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She feeds, she cries – help!

Written by Jane

Tuesday, 29 May 2007

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She feeds, she cries – help!
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Support mother’s milk

If you are breast feeding, your baby can respond to your diet. I’ll never forget how upset my baby was at 7 days old when I had pizza for my birthday! He wouldn’t feed properly for a whole day!! Avoiding onion, garlic and strong spicy foods might help. Eating organic foods, full cream dairy products and avoiding processed foods are all good things to do whenever possible. You can also support positive digestion by drinking tea made from chamomile or basil leaves. Chamomile and Basil contain antispasmodic and sedative properties which may relieve intestinal cramping and induce relaxation. In fact, chamomile contains 19 different antispasmodic constituents, as well as five sedative ones.

Tiredness

A baby who often cries may just be overstimulated. After the first month as eyesight develops babies become more aware of their surrounds. It is very easy for your baby to become overtired which will lead to irritable crying. Tired signs are red rimmed eyes, glazed expression, red eyebrows, rubbing eyes, yawning, fretful crying, jerky movements. Cuddle in a blanket and rock or feed your baby. Don’t worry if they fall asleep on you, this is natural.

Don’t isolate

In the first 12 months of life, your baby needs to be close to you to feel protected and secure to sleep. The risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) is highest in this time, with the first 4 months being most crucial. The practice of control crying, where your child self settles, is very tempting but can backfire. My experience with it and with other parents who have tried it suggests that not every child will settle alone. If she has a sore tummy or is teething this practice can be terrifying for the child, with the result being overtiredness.

Overtired signs

An overtired baby finds it hard to settle. Maybe because they are sore or were woken (by a dirty nappy or a passing motorbike for example) this baby has become too tired to fall asleep. Signs are an arching back, crying for a long period before falling asleep, being unsettled no matter what you do. It takes time to get your baby back to a calm state. Singing a song softly, wrapping or swaddling in a blanket, walking and rocking, gentle stroking, talking very calmly, holding close so that eyes are shielded from looking about, taking into a quiet dark room, all these can help your tired baby unwind.

Look at your baby’s development

One of the first priorities for your baby is to grow their skull plates. Recovery from labour and delivery in natural and caesarean deliveries can lead to flat spots on the skull or kinks in the neck. Crying and yelling increase the pressure in the head (try it for yourself) which allows the skull plates to move. One way to ease this is to see an osteopath who specialises in cranial osteopathy in babies. I have had great success with this, taking my 2 week old helped both skull and digestive development and decreased crying.

Consult a specialist

If your baby is unsettled and this is worrying you, always discuss these symptoms with health professionals. Write down what happens over the 24 hour period so that you can keep the facts straight and look for patterns during the day. It is quite common for babies to have a harder time in the early evening.