Less Crying is Optimal for Mother-Baby Attachment

From an adult perspective, less crying means less stress for you. Your baby’s crying is meant to have a profound emotional effect on you. Nature made us this way so that we would respond promptly to our baby’s needs. This is a survival mechanism, and it is not healthy to try to override it.

Your responsiveness to your baby is an important part of becoming a sensitive parent. This doesn’t mean that you need to be constantly on tenterhooks awaiting your baby’s cry or that you should beat yourself up if you’re unable to catch your baby’s cues before he cries. It does mean that training yourself to tune out your baby’s crying (his most fundamental way of communicating) increases your emotional distance, which is a less-than-ideal beginning to your relationship.

Less crying also means less stress from a baby’s standpoint. There are few people today who believe the old idea that crying is good for a baby’s lungs. In fact, research has shown that crying is not only stressful for you, but is stressful for your baby, too. Crying raises levels of cortisol, a physical indicator of stress, in a baby’s body. So although there will probably be times when your baby will cry in spite of your best efforts, avoiding crying when possible is good for everyone.

The most important emotional lesson of a baby’s first year is learning to trust that his needs will be met. And there is no more fundamental need than being fed when hungry.

From Breastfeeding Made Simple, Mohrbacher and Kendall-Tackett 2010