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Educator Parents should not let their baby scream
Whether hungry, a full diaper, the need for closeness or fatigue: Babies cry now and then, that's quite normal - because otherwise they can not make themselves felt in the first few months. Frequently, parents hear or read the recommendation not to react immediately and let the child scream. But Ulric Ritzer-Sachs strongly advises against this "educational method" from the online consultation of the Federal Conference for Educational Counseling (bke).
Many "good advices" for dealing with crying children
"Wait a bit, he has to learn that someone does not always come", "Oh, a little scream has not hurt anyone yet", "screaming strengthens the lungs" - many and many "good advice" parents hear from relatives or Friends. Some counselors also recommend freshly baked parents not to react immediately and let the child "harden" instead. But that would not be a good idea, says Ulric Ritzer-Sachs of the online consultation of the Federal Conference for Educational Consulting (bke) talking to the news agency "dpa". Because "you do not know what happened."
Do not make babies scream. Picture: candy1812 - fotolia Children need reliable feedback
At the idea of making the crying child cry, many parents feel uneasy - with good reason, because a baby never screams out of malice or to scare the parents, explains Ulric Ritzer-Sachs. "It needs the certainty that it gets feedback when it is afraid or in pain," the expert continues. This is very important for the child's development, because the parents respond reliably and in good time to the signal "screaming" and comfort the child, this can internalize the reassuring feeling of never being alone.
Mostly quiet speech or gentle touches help
However, consoling does not mean that the child has to be hugged every time it screams. "Often the parents come then frantically, take the baby up, enter directly the pacifier and smell at the diaper," says Ritzer-Sachs. In order to avoid such a stress situation, it is recommended to stay calm and to only look at the baby for three minutes or to talk to him quietly. Thereby it recognizes the familiar face and experiences that someone is there, explains the expert further.
The prerequisite here, however, is that the baby is full and wrapped to be able to exclude hunger or a full diaper as a cause for crying. If the child does not calm down in this way, gentle and slow touches would often help, e.g. for three minutes, the stomach is gently caressed. If the baby still cries after that, parents should now pick it up and calm it down, advises Ritzer-Sachs. If this process is carried out again and again in the same way, it can become a familiar reassurance ritual for the child.
Singing can calm babies well
A recent study by the University of Montreal recently concluded that singing babies are especially comforting to crying babies. According to this, singing was much more reassuring for babies than gentle speech - even if the language of the song was unknown to the child. As the researchers guessed, the audition helped the children develop their emotional self-control. (No)