
4) Soothing
“My baby is often grizzly, and most of the time I don’t know what’s wrong. It makes me feel like a bad mum – how will I know how to soothe her?”
Firstly, let’s deal with how to know what’s wrong. You need this mental checklist of things that may be making your baby cry:
Go through and eliminate each option until you get an idea of what’s behind her crying. If you’re still having trouble, it’s sometimes best to simply put her down in her cot and walk away, giving you both a bit of space.
Secondly, there’s the issue of becoming more confident about knowing what she needs. To do that, keep what I call a ‘baby log’ – a record of what your baby’s done. This needs to include info such as:
- The time of her last feed
- How long she fed for/how much milk she drank
- When she last slept
- How long she slept for
- When she last did a poo
There’s so much overload as a new mum and it’s easy to forget what you’ve done, when. Keeping a record means you’re more informed about what could be making her cry. As a result, you’ll feel more confident about the decisions you make. For example, you’ll be able to say, “I know she’s not hungry because I fed her 20 minutes ago.”
Mum’s story: “The best piece of advice I was ever given was that sometimes babies cry for no reason. And as long as she’s fed, changed, not ill, but still crying, pop her in a safe place to let off steam for a minute and have a break rather than getting stressed.” Lorna Majors, 24, from Cheltenham, mum to Annabelle, 3 months