Book of Crying Baby
When a new baby cries parents often feel anxious. It’s not easy to work out the cause and find the right solution.Extreme tiredness can make things all the more difficult. In the beginning it is not always easy to recognise whether a baby is hungry, tired, hurt, in need of comfort or bored and it takes time to adapt to the character of your child. This helpful book will answer your questions and provide useful support.• Why babies cry• Recognising the sounds and what they mean• Getting to know your child’s personality• Feeding and routine• Colic, teething and other possible causes• When to consult an expert• How other parents manage
Читать Book of Crying Baby онлайн беплатно
Thorsons/National Childbirth Trust Publishing
Thorsons is an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published by Thorsons and National Childbirth Trust 1998
Copyright © NCT Publishing 1998
Anna McGrail asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007614226
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008235437
Version: 2016-11-22
Contents
All babies cry. Weâve all heard babies crying before so we know what it sounds like. What can come as a shock to a new parent, however, is the way the sound of our own babyâs crying can produce such a profound and instinctive reaction in us. When the crying goes on and on, that sound can become unbearable.
Yesterday evening, I was walking home through the park. It was a beautiful summer evening with the sun slanting low through the trees. Along the path ahead of me was a father pushing a baby in a pram. I could see a small fist waving out of the pram, then the blanket got kicked in the air, then, as I got closer, I heard the crying. A cross cry, a cry of rage. Against the trees and the sunset, how tiny it seemed. But how loud that crying must have sounded inside a house. How it must have reverberated off the walls. I would like to say that by the time we reached the park gates, the crying had subsided, but it hadnât. The baby was still cross about something. But the father wasnât.
The message of this book is that there are strategies for coping with a crying baby. We look at these in the context of normal patterns of crying, including three-month âcolicâ, the links with feeding and sleeping, and, more widely, the effect of a crying baby on the relationship between a couple and on family life. Parents have come forward with many ideas on how to soothe a baby, which we set out in detail, and while these may not provide you with an instant âcureâ for your babyâs crying, it is possible that they might. What they are more likely to do is help you understand the reasons why babies cry, why some cry more than others and, even if you canât stop the crying, how you can cope with it. Some of the hardest things that the parents of a crying baby have to fight against are a loss of confidence in their own abilities as parents, and the frustration, depression and anger that can result. I have two children and my first, Ben, was a classic âcrying babyâ. I wanted to write this book because, even though he has now grown out of it (after all, he is nine), I remember vividly the loneliness and frustration of those early days.
The parents who contributed to the book became known to me in three ways: there were parents I met in my work as a postnatal supporter with the National Childbirth Trust; there were parents who took the trouble to write to me after we put an ad in the NCTâs national magazine, New Generation; and there were friends who contacted me when they heard I was working on the book and who wanted to say something that might just help someone else who was going through the experience. And it is an experience that, if you havenât been through it yourself, is impossible to explain.
My thanks go to all the parents who shared their thoughts and feelings so honestly and openly and who spent time writing down the details of what life was like with their crying baby. Many of them ended their accounts with a phrase like âI hope this helps someoneâ. Although their stories are often painful, the underlying message is that if you can find ways of coping with the dark days of crying, the experience may even forge a stronger bond between you and your baby. All the things in this book are meant to help, and my hope is that some of them do.
Anna McGrail
August 1998
When our baby cries, few of us can ignore it. Each tiny being comes programmed with an alarm system which sets our own responses of adrenaline into motion. We rush into action because it is our deep instinct to do what we can to stop the crying. This is a natural response because crying is a survival mechanism for babies: unable to do anything for themselves, they need to provoke someone into providing them with warmth, sustenance, comfort and affection. But if we canât make the crying stop, our own heart rates and tensions increase, which can make coping with the crying even more stressful, however much we may try to deal with the situation logically.
