crying

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wandasmart

New member
my baby girl is constantly crying and we are battling whether to pick her up or not all the time? some say that if we do all the time, she will be spoilt into wanting to be picked up all the time.. others feel it is not good to let her cry. she's 3 weeks old.

i have read about controlled crying.. but have been told by one friend that it was safe to do after 5-6 mnths..

does anyone have any advice for a new mom/dad?

we have ended up picking her up nonstop and she stops until we try to put her down to sleep
 
My personal opinion?
She just needs a cuddle. She just spent 9 months of constant contact inside mommy's womb. I read from somewhere that you can never spoil a young infant. The longer you respond to her cry, the harder it is to interpret the reason of her cry 'cause the baby can get so upset that she doesn't remember what started the fuss in the first place. Of course this doens't mean that you have to drop everything your'e doing when your baby cries though :P

Try swaddling - it offers comfort and warmth to young infants. This also prevents them from their uncontrolable reflexes movements that often startle them.
I often cuddled, rocked and sang to my babies as well. Maybe these give them the sense of security and closeness.
Do you know if your baby has colic? Make sure you burp your baby after feeding. Or you can easily get colic drops from Watsons to help your baby get rid of the air in the tummy.
Maybe your baby is hungry? Check if your baby is having enough if you're breastfeeding.
Could be stomach upset too. Make sure you don't eat anything that might upset your young baby's stomach. I had lots and lots of oranges after I gave birth to my third girls and later on realized that it was too acidic for her delicate stomach. As soon as I stopped taking oranges, she cried much less.
Or how about the temperature? Too warm or too cold?

Last but not least, you can also read a lot from this book called "What To Expect The First Year" which is written by the same author who wrote "What To Expect When You're Expecting".

Good Luck!
 
you can't spoil a 3 week old... there is a reason for her crying, it's up to you to figure out what it is.

that said, my boy is now just over 7 months. he and i had an argument last night about how he was going to go to sleep. he's used to being rocked to sleep and as a 1 month old or even as a 4 month old, that's fine, but i decided that it was time for him to learn how to do it himself.

i made sure that he was clean, fed, watered(had milk), right temp and then i left him. i gave him a kiss and said good night. he was fine for about 10 minites, then the crying started... it lasted for 1 hour. then he slept for 11.5!!

i'll be doing the same tonight, until he can do it on his own every night.

but again, 3 weeks is WAY too young! it is impossible to spoil a baby that age. definitely give her a cuddle. there is a world of difference between a 3 week old(or even 3 month old) and a 3 year old who screams and cries when they don't get their way!
 
i think she needs more then a cuddle? we spent the last 3 days constantly carrying her around the flat.. everytime she nodded off, we would put her into either her moses basket in our bedroom, or her cot in the nursery and even a mothercare rocker.. but she would start crying.. in fact screaming as soon as she was put down. so we'd pick her up again only to have it happen over and over and over.

it happend during the day and also at night.. thankfully last nite was a little better but then today it has started all over again. no one in the home is getting any rest from her very loud high pitched screams...
 
If you have difficulty finding books by Dr William Sears in Hong Kong the La Leche League has a number of his titles in our library, including The Fussy Baby and Nighttime Parenting.

Contact Maggie on 2817-7475 to get the details of how to borrow the books,
SARAH
 
mammalicious, I can imagine what you are going through - I was shocked at how much my baby cried as a newborn. I know it's hard just trying to get through each day at the moment but I remember my friends saying it would get much easier around 3 months, and they were absolutely right. It may seem like an eternity to wait, but it seems most babies calm down a lot towards the end of the "fourth trimester" (as Dr. Karp calls it, who gives good & gentle advice in his book for dealing with newborn crying in his book "the happiest baby on the block"). Just as ollyvia mentioned, he reiterates how difficult it is for our precious little ones to deal with being out in the big, wide world after being so cosied up in mommy's womb for 9 months. Don't worry if you are at the end of your tether and need to leave them crying for a few minutes while you just sit down, have a cup of coffee, grab a shower or do whatever else to keep your sanity. But cuddle, carry and rock them as much as you can - my husband and I spent hours each day doing this and it definitely didn't spoil our little one, who seemed to magically stop crying as much around 10 weeks. One practical bit of advice passed on by someone else which worked wonders - try sitting with your baby on an exercise/fit ball and bouncing up and down - it calmed our baby instantly!
 
Yes, mammalicious, hang on in there. The first few weeks were tough too with my twins. But things got better from 3 mths onwards. My friend's baby was like that too, the moment mommy puts her down, she'll give a glaring look like 'get moving, woman!' Gentle bouncing motion did help my babies. I didn't use a fit ball but I kind of sat at the edge of the mattress & bounce up & down gently a few times until they calmed down. I also used a baby sling from www.momsinmind.com since they liked being carried around all the time & it helped by letting me get things done in & out of the house. I also learn not to put them down too soon. When I lift up one of their legs & let go & it flopped back limply without any reaction, the baby was most likely to be sleeping but if the baby moved, she was just catnapping so I couldn't put her down yet. Yes, it can take hours before the lil stinkers were willing to let go. Hard to believe now, one day you'll look back & have a good laugh.
 
thanks all! will try some of the techniques to see which works.. also Sarah will call maggie for borrowing some books! THANKS!
 
Just want to add that it is important to make sure her little nostrils are clean! My baby were crying non-stop until we clean them out...
 
Crying baby

Also make sure she is getting enough to eat. W/ my first baby, she was very cranky and it wasn't until I showed my GP how I nursed her that she (the GP) showed me a better way to latch her on so she could get enough w/ each nursing.

The 3 month thing is very true. W/ my second baby (who cried even more than the first) I lept telling myself "100 days, you know it will be much better in 100 days" and it was. I counted them off like a prisoner in a cell.

The sling helps tons. Go out and about w/ baby in the sling and it can really improve your frame of mind.

Good luck
 
leungpapamama

how do i clean out her nostrils? i was told to never stick anything into her little nose and ears... i have a suction but because of the warning, i have not dared to use it.
 
Crying

Hi

Just wanted to say hang in there, as a first time mom it can all be a bit overwhelming. Our daughter had alot of colic symptoms for the first three months, I am a baby massage instructor and it did help alot to calm her. If she can't bear to be without you try the sling as at least you can carry on with other things and she will find great comfort in that. It really helps if she gets decent sleep during the day she will be alot more settled at night. Try to put a piece of your clothing near her when you put her down as the familiar smell will help. If she has wind try pushing her knees into her tummy and hold for 10 sec then stretch her legs out while gently bouncing them this will help relax her tummy and move any gas. Also use a gentle bicycle motion with her legs into her tummy. I know that the general advice is to put her to sleep on her back but as soon as we put our daughter to sleep on her tummy it made the world of difference. We did that at around 3 weeks BUT she did have a alot of neck and head control and is quite strong. I have the angelcare monitor which helped put me at ease.

I agree that she is too young for controlled crying but I honestly wish that we had tried more things to help our daughter learn to self soothe herslef at that age as it only gets harder. She is now 7 months and still wakes frequently at night, I have tried the crying but only let her cry for 15 min max. But it hasn't worked well and has disrupted her whole routine so we will be trying a few other things before resorting to the crying again.

Sorry for the long post but hope this helps.
 
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