My Pediatric Triage Guide To Cheer Up Baby Without Going Crazy

My mother swore rubbing warm ghee on his feet would stop the screaming. The lactation consultant told me he was definitely cluster feeding and I just needed to nurse him for the fourteenth time that hour. Then my neighbor caught me pacing the driveway in yesterday's leggings and offered her wisdom, which was that he was probably absorbing my anxious energy. I nearly threw a dirty diaper at her head. When you're holding a screaming infant, everyone thinks they've the magic formula to fix it. I spent six years in pediatric triage before becoming a mother, and I thought I knew everything about a fussing baby. I didn't.

Why they actually scream like that

Listen, trying to reason with a crying infant is like negotiating with a tiny, drunk dictator. They don't have the neurological hardware to calm themselves down yet. My pediatrician explained that when my son got worked up, his little body was basically drowning in cortisol. I vaguely remember this from nursing school, but the reality is much louder than a textbook.

When they get to that purple-faced, breathless stage, they rely entirely on our mature nervous systems to lend them a hand. We're supposed to trigger an oxytocin release with skin-to-skin contact, which somehow naturally lowers their heart rate and stabilizes their breathing. Sometimes it actually works. Other times you just end up sweaty, sticky, and crying together on the nursery floor.

The newborn triage protocol

I've seen a thousand of these meltdowns in the ER, usually at two in the morning with panicked first-time parents who think their child is broken. The first step is always checking for the weird physical stuff that sets them off. They can't tell you their leg itches, so they just scream as if they're on fire.

• Check the toes. I once found a single strand of my own postpartum shedding hair wrapped so tightly around a baby's toe it was turning blue. It's called a hair tourniquet and it happens more than you'd think.
• Strip them down. Overheating is a massive trigger. They don't need three layers of fleece indoors, yaar. A cool baby is usually a calmer baby.
• Change the scenery. Step outside into the cold air. Run the kitchen faucet. Turn off the harsh overhead lights.

At the hospital, we call this a sensory reset, but at home, I just call it desperate measures. Next time they lose it, just strip them down to their diaper, step out onto the cold porch for ten seconds, and bounce them aggressively while making a ridiculous shushing sound near their ear until one of you passes out.

Teething is its own special circle of hell. Around four months, my son turned into a rabid raccoon. I bought every piece of plastic on the internet to get him to stop screaming. My favorite turned out to be the Avocado Baby Teether from Kianao. I'm not usually one for trendy food-shaped baby gear, but the textured pit on this thing was the only object that brought him any peace. He would aggressively gnaw on the silicone seed part for twenty minutes straight, which gave me exactly enough time to drink a lukewarm coffee. It's solid silicone, easy to throw in the dishwasher, and doesn't get that weird sticky feeling some cheap teethers get after a few washes. Highly think it.

If you're currently surviving the teething trench, you can browse our collection of teething toys that might actually buy you five minutes of silence.

The physical toll of toddler frustration

The advice for older babies and toddlers is usually just to let them get their ya-yas out. Which sounds adorable until you realize getting the ya-yas out honestly means mitigating a localized natural disaster. Around nine months, my son learned how to manifest his frustration physically. He'd stiffen his entire body like a plank of wood and scream at a pitch that literally rattled my teeth. You can't swaddle a toddler, and you can't just shush a one-year-old who's furious because you won't let him eat the dog's food.

So you've to exhaust them. It's an aggressive, tactical exhaustion. I throw our heavy velvet sofa cushions on the living room floor and actively encourage him to hurl his body onto them. We do "heavy work," which is just occupational therapy speak for making them carry things that are slightly too heavy for them. I hand him a sealed jug of laundry detergent and ask him to move it across the room. He feels incredibly important, his little muscles get tired, and the screaming abruptly stops. It's a cheap psychological trick, but I've absolutely zero shame about using it daily.

Water play is the other distraction that works almost every single time. When he's completely inconsolable and planking on the floor, I just throw him in an empty bathtub and hand him a plastic cup of ice cubes. Or I give him a wide bowl of tap water and a metal whisk on the kitchen floor. Yes, the floor gets soaked. Yes, I've to mop up afterward. But a wet floor is infinitely better than listening to a tiny human scream because I peeled his banana from the wrong end.

I also bought the Alpaca Wooden Baby Gym hoping it would magically entertain him. It's beautifully made and looks very aesthetic in my living room, which is nice since my house mostly looks like a plastic toy factory exploded. The organic crochet work is great. But honestly, as a soothing tool, it's just okay. Sometimes he'll lie under it and quietly bat at the wooden rings, but if he's already in a foul mood, staring at a crocheted alpaca isn't going to pull him out of it. It's much better for peaceful afternoon playtime, not crisis management.

The three am internet spiral

There are nights when absolutely nothing works. You've done the bouncing, the feeding, the pacing in the hallway. You're sitting in the dark nursery, scrolling through your phone with your left thumb while holding a squirming infant with your right arm. I've been there, desperately typing variations of how to cheer up baby into the search bar, hoping for some hidden secret I somehow missed in nursing school.

Instead of helpful medical advice, the internet just tries to serve you bizarre media. You type in your desperate plea and suddenly you're getting suggestions for a cheer up baby dailymotion link, or some obscure cheer up baby full movie. Last week I got a targeted ad for a cheer up baby dramabox series. It's incredibly surreal to be covered in sour spit-up at four in the morning while the algorithm tries to pitch you a translated web drama instead of telling you how to make your child stop crying. It's just a grim reminder that the internet has no idea what maternal desperation really looks like.

Recognizing when it isn't just a mood

My pediatrician drilled the rule of three into my head for colic, and I pass it on to every new mom I meet. If they cry for more than three hours a day, for more than three days a week, for over three weeks, you're officially in colic territory. Or maybe you're dealing with silent reflux. Either way, it's a miserable place to be, and you need to call your doctor instead of trying to fix it with key oils.

When you hit the wall, and you definitely will hit the wall, put them down. I don't care how much they cry or how guilty you feel. Put them in the crib, flat on their back, close the bedroom door, and walk away for five minutes. Go drink a glass of freezing cold water. Stare blankly at a wall. I used to go into our unheated garage just to hear absolute silence for sixty seconds. Your baby will be perfectly fine crying in a safe place while you keep stable your own blood pressure. You can't pour from an empty cup, or whatever that Instagram therapist saying is.

When my son was constantly fussy in his car seat, I eventually gave him the Crochet Bunny Rattle. It's made of organic cotton, so I didn't care when he aggressively shoved the entire bunny ear down his throat. The wooden ring is thick enough that he couldn't crack it, and the subtle rattling noise would distract him just enough to stop him from screaming at red lights.

If your baby's fussiness is slowly breaking your spirit, take a look at our full line of organic soothing essentials before you completely lose your mind.

Messy questions about crying babies

Why does my baby only cry when I hold him?
Because you smell like milk and stress. I'm serious. Babies can smell breastmilk from across the room, and if they're tired but smell food, they get frustrated. Plus, if you're tense, your heart rate is elevated and your breathing is shallow. They feel that. Hand the baby to your partner, who smells like deodorant and nothingness, and watch them fall asleep in three minutes. It's infuriating, but normal.

Is it bad to let them watch a screen to stop crying?
Listen, the pediatric guidelines say no screen time before age two. But the reality of parenting is that sometimes you've the stomach flu and your toddler is screaming. If putting on a dancing animated fruit video for fifteen minutes keeps everyone safe and sane, do it. Just don't make it the default soothing mechanism, or you'll create a monster who needs an iPad to survive a car ride.

How do I know if it's gas or teething?
Gas usually comes with a lot of frantic leg kicking, a hard stomach, and crying that happens shortly after feeding. Teething comes with buckets of drool, a mild fever sometimes, and them trying to chew their own hands off. If they pull away from the bottle or breast crying, it's usually gas. If they gnaw aggressively on the bottle nipple, beta, that's teeth.

Do gripe water and gas drops seriously work?
Simethicone gas drops work by breaking up surface bubbles in the stomach. They worked decently for my son's gas. Gripe water is basically just fennel and ginger tea. Medically speaking, there isn't a ton of hard evidence for it, but some moms swear by it. Half the time I think the sweet taste just shocks the baby into being quiet for a minute.

Why is the crying always worse at night?
We call it the witching hour, though it usually lasts for three hours. Their nervous systems are completely fried from a day of processing lights, sounds, and digestion. They're overstimulated and exhausted, but fighting sleep. It peaks around six weeks and usually gets better by three months. Until then, order takeout and take shifts pacing the floor.