How To Deal With Baby Crying

What are you supposed to do with crying baby? The standard male response is to feign death and hope that someone else in the house will deal with it. One father I know looks for a woman, any woman, to sort out the problem, and that includes neighbours and passers-by. But suppose you are not in a position to delegate. Suppose it is you in the house alone, with a crying baby in the next room and an unread newspaper burning your fingertips. Is it the act of a responsible adult to hide your head under the cushion and/or turn the TV up to full volume? 
 

How To Deal With Baby Crying

Clearly not. So you go into the baby and pick it up, reasoning that it is better to do something than to do nothing, especially if you are to be called to account for your actions later on. In fact this is sound thinking. Even if you haven't the faintest idea what to do next, picking it up tells baby that you are there and you care. Baby does not know that the only thing you care about is baby shutting up. Baby does not need to know. Baby recognizes the love and affection you have to offer, and with a bit of luck, responds to it. Babies need cuddling as fiercely as they need food or sleep. Rocking and swaying and kissing and nuzzling might just do the trick.
 
A word here on general policy. It's important when a baby cries not to convince yourself that he or she is trying to 'manipulate' you or get one up on you. You don't have to be even slightly paranoid to reach this conclusion; all you need is to be tired and anxious, which describes all of us at one time or other.

Later on, as baby turns into toddler and starts to learn the rules of life, it might well try to get its own way by any means possible. Tiny babies, though, are as capable of manipulating you as they are of playing snooker. Their needs are primal. They cannot survive without you. If you can rid yourself of all thoughts of manipulation, and just accept that for a while you are this baby's slave, you will be more relaxed and so better placed to solve baby's problems. Whereas if you believe baby is wrapping you around its little finger, you will be too busy thinking about this to solve baby's problems, which could make things worse.
 
Everyone has an opinion on this. Respond quickly to your baby's cries and clucking old busybody relatives will be sure to tell you that you are teaching the child 'bad habits'. They may even use the S-word. 'You spoil that child, you do.' Send these ancients on their way. If you want to teach a baby 'bad habits' the best way is to ignore it completely. Then it becomes clingy and attention-seeking or worse: it withdraws into itself, expecting nothing from anybody. Boys, for some reason, get more of this 'tough love', which does no one any good.
 

As it happens, it is literally impossible to spoil a baby. All but the most brutal childcare experts agree on this. Oh yes, you can buy too many toys for your baby, feed it foie gras and take it on holidays to the Bahamas, but none of this will make the smallest impact (other than the foie gras, which will give it the most appalling bellyache). Love and affection are what babies need, and virtually all they need, beyond the basics. You can never cuddle a baby too much. And all this matters most in the first weeks of its life. This is when the template is set, when the ways baby will respond to you and to the rest of humanity are to a great extent defined. To find out more, you can check out How To Deal With Baby Crying.