WHY BABIES CRY and how to handle crying during sleep training (Ages 4 months and up!)

Disclaimer: This article is for parents whose babies are four months or older. If your baby is under four months old, tend to them right away when they cry.

All right, we have to have this talk. We need to talk about babies and crying. Yes, I know, it’s so hard to hear your baby crying, but there are actually different types of crying and different ways to respond to them.

Babies communicate in the form of cries and coos. If they’re dissatisfied with anything, they’re going to cry. There are so many reasons: are they hungry? Are they too hot? Too cold? Have they been awake too long? Have they pooped? Change them. If they are overstimulated but it’s not time for a nap yet, then just take them to a quiet room, engage in a calming activity, or do some cuddles. If your child is overtired, it’s okay to help him or her to fall asleep. If your child is hurt or sick, obviously tend to him or her right away.

However, if your baby is over four months old, then it’s important to figure out what they’re trying to tell you before you rush straight to them. go and scoop them up right away. 

Now, here is where some tough love is going to come in. Especially when you are working on sleep training, you need to give your child a little bit of independence. If all of those needs previously mentioned have been met – you know that your child is loved, is being fed, or the diaper is clean – then, you need to give your baby some space.

This doesn’t mean your baby needs to be crying forever. It just means that you need to take a step back and assess the situation. What do they actually need? Are they actively crying, or just whining?

When you are giving your baby some space, you are giving them the opportunity to self-soothe. For the majority of cases, if your child is over four months old, having a leave-and-check method is going to be the most successful and the fastest.

So, what we’re going to do is to leave your baby in the crib, and only tend to them if they are actively crying. What is “active crying”? That is when your baby is continuously crying for the entire interval of 5 to 10 minutes. When they are actively and continuously crying the entire time, go in and check on them, and make sure that everything is still ok. And then leave the room again. This is what I call a “wellness check”.

So, next time, when your baby starts crying, I want you to get your timer going. And when they stop, you stop the timer. It’s very important to follow these steps. This is how we will know whether it is active crying, or on-and-off fussing, whining, or grunting.

Every time your child stops crying and starts to calm down, they are learning how to selfsoothe. You as a parent, therefore, need to give them the space and the opportunity to do so by not intervening. You may notice your baby rubbing their head on the crib. They might be slamming their hands, kicking their legs up and down, or sucking on their thumb. Whatever they’re doing, it is a self-soothing skill.

So, think of it this way. If your baby starts to calm down and self-soothe yet you run into the room and interrupt them, you are sending them the message saying, “no, no, no, don’t do that. You don’t need to self soothe because I’m going to rescue you every single time.”

Therefore, when you are sleep training, it’s important that you are now watching the clock and understand the difference between active crying and whining. To self-soothe is the first of many skills that your baby is going to learn, and you need to give your child the space, the freedom, and the independence to figure it out on their own.

I understand that crying and sleep training can be very controversial. However, the benefits outweigh the risk.

When you have a baby who is overtired or overstimulated – one who has a sleep debt, they have increased levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. And when your baby is crying, the levels of cortisol are also increased. So, both situations lead to a stressed-out baby. But look what happens? Your sleep-trained baby is going to learn how to sleep better.

When your child has consolidated sleep, i.e., when they begin to self-soothe and put themselves back to sleep between sleep cycles during the night, their cortisol levels go down. And not only they are becoming less stressed out, they are also releasing endorphins (happy hormones) while they’re sleeping.

So, you see the benefits of sleep training and how a little bit of crying may go a long way, instead of your baby waking up all stressed out every hour during the night.

And yes, this does mean that you may have to deal with some crying and whining. But I promise you, it is short-lived. And 99% of my clients have told me that they wished that they had done this sooner.

Take it from parents themselves! check out all of these reviews here and see how these parents all wish that they had done sleep training sooner. Interested? Click the link here and grab your baby sleep guide. It is free and it is loaded with information to help you and your baby to learn healthy sleep habits from the start.

I know, I know, it’s tough to hear your baby cry. But I promise, it’s not going to scar your baby and it’s not going to affect your attachment with your babies. Let me tell you, I am so attached to my children and they are so incredibly attached to me. And every single one of them was sleeping through the night between three and five months. Our attachment has zero correlation to sleep training.

And sure, my children cried during their sleep training too. But I made sure that I understood what they were trying to communicate with me, thus having their needs met. My children are bigger now and they still love their sleep. And guess who gets to sleep in on the weekend? I do!