Have you ever watched a small child fall down, or hit their head on something? The first thing they do is look at you for a reaction. If you can train yourself to laugh at them, the child will laugh instead of cry. However, your instinct may be to worry (Are you hurt?) and immediately the child will start crying over a skinned knee or sore forehead.
This may not be entirely news to you, but it isn’t exactly common knowledge either. What’s more is that babies are the same way.
Babies can’t walk, so they haven’t yet reached that clumsy stage of bashing heads or tripping over their own feet. Before they ever reach that point, you should have already trained yourself to control your reaction. This trick is the most important thing you can do when you’re taking care of a baby.
Babies only have two ways to communicate with you, because they can’t talk yet. (Although when they coo, they are telling you wonderful stories.) If a baby is happy, or gassy, or getting ready to poop… they tell you by smiling at you. It’s up to you to decipher which message they are conveying. (Just a hint, especially with younger babies, the bigger the smile the more likely it is either of the latter.)
Everything else with your baby is crying. Babies can be content themselves, surrounded by brightly colored objects or sitting in a swing. (My 3 month old likes to watch bright cartoons from 9 to 11 while I clean in the morning.) You know they’re content when they are either quiet, or cooing. Yet when they cry… there is something bothering them. It’s up to you to diagnose and fix the problem.
Learn to Control Your Reactions
First and most important… whatever you were doing, or thinking about doing, is not more important than your baby. So don’t get annoyed. If you are easily irritable, consider this. What does your baby see when it looks at your face?
Just like when they will trust you to tell them if their skinned knee is funny or painful, they are trusting you now to tell them how bad their problem is. If you look unhappy, your baby will automatically assume the worst and loudly vocalize his or her discomfort. If your baby cries more, and louder… it will in turn make you unhappier… and a long tennis game of unhappiness will begin.
Babies do not yet have our wide scale of emotions. Everything is either happy or unhappy. No matter what, your baby should always see a happy face when they look at you. If you absolutely have to fake it, then fake it. But smile and smile big.
Right away, you should notice a change in your baby’s demeanor.
Sometimes, you may have what people refer to as a ‘difficult baby’. (How would you feel if everyone treated you as though you were ‘difficult’.) Maybe seeing you smile doesn’t cause a reflection, bear through it. Some things have to be learned. The second way to have a happier baby is fairly obvious.
Look for the Problem and Fix It
Many parents think that if a baby cries it means one of a few things. So after you checked the diaper, and the baby rejected a feeding, and wouldn’t burp, and wouldn’t fall asleep... now what? You can’t figure out what’s wrong. You’re even controlling your frustration and giving big warm smiles… but nothing seems to work!
There could be a tag rubbing your baby the wrong way. There could be a hair wrapped around their little toe that is driving them nuts. Most controversially, your baby could just want attention.
With a crying baby, the second easiest way to calm them down is to hold them close to your body, chin on your shoulder, and just hold them. You can sit and watch tv, you can walk around (mine loves to walk around and dance with me in the afternoon after he eats during Passions.) You can lay down and cuddle with them. Babies love physical human contact.
This is something controversial, because it is a widespread belief that you can ‘spoil’ a baby with too much ‘attention.’ It doesn’t sound wise to carry a baby around every single moment, and I doubt anyone ever would. But if your baby wants attention… give it to them.
Love is a human need, just like food and water. We would be empty shells if not for the love that makes us alive… or even the desire for love. You can never spoil a baby by loving them, but you can ruin a person by thinking they’re need for love has to go around a schedule.
Babies do have one other way of communicating with you. If you are clearly ‘there to make them feel better’, they can let you know if you are ‘cold or hot’ when it comes to finding their problem. If you are cuddling with your baby, and you have tried it standing still, layng down, walking, sitting… hanging upside down (I would recommend this) and this is not what they want, they will let you know. they will kick their feet. They will cry louder. This means ‘you’re getting cold!’ Try something else.
Try lying comfortably with your back against the arm of the couch, your knees bent and your feet flat against the couch cushion. Lay your baby against your legs, facing you. Show him your smiling, happy face and move their arms around. Move their feet around. (If they are gassy, rolling their legs up and pushing their knees into their stomach helps the gas come out.)
This is another kind of attention, very similar to ‘love’. This is ‘play.’ You can include brightly colored stuffed animals or puppets, rattles that make noises, and I highly recommend mirrors.
Talking
Your baby loves your voice. Whether you are feeding them, changing a diaper, playing, or putting them to sleep you should talk to your baby as often as possible. This technique is very similar to why it is important for you to smile. Keep your voice at a ‘happy tone’.
Of course you run out of things to say. Reading a book aloud will help. You can change your voice for different characters for your baby’s amusement. You can vocalize your plans for the week, your shopping list... you can tell them your whole life story. Babies don’t understand what you say, but they love how you say it.
