All babies cry more or less. After all, this is the only means of communication available to them besides body language. But how much crying is normal? Is there even a standard? And at what point should you start to worry? We explore all these questions in this article.
How much crying is normal for a baby?::/H2
When the baby cries incessantly, desperate parents often comfort themselves with the fact that this is actually quite normal. After all, all babies cry. However, there are also experts who see it completely differently. In their opinion, excessive crying of a baby is anything but normal.
Crying from a biological perspective
Before learning to speak, a newborn has only one way to attract attention: crying. This is the only way it can tell its parents that it is missing something. However, opinions on the biological purpose of crying are divided. Crying consumes huge amounts of energy, which would actually be needed for growth in this phase.
Furthermore, crying was a doubtful strategy in early history. While it alerted parents or other members of the clan or tribe, it could also attract predators at the same time. In the animal kingdom, young animals also make signal sounds, but this usually only happens when the mother is in the immediate vicinity. However, there is one exception: in the event of acute danger, a loud alarm is sounded.
Applied to the baby, it could be concluded that crying is also a signal of extreme distress for infants – the last available means to attract attention when yawning, whining, or smacking lips has not helped.
Crying is a distress signal
Crying is a distress signal to which adults react instinctively. That is why it is also difficult for us to overhear or even ignore. These are unconscious mechanisms that used to serve the survival of our species. Today, the situation for crying children is usually objectively less dramatic, but that does not change the fact that their sounds still go right through us.
If it is not possible to calm the little screamer, it triggers stress and frustration. Many parents feel like failures in this role when the little one keeps crying despite all their efforts.
Letting them cry? Absolutely not
Even if you are at a loss for the moment, it is still not an alternative to let the baby cry it out. When your baby cries, there is always a reason. Perhaps it needs closeness or is afraid of being alone. Whatever it may be, your child needs you at that moment. If its crying and weeping are ignored, it feels abandoned and the basic trust so important for its later development is damaged.
Apart from that, the strategy of letting them cry is no solution. In its distress, the child will rather continue to cry and even step it up a notch until it eventually falls asleep, presumably exhausted. By that time, a lot of trust has already been broken.
Is crying normal now or not?
Since not all babies are the same, a definition of normality is difficult anyway: one child is naturally a real ray of sunshine and hardly ever cries, the other has a rather gloomy disposition and is crying almost all the time. But even in the second case, it would be negligent to define crying as normality. No baby cries just like that without a reason. When babies cry, from their perspective, there is an emergency that needs to be resolved. A crying baby can also be an indication of a birth trauma.
In that sense, it is not normal when babies cry a lot, but rather extreme distress. That may not contribute to reassurance now, but at least it gives you a clear direction. Instead of ignoring the child and leaving it to its pain, you should give it as much closeness, warmth, and love as you possibly can. Even if your baby does not want to calm down in your presence: Let it feel that you are there and that you care. That alone is very comforting, even if the child does not stop crying immediately.
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