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Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

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31–40 of 262 posts

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#31

Great if it works for you, but for those who are dealing with babies, I wouldn't beat myself up if this advice doesn't apply. The parenting advice world is chock full of people who found something that worked for them and who then made the unwarranted conclusion that it is universal truth. For example, their techniques that "always work" definitely do not always work. Maybe they always worked for their particular bab…

> For example, their techniques that "always work" definitely do not always work.

Among parenting social media influencers, this is a gamble for building rapport among an audience:

Make some extreme claim that may or may not work for some portion of people who hear it. People who hear it, try it, and find that it works will vividly remember the influencer as being correct. People who try it with no results will quickly forget it about it.

Repeat across several claims and eventually some percentage of them will be correct for the audience.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#32
post #3

not sure how it works with twins quantity wise, but I see "bottle" being mentioned for the 3 mo babies - afaik best to get mother's milk as much as possible in the first 6 months

Negative. There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. But even if we stipulate that mothers must breastfeed, many working women pump milk during the day if they don't have unlimited paid time off after birth. In such cases bottles must obviously be used. And many women cannot produce enough breastmilk, and must supplement with formula. And many other possible reasons why bottles…

No post body was provided.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#33

Great if it works for you, but for those who are dealing with babies, I wouldn't beat myself up if this advice doesn't apply. The parenting advice world is chock full of people who found something that worked for them and who then made the unwarranted conclusion that it is universal truth. For example, their techniques that "always work" definitely do not always work. Maybe they always worked for their particular bab…

Very true, I was going to make a similar statement but you said it perfectly. Infants do follow some common patterns, but what works for YOUR infant might be completely different that what you’ve read, been told, or even experienced with prior children. I don’t think there is any shame in doing what works as long as it is safe.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#34

To soothe the baby the author forgot: 1) pacifier. Holy hell those things are life savers. As my kid got older he would sometimes lose the pacifier in his sleep and start crying. We just bought 10 of them and sprinkled them theoughout his crib at night 2) driving. Driving your kid around will often soothe them. I had a particular route I would take down the highway that would guarantee put him to sleep.

> driving. Driving your kid around will often soothe them. Same here. Doing a walk with the stroller and I'd be looking at 45 minutes before the kid would fall asleep. Taking the car and driving once around the block and my kid was sleeping. I don't know if it's the movement, the fact that it's faster than walking, the vibrations, the engine noise (I wonder if parents with electric cars use that trick too) or somethi…

When people say this I am completely baffled - as far as I can tell there is nothing a baby hates more than being strapped into a car seat

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#35

Great if it works for you, but for those who are dealing with babies, I wouldn't beat myself up if this advice doesn't apply. The parenting advice world is chock full of people who found something that worked for them and who then made the unwarranted conclusion that it is universal truth. For example, their techniques that "always work" definitely do not always work. Maybe they always worked for their particular bab…

> For example, their techniques that "always work" definitely do not always work. Among parenting social media influencers, this is a gamble for building rapport among an audience: Make some extreme claim that may or may not work for some portion of people who hear it. People who hear it, try it, and find that it works will vividly remember the influencer as being correct. People who try it with no results will quick…

Like sport betting advice. Make 64 accounts, predict the outcome of six 50/50 games, start a paid newsletter with the one that got them all right.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#36

Great if it works for you, but for those who are dealing with babies, I wouldn't beat myself up if this advice doesn't apply. The parenting advice world is chock full of people who found something that worked for them and who then made the unwarranted conclusion that it is universal truth. For example, their techniques that "always work" definitely do not always work. Maybe they always worked for their particular bab…

> For example, their techniques that "always work" definitely do not always work. Among parenting social media influencers, this is a gamble for building rapport among an audience: Make some extreme claim that may or may not work for some portion of people who hear it. People who hear it, try it, and find that it works will vividly remember the influencer as being correct. People who try it with no results will quick…

Often the followers seem to self select. If someone’s advice was crap/didn’t work for you at all, you stop paying attention to them - if it worked you might think they’re a genius

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#37
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. I wish you would back up such a strong statement. In medical school we were taught the complete opposite. From my notes: - there's a x36 decreased risk of Sudden infant death syndrome if the child has been breast fed a single(!) time compared to no breast feeding. - no breast feeding vs only breast feeding: x15 risk of pneumonia, x11…

I’m not a doctor, but these stats sound completely ridiculous. Would love to see the source material.

Which of the stats do you think sounds ridiculous? SIDS for example is pretty rare to begin with (33.3 deaths per 100,000 per Google). At the end of the day I'm guessing the advice maybe saves a few lives on a population level, but only gives a slight statistical advantage to a proactive parent.

I wish I had links to actual publications. I copied the numbers from a lecture given by a senior obstetrician.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#38
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negative. There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. But even if we stipulate that mothers must breastfeed, many working women pump milk during the day if they don't have unlimited paid time off after birth. In such cases bottles must obviously be used. And many women cannot produce enough breastmilk, and must supplement with formula. And many other possible reasons why bottles…

https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/about-breastfeeding/why-it... There's quite a lot of evidence that breastfeeding improves health outcomes for newborns. Reduces the rate of gastrointestinal infections, etc. Regarding the probable mechanism of action for that, breast milk provides an ongoing source of antibodies from the mother to baby. You won't find that in formula. That said, evidence about the benefits of exclusi…

Kinda weird place and context to ask, but... OK look I'm not an academic. I have my degrees but for the most part it was "use APA/MLA/etc. for full points". Nothing published, plenty researched enough to publish if the circumstances were better. That said, I don't know enough about how much weight is given to biological history. Breastfeeding was not an option for the vast majority of mammalian history, as far as I understand. Wet nurses or surrogate mothers notwithstanding, babies of all kinds have needed and thrived on a mother's milk. Just because we cleverly figured out alternatives in the last 0.0001% of human history doesn't mean it's better, to me. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#39
I'm sure everyone is different, but for us, basically all crying was solved by just nursing for a bit (obviously a diaper change is different).

After 6 or 9 months they get genuinely bored and nursing isn't a fix-all... but it's really a fix-most.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#40
post #3

not sure how it works with twins quantity wise, but I see "bottle" being mentioned for the 3 mo babies - afaik best to get mother's milk as much as possible in the first 6 months

Negative. There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. But even if we stipulate that mothers must breastfeed, many working women pump milk during the day if they don't have unlimited paid time off after birth. In such cases bottles must obviously be used. And many women cannot produce enough breastmilk, and must supplement with formula. And many other possible reasons why bottles…

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