Will My Baby’s Signals Change?

Introducing changes in the the sleep habits doesn’t make babies quit crying. It makes sleep a habitual and smooth process, so as a consequence babies will cry less in sleep-related situations. Which is good news. Children will certainly cry when they have inconveniences, pain, hunger, and older children will also cry because of fears. But normal nights will go without tears because sleep will dominate.

If I had 10€ every time a parent is asking me whether their baby will stop signaling to them after the sleep program, I would go on vacation 3 times a year. But seriously, this is a delicate question that interests all of us, parents. We want to:

1. understand why our baby cries;
2. make the tears dry;
3. make sure that our baby is crying again when they need something next time.

If babies could quit crying as a means of signaling, the human race would have become extinct long ago. Babies are deeply “hardwired” to cry when they need something. The mere mention of those infamous Romanian orphanages evokes a profound sense of compassion, as the infants lying there remained silent due to the scarcity of attentive care, eventually ceasing to cry altogether. Thinking of their circumstances leaves one breathless. These unfortunate infants endured a severe deprivation of human sensory stimulation, devoid of any connection that would have enabled meaningful communication with others.

Conversely, you and I have the privilege of raising our children within a close-knit family, striving to provide them with optimal care, undivided attention, and dedicated time.

The truth remains that infants cry as a natural response, making it nearly impossible to unlearn this instinctive skill. The risk is not whether our babies will signal or not, because crying is deeply ingrained within them. The stakes are even higher: can we teach them how to communicate from their early age on? The parents who are listening, not just reacting, and sensitively communicating with their children, encourage their babies to use their crying to its highest human potential.

Habitually silencing babies when they start crying by breastfeeding, with formula, pacifier, or with an ipad, can have a long term affect in how they are managing emotions. If they learn early on that some emotions need to be suppressed, and some things are not to expressed loudly, but rather kept in silent secret or taboo, then it might be difficult for them to develop healthy bonds with others.

Danilo Dolci, Italian sociologist, poet, educator, known as the “Gandhi of Sicily” beautifully summarized the concept:

When babies are born, there is some sort of interruption in communication. While breathing and the beat of the heart are genetically programmed by the brain, and occur independently of our will, the ability to communicate with others is a necessity, but it is not innate and must therefore be learned. After birth there is a very delicate period, which can also be traumatic, in which the father and mother must become educators, so that the child learns to communicate with other creatures. If this is missing, the child grows in stature but becomes culturally and psychically ‘dwarfed’. Instead, through communication with the creatures around, integral growth will begin again. This is very important from an educational point of view, but the schools don’t know it. After lengthy checks, I am now fully convinced that everyone must learn to communicate, otherwise there can be no complex growth. At first it is a systematically genetic fact, but then learning is necessary and only in this way does growth resume.

Babies possess an innate ability to communicate through crying, a language that has stirred emotional turmoil in parents and listeners since time immemorial. Across the course of human evolution, this emotional response has played a vital role in motivating parents to attend to their children’s needs. Is it conceivable for a mother or father to forget or unlearn this deeply ingrained instinct? Inconceivable. Whenever the sound of our child’s cry reaches our ears, an unmistakable sensation emerges, urging and pulling us towards our little one. Parents are forever bound by an unbreakable connection just as children cannot abandon the instinct to cry when in need.

The National Health Service in Britain reminds us that when babies go from one sleep cycle to another at night, it is often loud for a few seconds or minutes. Miraculously, most of the time the baby is not even awake!

The beginning and end of the sleep cycle is known as active sleep which is characterised by fluttering eyelids, rapid, irregular breathing, grunts or brief cries. At this point, pause to see if your baby will enter another sleep cycle. If you jump in too soon you might find yourself waking a sleeping baby!

Your baby’s sleep at 3-6 months, NHS Wirral Community, NHS Foundation Trust, Health and Wellbeing Service 2019

Based on my experience as a sleep consultant, I have observed that the majority of infants effectively express themselves non-verbally within a few months of their journey in this world. They swiftly grasp the signals conveyed to them, while we, as adults accustomed to verbal communication, tend to be slower in understanding alternative forms of expression, particularly when it comes to recognizing their sleep requirements.

This includes crying, babies’ primary form of communication, the meaning of which can be understood in a few minutes. It’s worth listening to, observing a little! Sadly, cultural stigmas tend to unfairly associate negative judgment with parents of crying infants. However, it is crucial to recognize that a parent’s inadequacy lies not in having a crying child but in disregarding their needs. Ignoring can manifest in different forms, such as leaving them unattended or hastily silencing their cries.

Take a moment to truly listen to your child and allow them the space to express themselves. Within a few minutes, we can decipher the underlying message behind their cries and respond more effectively to meet our baby’s needs. Perhaps what they truly require is a restful sleep!