Wrapped Around Her Finger

Baby Instructions: Why is my baby crying?

Babies cry for lots of reasons. They are tired, hungry, bored, too hot, too cold, or they just want to cry.

Their cries have baffled first time parents to the point of tears. All parents thinks they should know what this screaming little bundle of joy is trying to tell them. And if they don't, they have failed as parents.

As we all know, babies come without instructions and learning to decipher those baby sounds may take a few weeks.

Many experts believe that crying is a state of being for a newborn, like sleeping.

Dr. Marc Weissbluth, pediatrician and author of “Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child,” has a nursery rhyme about crying babies. "Babies cry like birds fly: It's part of being the creature we are."

Dr. Harvey Karp, author of “Happiest Baby on the Block,” says; "Babies are like smoke alarms: You can't tell if you burned the toast or if the whole house is burning down."

I've had many frantic phone calls from parents asking me to listen to their baby's cries as they put them on speaker. The call usually goes like this:

"'My baby is hysterical, I don't know why she won't stop crying, can you listen and tell me what's wrong?"

To my trained ears, the baby is not hysterical, she's not in pain and the cry is a kvetchy, annoyed cry that says, something is wrong, but it's not that bad. But to mommy and daddy's ears, this is really bad.

So I go through the following check-list. As we go through the list, the crying mystery is usually solved. But this is not to say that If I feel the baby is crying in pain, a phone call or trip to the pediatrician may be in order. Here's the list:

— Is the baby hungry?

— Does she need to burp?

— Does she need a diaper change?

— Is she too hot or too cold?

— Is the elastic on her diaper pinching?

— Are her clothes too tight?

— Does she have a piece of hair wrapped around her finger or his penis?

— Is she over-tired and is it time for a nap?

— Is she running a fever?

— Is she teething?

Here are a few guidelines to help you translate those sobs.

Is Baby Hungry?

If your baby's cries are high-pitched and sound pretty desperate, and she is wiggly and rooting around with her mouth when you pick her up, this could signal hunger.

But with all that crying, she may may have swallowed a lot of air and need to burp. Try burping first, then the bottle or breast. Babies sometimes just need a little extra milk to top off their feeding.

Cynthia Meyers-Hanson: Wrapped around Her Finger

“I’m telling mom!” As a child, that became my mantra as I cried at her feet trying to recount why my tears flowed. I found unless a situation could be remedied by me I’d weep- again. I wrote diaries about being the ‘middlest’ child. My first nom de plume could have been Cry Baby; mom nicknamed me Cinder Ella. Was she insinuating that my siblings might not be related to me or that I was worthy of Prince Charming? My latest release is a children’s book called Just ME; as a middle child, the main character daydreams of being someone special; she’s wishing her life away! Meanwhile, God led me to my first published book at thirty-three; my tale makes people cry with me until they spot miracles in my book- Mom’s on the Roof.... Before I wrote about ‘life after death,’ Christian based NDEs, etc.- I was a ‘computer system analyst’ college major. It makes sense that my first book was non-fiction; some call it fantasy. Now, that that’s out of the way, when I write non-fiction telling the whole truth, I use my name or Cynthia Meyers-Hanson. If I embellish, take poetic license, and tell my side of- I mean the main character’s side of- a story I use my pen name or Sydney S. Song.

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