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Crying Baby, Sleepless Nights

Why Your Baby Is Crying and What You Can Do About It

By Sandy Jones

What is normal to these researchers might be quite worrisome to you, and might be considered a cause for alarm in a country where babies are generally given closer nurturing than they are in the United States. In India and Africa babies are carried by their mothers or other family members all day long and kept beside them at night, but here many babies are expected to be content in nonhuman baby holders such as cribs, playpens, car seats, and strollers. And this treatment usually leads to more crying.

Will you spoil your baby by carrying her too much, by answering her cries too quickly, or by getting into the habit of going to her when she wakes up over and over during the night? A lot of parents worry about this -- especially when their babies are extra demanding. Fatigue can make you question whether you're falling into a trap of being manipulated by your baby. Doctors and relatives may try to convince you that you are.

"Maybe I'm being too soft on her. Maybe my baby needs to be shown who's boss," you say to yourself. So you stop going to your baby when she cries, or you chide her for making demands. But she only cries harder and longer.

Research has shown that parents who are the most afraid of spoiling their babies are the most likely to produce children who act spoiled. By taking longer to answer, these parents get accustomed to the crying, and so distance themselves from their babies even more. The baby's trust in her caregivers begins to erode, which makes her quicker to cry and harder to soothe. Eventually she grows into a clingy, overly demanding and insecure toddler.

Parents' attitudes even during pregnancy can affect how they respond to their babies after birth. One study showed that expectant parents who said they were hesitant to pick up babies for fear of spoiling them were more liable to produce babies who cried long and frequently than were expectant parents who believed babies' cries should be answered right away.

Want to see more?

• Read Part Two here