Most, if not all parents are cry sensitive
When I was a first time mom, I believed that baby’s only cry when they are close to dying. Hence the reason I was in a complete panic the first time I took my baby home and he did not stop crying!
However, babies cry. Period. Studies suggest a newborn cries on average 2-3 hours a day!
All babies cry. Sometimes because they are wet, uncomfortable, unhappy and/or hungry, and sometimes just because they are babies. And babies cry. A lot. To expect your child to never cry is unrealistic and unnatural.
Crying and Mom
If we know this, why is it that our baby’s crying bothers us so much? According to Dr. Aletha Solter in her book, “Tears and Tantrums”: “Children’s tears and tantrums elicit strong feelings in adults. A survey in the US asked new mothers to describe their feelings when they were unable to quiet their crying infants. The mothers mentioned feeling exasperated, afraid, anxious, unloving, resentful and confused. Biologically our heart rates rises and our blood pressure – when our children cry. We have been made to react when our child cry’s. It is the beautiful way we’ve been created.
Why does a child crying bother us so much?
Because it is loud! Very loud! The Decibel – abbreviated dB – is the unit used to measure how loud a sound is. A baby cries at around 110 dB! To put this into perspective, an alarm clock is around 80dB and an ambulance siren is just slightly louder at 120dB! So when your baby cries it is like putting an alarm clock next to your ear. This is also the reason I encourage my clients to put off that monitor next to their ears. If your child’s room is close to yours you will hear him/her cry!
What is my point?
My point is that baby’s cry. They cry loudly and they cry a lot. It is unnatural to “like” it when your baby cries, nobody does. However, there is such a thing as “good crying”.
Let me explain: when your child is sad, he/she should be allowed to cry. Scientist believe that crying could be a safety mechanism of sorts because it rids the body of stress-related toxins. Furthermore, if your toddler plays with something dangerous it is in the best interested of your child to remove that item from him. If you’ve ever dealt with a two year old, then you’d know that he will cry loudly when you do this. But should we then rather give him back this dangerous item because he gets emotional about it?
The same goes for sleep. Sometimes your child will protest because you don’t allow him/her to drink a bottle 5 times during the night, or because you force him/her to go to bed at 7pm. But we are parents for a reason – we can’t always allow our children to have what they want even though they cry about it.
Your child protesting or crying should not be a reason for you to not implement good sleep hygiene!
#sleeptraining