6 reasons not to ignore your crying baby

6 Reasons Not to ignore Your Crying Baby

It's a familiar scenario, your baby cries a lot and your mother tells you ignoring his cries is the best way to handle it. But is ignoring your crying child really the best way forward?

We give you 6 reasons why ignoring your baby's cries can be harmful to his emotional and psychological development.

Ignoring your baby's cries can be harmful for his development

Many of us have had advice from well-meaning parents at some point to "let the baby cry it out." We have been told that to pick up a crying baby "spoils" them. But is ignoring our crying child even possible? Apparently not.

Researchers have found that the sound of a baby crying can trigger unique emotional responses in the brain, making it impossible for us to ignore them. In fact, mothers’ bodies respond so dramatically when they hear their babies cry that they have the biological urge to nurse.

Find out why ignoring your child's cries is not a good idea...

Reference:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2219153/Why-crying-baby-impossible-ignore.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

1. Crying is the child’s only way of communication

Before a baby picks up language skills, his only way of expression is through smiling or crying. Both emotions are natural and are his only ways of communicating emotions. It doesn't make sense to the child that only smiling attracts adults’ attention while crying results in being ignored.

2. Ignoring cries can impair verbal expression

When parents ignore their child's cries, the child is taught that he is powerless to communicate unhappiness. This impairment can eventually be transferred to the child's verbal skills. As a consequence, the child may have difficulty understanding his own emotions, and therefore have problems putting them into words.

3. `Unhappy’ emotions may be suppressed

When a baby's crying is ignored, this also signals that `unhappy’ emotions are something to be ignored. As he grows up, the child picks up the norm of suppressing his internal ‘unhappy’ emotions, which will hamper his wholesome psychological development later on in life.

4. It undervalues their emotions

Ignoring a child's cries sends him the message that his emotions are unimportant. This can have the most impact on both the child and the parent in the child's teenage years. Because the child's emotions were undervalued in his formative years, as a teenager, he may no longer see an important need to communicate openly with his parents.

5. They learn to ignore people who are helpless

As children try to make sense of the complex world they live in, they often generalize the things they observe. When their cries are ignored, they think the world is not a compassionate one and that people who are helpless will be ignored. If you want your child to grow up to be compassionate and have a sense of empathy, don't withhold affection or attention when he is distressed.

6. Crying is natural

There are almost always negative consequences for ignoring or suppressing our most powerful natural urges. Infants who cry for prolonged periods have abnormally high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and lower growth hormones. This inhibits the development of nerve tissue in the brain, suppressing growth, and depressing the immune system.

A study conducted by scientists from Yale and Harvard Medical School found that intense stress on a child during his early months can alter his brain’s neurotransmitter systems and cause structural and functional changes in their brains similar to those seen in depressed adults.

Reference:

https://www.askdrsears.com/topics/health-concerns/fussy-baby/science-says-excessive-crying-could-be-harmful

Show empathy

So have we come to the conclusion that we can’t ignore a child’s crying, and we have to give in to their tiniest whimper? Not necessarily. One doesn't need to give in all the time, or isolate the child. We just need to show empathy.

By not ignoring his distress as a baby or toddler, you are setting strong emotional foundations for your child to grow into a psychologically well-rounded adult.

Written by

samanthabek

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