible that they experienced situations back then that they perceived as stressful or frightening.
For example, babies sense very precisely when something is burdening the mother, and even tensions within the partnership or the family can already be perceived by unborn babies. But the child can also have traumatic experiences during birth, such as during a C-section or a vacuum or forceps delivery.
In the case of stressful pregnancies, difficult births, but also premature births or after long hospital stays of the parents or the child, it can be worthwhile to make use of baby therapy.
Its goal is to strengthen the bond between parents and child through loving contact, affection, and attention, and to help parents deal more calmly with their child's loud stress reactions. In addition, the aim is to resolve any psychological injuries or traumas and to provide parents with strategies to improve the stressful situation. Baby therapy relies on body-oriented psychotherapeutic work, as talk therapy approaches are not possible with these little patients.
As has been shown, babies are actually calmer and more balanced after baby therapy than before.
Who is baby therapy suitable for?
In the past, it was thought that a baby's seemingly groundless crying was due to colic. Today, however, it is known that psychological causes can also play a role when infants cry, have problems with eating and sleeping and can only be calmed with difficulty. Therefore, parents who are worried about their baby or are overwhelmed by the situation should ask a baby therapist for advice. The therapy is by no means only aimed at the child. If the parents suffer from fears of failure, for example, because they believe they cannot help their baby during crying phases, they learn how to deal with such feelings as part of the therapy. The baby, on the other hand, is given the necessary space to express his or her emotions and fears.
Baby therapy supports parents lovingly in enduring the pain of their child and accompanying them in a helpful and strengthening way, without feeling the strong urge to finally have to bring the baby to rest.
Who offers baby therapy?
Baby therapies are often an additional service offered by therapists in private practice, but crying clinics and family counseling centers can also be a point of contact. Whether the health insurance pays for the treatment must be clarified beforehand. In some cases, supplementary insurance for alternative healing methods covers the costs of the treatment.
Addresses for therapists who offer baby therapy can be found on the internet.
EMDR and bilateral stimulation
EMDR is a relatively young method, but it is enjoying increasing popularity and distribution due to its resounding effect. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. In short, a patient is exposed to a reciprocal stimulus while at the same time the stressful memories are recalled. Studies have shown that this leads to a fading or an emotional decoupling of the images. EMDR is used when this stimulation occurs with visual stimuli, but haptic or acoustic stimuli are also possible. This is then referred to as bilateral stimulation.
This method is very promising, especially for colicky babies. However, it can also promote healthy development in any other child, prevent ADD and ADHD, and train perception. It can help the baby to process all traumatic events surrounding birth and pregnancy and bring them to a resolution. This can pave the way for a balanced relationship between the parents and their baby.
Who offers EMDR?
In the case of severe trauma, any attempt at amateur self-treatment is, of course, strongly discouraged. Instead, you should contact an experienced psychotherapist. In less severe cases and for dealing with everyday experiences, midwives, physiotherapists, alternative practitioners and similar professional groups can also help you, provided they have received appropriate additional training. Alternatively, there is also a lot of literature on the subject and even YouTube videos where you can learn a few basic principles yourself. As a technique, EMDR is relatively easy to learn and simple to perform. Minor problems can be solved with it, and you are doing something very good for your child. You can get a first impression in the following video.
Craniosacral therapy for babies
A touch in the right place – and any problems vanish. That may sound a bit unrealistic at first, but it essentially describes the basic idea behind forms of therapy such as manual therapy, osteopathy and also craniosacral therapy.
Especially with babies, amazing effects can be achieved. This could be particularly interesting for you if you have a colicky baby or a baby who has difficulty falling and staying asleep or generally seems dissatisfied.
Craniosacral therapy is basically a subfield of osteopathy, but focuses on the areas of the skull (cranium) and the sacrum (sacrum). Its main focus is the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid between the head and the spine. This circulation creates a rhythmic pulsation that spreads from there throughout the entire body. Poor posture in the body can disturb this rhythm, and the body essentially loses its balance.
A trained therapist can feel such a problem and restore the normal rhythm through targeted touch.
What is the difference between original osteopathy and craniosacral therapy?
In osteopathy, the entire body is treated, while in craniosacral therapy only the above-mentioned area of the head, neck, and spine is addressed. Otherwise, the applications are exactly the same: The therapist works exclusively with their hands.
Craniosacral therapy is even considered the gentlest subfield in the area of osteopathy.
How does a treatment work?
Both osteopathy and craniosacral therapy are excellently suited for babies and children because they are gentle and painless. Babies data-contrast="auto">even fall asleep from time to time during the treatment. The touches are so gentle that they are often hardly felt. Furthermore, the therapy has no side effects.
First, the therapist tries to feel the exact location of the blockage with their hands. Once they have found a corresponding spot, they provide through targeted touch a stimulus, so to speak, for self-healing.
Babies lie on the treatment table directly next to mom or dad, or the parents hold their baby in their arms. If necessary, it is even possible to breastfeed the baby during the treatment. When treating babies, it is particularly important to know and respect the possibilities and limits. In doing so, particular care must be taken to proceed very gently in terms of both vocal and body language.
Before the first session, the therapist clarifies the complaints with the parents.
For which problems can craniosacral therapy be helpful for babies?
Especially in cases of excessive and persistent crying, real success can be achieved with craniosacral therapy. It also promises good healing results for children suffering from KISS syndrome, who often spit up, have a wry neck or other asymmetries. Other areas of application include babies who have experienced a problematic birth and may still be suffering from trauma, as well as babies with a premature birth or after complications during birth, C-section births, babies with sucking problems, babies with unusual movement patterns, multiple births, stressful problem pregnancies, etc. Many parents use this type of therapy for their baby and combine it with another therapy form.
How do you find a good craniosacral therapist?
There has long been a real hype surrounding craniosacral therapy. Accordingly, the range of offers is diverse, and making the optimal decision is often not easy. It is best to ask around among friends, your midwife, your physiotherapist, or on the internet to see who offers such treatments. Some health insurance companies cover part of the osteopathy sessions and thus also craniosacral therapy. Check with your insurance provider about potential subsidies.
Craniosacral therapy is not a substitute for a medical diagnosis and treatment. Rather, your doctor should work together with the craniosacral therapist. For babies who cry a lot, a combination of physiotherapy and craniosacral therapy is also conceivable.
Avoiding critical situations – but how?
Despite all the joy over the new addition to the family, living with an infant primarily means stress. This applies especially when the baby cries excessively. It is obvious that parents then quickly reach the end of their tether. It becomes particularly concerning, however, above all when parents no longer know what to do with their anger and aggression. Due to the constantly crying baby, the situation is tense and the circumstances appear hopeless. The constant lack of sleep drains strength and frays the nerves. The entire daily rhythm gets out of sync. It is understandable that one cannot always manage to stay completely calm.
Yet one had imagined life with a baby to be so beautiful.
But what can parents do about it? Many parents are caught completely off guard by the fact that their entire personal and professional life is turned completely upside down from one moment to the next.
The best strategy is probably to avoid or defuse critical situations from the outset in order to keep stress levels as low as possible, so that feelings of helplessness, anger, and frustration do not become overwhelming.
Daily planning
Especially for young parents, it cannot be said often enough: Do not take on too much in relation to your household in a single day. Make a list of things that absolutely cannot be postponed – the rest will just have to wait. Especially now, in the most stressful time, no windows need to be cleaned and even the deep cleaning of the apartment does not necessarily have to happen immediately.
Furthermore, you should also not expect too much from your child. When one appointment follows the next even for a baby, it is foreseeable that the stress for everyone involved can get out of hand. Stressed parents lead to stressed children, which in turn mean stress for the parents. Give yourself and your little one the time you need.
Avoid visits from people who expect you to host them and present a sparkling clean home. That only puts you under even more pressure right now.
Accepting support options
Accept any help that is offered to you. Regardless of whether it is the neighbor who perhaps brings you something from the shops every now and then, the friend who takes the stroller for a walk, or the grandma who offers to look after your little one for an hour: Every bit of help is worth its weight in gold right now! This allows you to take a breath and get a little bit of distance.
Do something good for yourself!
Being a parent does not mean sacrificing yourself to the point of exhaustion, even if too many parents still believe otherwise. Good parents do not define themselves by the fact that they have no other purpose in life than to look after their offspring around the clock. It is much more important that you can face your child feeling rested and in a good mood, rather than being completely frazzled. However, this only works if you also treat yourself to a break – either all by yourself or together with your partner. Arrange childcare for your little one for this short period, and you're ready to go: maintain your hobbies and your circle of friends. Just be yourself again. If you can recharge your batteries this way every now and then, you will be strengthened again for your duties on the baby front.
Canceling is no disgrace
If you notice that things are getting on top of you, then you are allowed to cancel a visit to grandma or the playgroup. The more you stress yourself out, the more difficult the situation becomes. If a quick shopping trip, after you have picked up your baby from daycare, reliably turns into stress every time, then just skip it and do it another time. Eventually, you will develop a sense of which situations you should avoid under certain circumstances.
Again: Don't take on too much
Say goodbye as quickly as possible to the idea of being a model, picture-perfect family where the house is always sparkling clean and everyone is constantly in a good mood. That is completely unrealistic.
Don't expect too much of yourself. Allow yourself what you would allow anyone else: that you are human beings and not machines. Your strength has limits and needs to be recharged every now and then. Excessive expectations of yourself inevitably lead to frustration and the feeling of not being good enough. But that's nonsense. If you overexploit yourself, you are sawing away at the supporting pillars for the whole family. If it helps: you have to look after yourself for the sole reason of ensuring that you can still take good care of your child in the long term. Because if the parents are gone or lose their minds, the child will definitely need therapy later on.
