Womb to Bloom - Maternity & Beyond

No one likes to hear a baby cry. Most people find the sound of a baby crying annoying, and even if they don’t, they tend to feel bad for the baby. When it is your baby screaming her head off, it makes you feel even worse. I was a go-to babysitter for my two little sisters all through out my teen years and felt I was completely inured to babies crying.

Then I had twin girls and found out that what you may be completely ok with ignoring from a little sister breaks your heart when your baby does it. So it if it is so awful, how do you learn to let your baby cry? Well, like anything else, it takes practice. At least that is how I learned how to let my babies cry. That and ear plugs anyway (just kidding… my husband wouldn’t let me put them in when I tried it).  

You might be wondering to yourself why you should let your baby cry. It’s bad for babies to cry, right? They might be hurt or be suffering from a super stinky diaper or something. I guess I should clarify. I’m not talking about letting your baby cry in all situations. I’m talking about in specific circumstances, such as when the baby needs to go to sleep or when you realize those new freckles are specks of dirt and you just have to take a shower.

One of the most important things a baby learns to do in her first few months is to sleep. I’m afraid that crying is a huge part of that process; at least it is for most babies. My husband and I started training our twin girls to sleep and eat on a schedule when they were only about a month old.

As we went through the process, they did their fair share of crying. After a few months, they started sleeping really well at night, but they still were doing a lot of crying during the day. When they were under two months, we tended to go in shortly after they started crying. We would pick them up and cuddle for a little bit but then would put them back in their cribs.

As they got older, we let more time elapse before we went in to reassure them. By four months, we started letting them cry for about 20 minutes before going in to check on them. Most of the time, they had settled down on their own before the 20 minutes was up. Unless you have a colicky or a particularly stubborn baby, your baby will most likely respond like my twins. It is true that sometimes it takes iron nerves to hear your baby cry like that. However, it will be worth it in the end when she starts to sleep better with less crying.

One of the most important things letting the girls cry taught us was to know the difference in their cries. Normally they do the classic cry at a fairly consistent decibel level. When their cries become sharp or more frantic, we know something is wrong and that we need to go into their room to see what is happening.

Usually, one of the babies has some body parts hanging outside the crib or has a dirty diaper. All babies cry for a variety of reasons, so it is good to learn how your baby normally cries. That way you know when you really need to respond to them and when you can let them cry.

While my twins are not colicky, the little stinkers can be quite stubborn. It doesn’t always work to let them cry it out because from time to time they will cry the entire time we have them down in their cribs.

When that happens, we don’t beat ourselves up for being bad parents or worry over much about them sleeping the right amount. We just get them up and let them play for a bit. Then they frequently sleep better during their next nap. It all tends to even out. Learning to let the babies cry is what gave us the confidence to do this.

We know that even though they may cry, they’ll be ok. We are doing them a favor by letting them learn to self soothe and doing ourselves a favor by not driving ourselves crazy trying to respond to every noise they make.