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How to Handle a Crying Baby1
Donna Davis2The sound of a newborn baby. It's a sound that evokes a flood of emotion from joy and excitement to worry and anxiety! What should new parents anticipate from a newborn in those first couple months of life? For the most part, it's sleep. While some babies will sleep for long stretches of time, others wake up more frequently. Typically, a baby will sleep about 16 hours a day.
Usually when babies wake up, they may be hungry, have a wet diaper, or need more rest. Some infants are easily comforted while others have a harder time, depending on their temperaments. Even as a newborn, a child has a particular way of approaching the world. Mood, adaptability, activity level, and the ability to calm themselves or to be calmed by a caregiver can all influence these tiny people. Parents need to be patient as they will soon get a sense of how easy or hard it is to determine their infant's needs, sometimes simply by understanding the nature of their baby's cry.
There are many ways to soothe crying infants. The important thing is to respond to a baby's needs with tenderness and care. Some researchers have found that mothers who delayed or failed to respond to their young baby's cries had infants who cried more at the end of the first year. Some experts say it is impossible to spoil a newborn.
Listening, learning, and living together: it's the science of life. "Family Album" is a co-production of University of Florida IFAS Extension, the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences and of WUFT-FM. If you'd like to learn more, please visit our Web site at http://www.familyalbumradio.org .
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Footnotes
1. This document is FAR0003, one of a series of the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. First published November 2007. In the interest of time or clarity, the broadcast version of this script may have been modified. Please visit the EDIS Web site at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu .2. Donna Davis, Senior Producer, Family Album Radio, Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. Reviewed by Suzanna Smith, associate professor, Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, University of Florida, and Executive Producer, Family Album Radio.
The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Opportunity Institution authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliations. For more information on obtaining other extension publications, contact your county Cooperative Extension service.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida, IFAS, Florida A. & M. University Cooperative Extension Program, and Boards of County Commissioners Cooperating. Larry Arrington, Dean.
Copyright Information
This document is copyrighted by the University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) for the people of the State of Florida. UF/IFAS retains all rights under all conventions, but permits free reproduction by all agents and offices of the Cooperative Extension Service and the people of the State of Florida. Permission is granted to others to use these materials in part or in full for educational purposes, provided that full credit is given to the UF/IFAS, citing the publication, its source, and date of publication.