One characteristic that sets adults apart from newborns is, without a doubt, the ability to speak;

when we feel discomfort, annoyance, or pain, when we're hungry or need help, we communicate it through language, adjusting the tone and choice of words based on the emotional nuances we're experiencing at that moment.

In a newborn, this communicative ability is contained in a single word: crying. Crying is in fact the only effective means the baby has to be noticed, listened to, and understood.

To fully understand a newborn's crying, we first need to learn to think of it as a genuine psychological adaptive behavior that reflects their inner state; it is a system of signals that draws the parents' attention and signals an immediate need for their presence.

There are different types of crying, in terms of rhythm, tone, and latency (that is, the time that passes before it begins):

  • hunger
  • discomfort: caused by an uncomfortable, unsuitable environment, or by the need to be cleaned and changed
  • pain: piercing and sharp, usually followed by a brief pause in breathing and further crying that often continues even when the baby is picked up and comforted
  • colic and digestive discomfort
  • boredom: faint
  • tiredness and tension release: rhythmic, recurring regularly, usually at the end of the day, and serving to release the tension built up during the day as part of adjusting to the cyclical succession of sleep-wake states (roughly every 4 hours); for this reason, it is advisable to let the baby cry it out, even briefly. This period reaches its most intense phase at six weeks and gradually decreases until it disappears around the twelfth week, as the baby's emotional and psychological system matures
  • urgent request: for example, if the baby feels cold or hot, or needs a change of position held for too long

It takes a new mother about three weeks to learn to tell them apart.

Meeting the need expressed in a baby's cry is one of the first challenges new parents face, and it forces them to search for a solution; over time, and through many attempts, they learn to understand and anticipate how the newborn moves between different states of consciousness (sleep and wakefulness), to tell the different types of crying apart, and to understand what works to soothe them, gaining confidence each time their efforts succeed.

When crying, the baby moves about continuously; the movements appear fairly organized, and the baby may sometimes settle briefly, as if listening to something.

Attempts to soothe the baby vary depending on their needs: feeding them, changing their diaper, adjusting their position, stroking their tummy, looking at them and speaking in a soothing voice, picking them up to burp them or simply to rock them and let them feel your presence and your scent, making them feel held the way they did in the womb, and giving them your affection.

The advice is not to pay too much attention to the false myth of the spoiled newborn: it is not possible to «spoil» a baby by meeting their needs during the first year of life.

Caring for the baby by responding calmly, gently, and empathetically to meet their needs, giving them time to experience the changes offered to them, and providing them with protection will not have this effect, since parents and children learn from one another, and the baby will gradually learn to scale back their distress. On the contrary, responding often with tension, nervousness, anxiety, and constant intervention can reinforce their reaction, pass these feelings on to them, and make them grow up whiny, fearful, and oversensitive, interfering with their self-soothing patterns (which they will gradually acquire, for example by bringing a hand to their mouth, listening to an adult's voice, or looking at lights and colors after being picked up).

Finally, another means of communication, perhaps the most effective one a baby has to reach straight into their parents' hearts, is without a doubt their smile, the best reward for all your efforts.

Bibliography

  • Brazelton T.B., Il bambino da 0 a 3 anni, Trebaseleghe (PD), BUR Rizzoli Parenting, 2018, 3rd edition
  • Honegger Fresco G., Valpiana T., Abbiamo un bambino, guida per i nuovi genitori, Castelnuovo del Garda (VR), Edizioni del Baldo, 2013