Crying, Colic and Reflux: Why Babies Cry and How to Cope

Crying That Can Mean Illness

Most crying is normal. But crying is also one of the few ways a baby can tell you they are unwell. What matters is not only how much your baby cries, but how they cry and what else you notice.

If you are coming to Limi in an emergency, call 0813 408 5400 on the way so the team can prepare. If you are not sure, use our fever checker.

How Much Crying Is Normal

Crying follows a pattern in most healthy babies. It builds from about two weeks old, peaks at around six weeks, and then eases, so that by three to four months most babies cry much less. At the peak, two to three hours of crying spread across a day is common. Much of it comes in the late afternoon and evening, and some of it cannot be settled however skilled the parent.

This is the "crying curve". Knowing about it helps in two ways: it tells you the hardest weeks will pass, and it tells you that a baby who cries at six weeks is behaving like a six-week-old, not like a baby whose parents are doing something wrong.

Ways to Soothe a Crying Baby

No one method works for every baby, and what works today may not work tomorrow. Try one thing for a few minutes before switching, as changing too quickly can overstimulate a tired baby.

• Hold your baby close, skin to skin if you can. Your heartbeat and warmth are calming.
• Move gently: walk, sway, rock or bounce softly. A walk with the baby in a sling or wrapper on your back or front often helps.
• Try a different hold (see below).
• Make a steady sound: "shhh" close to the ear, humming, a fan, or quiet repetitive music.
• Offer the breast for comfort, or a dummy once breastfeeding is going well, usually after about four weeks.
• Wrap your baby snugly in a thin cloth with the arms in, leaving the hips loose so the legs can bend up and out. Always lay a wrapped baby on their back, and stop wrapping once they start trying to roll.
• A warm bath, then a quiet, dim room.
• Hand over to someone else for a while. A fresh pair of arms often settles a baby, and gives you a break.

The upright hold against your shoulder, with one hand under the bottom and the other on the back, is another that many babies like, especially after feeds. A baby who falls asleep in your arms should be put down on their back in their own cot, not left to sleep on their tummy.

When You Are at Breaking Point

Hours of crying, with little sleep, can make any parent feel desperate, angry or tearful. These feelings do not make you a bad parent. What matters is what you do next. Shaking a baby, even for a few seconds, can cause bleeding in the brain, blindness, lasting disability or death. Babies' heads are heavy and their neck muscles weak, so it takes much less force than people imagine.

1. Put your baby down safely. On their back, in their cot, with nothing else in it. A baby crying in a safe cot for a few minutes will come to no harm.
2. Step out of the room and close the door. Go somewhere you cannot hear the crying so loudly.
3. Take ten minutes to calm down. Breathe slowly, drink some water, sit outside.
4. Call someone. Your partner, a relative, a friend, a neighbour — anyone who can talk to you or come to help.
5. Go back when you feel calmer, and check on your baby.

Share this plan with everyone who looks after your baby — your partner, grandparents, a nanny, older children. Tell them that it is always all right to put the baby down and walk away for a few minutes, and never all right to shake them. If you often feel you cannot cope, or you have thoughts of harming your baby or yourself, tell a doctor or nurse, or call us. Crying babies and low mood after birth often go together, and both get better with help.

Colic

Colic is the name for long bouts of crying in a baby who is otherwise healthy, feeding well and growing. The crying often starts at the same time each day, usually in the evening. The baby may go red in the face, clench their fists and draw up their legs, and be very hard to comfort. Doctors once used a "rule of threes" — crying for more than three hours a day, on more than three days a week, for more than three weeks — but you do not need to count. If your baby is healthy and cries a great deal, that is colic.

Nobody knows exactly what causes it. It is not caused by anything the parents did, and it goes away with time, usually by three to four months and almost always by six months. No medicine has been shown to reliably cure it; ask a doctor before giving any. What helps is the soothing above, breaks for parents, and a doctor's check to make sure nothing else is going on. Bring your baby in if you are not sure it is colic — especially if the crying started suddenly, your baby is not gaining weight, or you notice anything in the red or amber lists.

Posseting, Reflux and GORD

Posseting — bringing up small amounts of milk after feeds — is very common, and so is reflux, where milk comes back up from the stomach because the muscle at the top of the stomach is not yet strong. Around four in ten babies bring up milk regularly in the first months. It usually peaks around four months and stops by the first birthday. If your baby is happy, feeding and growing, it is a laundry problem, not a medical one.

Reflux becomes GORD (gastro-oesophageal reflux disease) when it causes problems: distress and arching during or after feeds, refusing feeds, poor weight gain, or a cough or breathing troubles linked to feeds. Book a check so a doctor can assess it.

Things that can help reflux:

• Hold your baby upright during and for a while after feeds.
• For bottle-fed babies, smaller feeds more often, without increasing the total. Ask a doctor before trying a thickened formula.
• Keep your baby away from tobacco smoke.
• Always put your baby to sleep flat on their back. Sleeping on the tummy or side, or propped up on pillows, does not help reflux and increases the risk of sudden infant death.
• Do not add pap, cereal or anything else to the bottle unless a doctor has advised it.

See a doctor today if vomiting is forceful and shoots across the room, especially in a baby between two and eight weeks old, as this can be a narrowing at the stomach outlet that needs an operation. Green vomit, blood in the vomit, a swollen tummy, or vomiting with fever means come in now.

Could It Be Cow's Milk Allergy?

A small number of crying babies have an allergy to the protein in cow's milk, usually through formula, and less often through a breastfeeding mother's diet. Clues that make it more likely:

• vomiting, diarrhoea, or mucus or blood in the poo
• eczema, or a rash or swelling soon after feeds
• poor weight gain
• a family history of eczema, asthma or allergies

Crying on its own is rarely allergy. If you notice these signs, book a check with a doctor. Do not switch between formulas, or move to goat's milk, soya or "lactose-free" milk on your own, and do not cut foods from your own diet without advice — you may lose nutrition you need without helping your baby. If allergy is likely, the doctor may suggest a trial of a special formula or a supervised change to a breastfeeding mother's diet. Swelling of the face, or difficulty breathing after a feed, means come in now. Read more in our allergies guide.

Remedies to Avoid

Questions Parents Ask