Health Care for Children

Touch
 
Baby felt cozy and safe during those nine months in your belly. Which is why he also loves it when you cuddle and swaddle him. What’s more, “during pregnancy, babies experience a lot of motion as their moms walk and move around,” Jones says. “Unless your baby is in pain, hungry, or easily overstimulated, motion can usually help him stop crying.”

Try this: Cuddling and holding your baby can provide the same close, cradled feeling your little one had in utero. Add a gentle massage with a little baby oil and you may find the solution you were looking for, Dr. Tolcher says.

Swaddling, which means that you wrap your baby tightly in a blanket, can reap the same results. First off, it can prevent a crying spell. But it can also keep a minor crying spell from turning into hysterics. “The more frantically a baby cries, the harder it is for him to turn it down,” Jones explains. “Confining his body can help the baby recompose himself.”

Some parents swear by basic activities like carrying your baby in a soft front carrier or taking him for a drive in the car. Others find more creative ways to mellow their babies. Judy Hudson, a mother of three who lives in New York City, would sit on an exercise ball and bounce while singing. “The song wasn’t as important as the bouncing motion, which did wonders for my twins,” she says. And of course, a baby swing or vibrating seat can soothe too.

Taste
 
“The sucking reflex is hardwired into the infant brain,” Kundhardt says. “It’s also among an infant’s most soothing activities and an important way for her to release tension even after she’s had her fill of milk.”

Try this: Your baby’s wails may simply be cries of hunger, so try nursing her or offering a bottle. If your child tends to get fussy after a meal, reflux may be what’s bothering her. If so, feed her in an upright position and keep her that way for 15 to 20 minutes afterward. However, some babies have a need to suck even when they’re not hungry; in this case, a pacifier can help.

Smell
 
Men love the intoxicating scent of a woman. Babies love the intoxicating scent of their mom. “Babies can recognize the smell of their mother, especially the smell of her breast or breast milk,” Dr. Tolcher says. Your scent, combined with your familiar voice and contact with your body, can be all he needs to calm down. “Also, some babies need more body-to-body contact than others do,” Kunhardt says. “If your baby is like this, by all means hold him as much as you want or can.”

Try this: The how-to for this strategy is pretty simple. Cuddle your baby close to your skin, let him breathe in your mommy scent, and enjoy his sweet baby smell too. Rest your baby snugly against your shoulder, or try the football hold (place his stomach on your arm while you support his neck and chin with the palm of your hand). You may also find it helpful to expose your child to calming scents such as lavender and vanilla. In fact, some baby brands offer washes and lotions in these fragrances for this reason. (But steer clear of too-strong perfumes or scents, which can be irritating.) When my son Jonathan was born, the washing machine trick that worked like a charm with my daughter Lily didn’t do a thing to halt his tears. I experimented with other tactics and finally found that a rubdown with a lavender-scented lotion mellowed him out. Now, even four years later, it still does the trick on a night when he just can’t settle down.

When Baby Has Colic
 
To new moms, “colic” is a dirty word. “Between 10 and 25 percent of babies develop colic, defined as excessive, unrelenting crying during the first three months of life in an otherwise healthy baby,” says Jodi Mindell, PhD, a sleep expert with St. Joseph’s University, in Philadelphia. If your baby cries for three hours a day, three days a week, for at least three weeks, the culprit is likely colic. Up to 25 percent of babies are believed to have it, but because it’s a behavioral problem of excessive crying and not actually a disease, the diagnosis is very subjective.

Colic’s actual cause remains a mystery. Experts once thought that it was a digestive problem because colicky babies often pull up their legs and cry out in pain. But there is no concrete link between tummy troubles and colic. While colicky babies may indeed be more gassy, it’s probably the crying that causes the stomach upset rather than the other way around.

The good news about colic: it’s relatively short-lived. “Around three months, these babies will seem miraculously cured,” Mindell says. Until then, the best remedies are the techniques described on these pages-you just may need to do more of them more often to reap results.