Calm Your Crying Baby

There are many calming techniques for infants. Finding the right techniques for your baby depends on their unique personality and needs. Most importantly, babies can sense when there parents are nervous and unsure of themselves and react with fussiness. If you are not comfortable then they most certainly won’t feel comfortable! Relax…and enjoy this time with your baby.

Babies have a reflex with their arms called the Moro reflex in which they fling their arms out. All babies have this reflex with some being stronger than others. This reflex is active until four months old when it disappears. Many babies have repeated Moro reflex movements, which is involuntary movement. These movements can wake a baby from a deep sleep or prevent them from feeling comfortable laying down on their own. The way to intervene would be to swaddle your baby. Use a “stretchy” blanket for better results & place it in a diamond shape, folding one of the corners down slightly. Place your baby’s head at the folded down part of the blanket. Straighten your baby’s arms so they are each laying against their side and wrap one side corner of the blanket over baby and under the arm on the other side. Do the same for the other side and then fold up the bottom. Many babies will be calm and relaxed wrapped up like this.

Another thing that will calm infants is sucking, which not only fulfills a functional nutritional need but also fulfills the need to feel comfortable and “organized.” Give your fussy baby a pacifier and let them suck on it when you are not feeding them. Keep in mind that infants cannot always hold the pacifier in their mouths and will push it out. This is due to the tongue thrust that is needed at this age for feeding. So, if your baby spits the pacifier out it many not necessarily mean that they didn’t want it. Put it right back in for them! Sucking is very calming for many infants.

Many infants respond to motion as a calming technique. A swing, rocking chair, car ride or infant seat on top of the clothes washer (of course, with you there & them buckled in) calm many babies. These repeated motions “rock” the baby and distract them away from what they were upset about.