Temperament of a newborn
“He was just an angel in the maternity hospital,” Lisa laments on the third day of Robbie’s life. “Why is he screaming all the time now?” All newborns - like people in general - eat, sleep and react to stimuli completely differently, and each one has to calm them down in his own way. Around the third to fifth day of life, something begins to appear in them - let's call it temperament, personality, predisposition, character - which allows them to judge what this child is like and what it will be like in the future.
Temperamental characteristics influence how a child perceives and acts in his environment, and also determines what will help that child calm down. The trick is to get to know your little one well and accept him for who he is.
From my own experience, I will say that a baby can most often be classified into one of five groups according to the type of temperament. I gave them my own names: “angel”, “textbook”, “mimosa”, “warrior” and “grumpy”. Next, I will describe each type, and to make it easier for you to understand your child, I have created a test of 20 questions with various answer options, which can be used to evaluate a healthy baby aged five days to eight months. (Keep in mind that your baby's temperament may fluctuate temporarily during the first two weeks of life.)
No one is going to put a label on your little treasure - any test, you know, suffers from impersonality. I just want to draw your attention to some features of the newborn’s behavior that I myself observe. The reasons and nature of crying, reaction to external stimuli, sleep patterns, inclinations - all this ultimately helps me understand what a particular child needs.
Take the “Get to know your child” test
As you read the description of each type, remember: we are talking about how the child perceives the world, and not about momentary mood or behavior. Most likely, you recognize your baby in one of the descriptions below, or perhaps there is something from one type and something from another. Read all five descriptions. I give them using the example of children who are very clear representatives of certain types, whom I have personally observed.
Fatigue
Sleep is very important for a newborn, which lasts up to 20 hours a day. This is explained by the fact that the nervous system of children is overexcited. He loses interest in everything that happens around him, whines, restlessly moves his arms and legs, and cries loudly. An infant cannot calm down on his own. It is best to take him in your arms and lull him to sleep. You can go out for a walk - children quickly calm down in the fresh air.
Water also acts as a sedative. You can bathe it by adding herbal decoctions. But it is worth remembering that if the newborn is very tired, water, on the contrary, will overstimulate the nervous system.
Angel child
As you might guess, this is the kind of baby every woman pregnant with her first child dreams of. Gold, not a child! Pauline is just like that - a smiling sweetheart who does not require any extra attention or hassle. Her body language is obvious. She is not bothered by unfamiliar surroundings and can be taken anywhere. She readily eats, plays and falls asleep and almost never cries when waking up. Pauline spends most of the morning hanging out in her crib, either chatting with her toy animal or just enthusiastically looking at the stripes on the wall. An “angel” child often knows how to calm himself down. Even if your baby gets a little overtired, perhaps because her signals were misunderstood, all she needs to do is hold her close and purr: “I see, I see, you’re tired.” And then turn on the lullaby, arrange a peaceful twilight in the room, and she herself will calmly fall asleep.
Cold and heat
Cold and heat are another reason for a newborn’s crying. Uncomfortable conditions indoors or outdoors. Children do not yet have a mature thermoregulation system; they cannot cope with overheating and hypothermia on their own.
A sign of overheating is that the skin turns red, begins to whine, spin, unwrap its legs and arms. A sweat rash appears and the body temperature rises.
To cope with overheating, you need to dress your child according to the weather, ventilate the room, and take walks more often.
When it's cold, his crying becomes shrill and harsh. To monitor the temperature of a newborn, you can tactilely check the temperature of the back, chest, legs, and arms. If they are cold, then it is necessary to dress the child warmly and create comfortable conditions in the room.
Textbook child
He's a predictable little guy, so he's pretty easy to handle. Oliver does everything as if it were written and rarely gives surprises. He goes through all the stages of growing up exactly at the times indicated in the manuals - he sleeps through the night from three months, rolls over from five, sits from six. Periods of accelerated growth—when his appetite suddenly increases because he's putting on weight or making a developmental leap—also happen when they're supposed to. Already at the age of one week, he can entertain himself for a short time - about 15 minutes; he walks a lot and looks around with interest. If someone smiles at him, he smiles back. Oliver gets moody from time to time, but it's not hard to calm him down. Putting him to sleep is also quite easy.
Crying manipulation
This is an inevitable and natural stage in the development of your child’s psyche. He learned to test what crying can achieve, how strong your system of prohibitions is.
Here you must stand your ground, otherwise the child will be capricious and capricious. You need to fight this, as they say, “while he’s lying across the bed.”
The kid knows that prohibitions exist. But does he know why? Do you know why the child’s demand will not be fulfilled?
You don’t give him a bright, attractive, fragile thing, because he might break it and hurt himself. Or maybe you don’t want to get off the couch?
In one of the previous articles on Yu-Mama, we already said: there should not be too many prohibitions. But each one must be rationally justified (especially for oneself), and followed unswervingly. Otherwise, the child himself will decide which prohibition to break. It is better to remove prohibited items from the baby’s eyes to deprive him of temptation.
How to resist manipulative cries? First, look for the reason within yourself. Isn’t it true that for a long time you have been satisfying your child’s desires at the drop of a hat? But suddenly they thought about it and decided to start raising his “consciousness.” It was so? But the child did not understand your intentions and, with the help of crying, is trying to restore justice.
Ask yourself: can you make your son or daughter's wish come true? If yes, then first he must calm down, stop shouting, demanding, insisting.
If you cannot comply with your child's request, clearly explain to him the reason. Maybe he will agree to replace the object of his desire? Maybe we can distract him? Does not help? Then stop the discussion, step aside. Giving in in this case means allowing the child to achieve his goal by crying.
Try to include your child in the game. For example, a “naughty chair” or a “naughty corner” appeared in the house. If you want to be capricious, do it on the spot. And when you calm down, come back and we'll play. If you are consistent, the baby himself will understand that shouting will not achieve anything.
If you spank a child to stop his whim, this will most often lead to uncontrollable hysterics.
Mimosa child
For Michael and other hypersensitive children, the world is an endless series of shocks to the nervous system. He flinches at the sounds of a motorcycle exhaust outside the window, a noisy TV show, or the barking of a neighbor's dog. In bright light he blinks or turns away. Sometimes he cries for no apparent reason, even if his mother comes to him. At such moments he screams in his infant language: “I’ve had enough, I need peace and quiet.” He often gets nervous after several people take turns holding him, or after leaving the house. He can keep himself busy for a few minutes, but only if he knows that there is someone nearby who knows him well - mom, dad, nanny. He feeds randomly and unsteadily, sometimes giving the impression that he has forgotten how to do it. Michael may have difficulty calming down during nap and sleep times. Children like him are easily unsettled, because their nervous system is very sensitive.
Taking too long a nap, missing a feeding, having an unexpected visitor, leaving the house, switching to a different formula can all cause Michael to become unsettled. To calm the mimosa, you need to recreate the conditions in which it was in the uterus. Hold him tightly to you, lean him against your shoulder, place him near his ear (reproducing the sounds of amniotic fluid) and lightly pat him on the back, simulating a heartbeat. (By the way, this technique will help calm most babies, but mimosas are especially suitable.) If your baby is this type, try to learn his nonverbal cues as quickly as possible - and life will immediately become easier. These children love orderliness and predictability. They don't need any surprises!
Hunger and thirst
When hungry or thirsty, the baby cries loudly and persistently. It is better to feed the baby in small portions, every 2 hours. There is no need to put him to the chest often, later he will start spitting up everything, then intestinal colic will appear. If it is a matter of hunger, then the baby will immediately calm down and then fall asleep. At first, young mothers have little milk, but a few days after giving birth, breast milk will appear. After this, it will increase, you just need to wait.
There may be a problem with the fat content of breast milk. It is recommended to take a test to determine its fat content.
Sometimes children cry from lack of water. Its consumption is especially important for artificial people. You should always keep a bottle of clean water on hand.
Child warrior
This little one seems to have been born knowing exactly what she wants and what she doesn’t. And she won't hesitate to let you know about it! Children like Karen make a lot of noise and can be very pushy. When she wakes up in the morning, she usually calls for mom and dad with a loud cry. She hates lying in a dirty diaper and clearly expresses her dissatisfaction, as if demanding: “Take it off immediately!” She babbles a lot and loudly. Her non-verbal language can be very difficult to understand. In order for Karen to fall asleep, she often has to be rocked to sleep because her arms and legs are in constant motion, causing her to wake up every now and then. If she starts screaming and cannot be switched to something else in time, this is a vicious circle - her own scream makes her cry even harder, driving her into a frenzy. Karen notices other children before they notice her, and as soon as she learns to firmly grasp objects, she will begin to encroach on their toys.
The main reasons for frequent crying in a newborn
Probably, many mothers are familiar with the feeling of panic when the baby cries for a long time, and you rush around the room, not knowing how to calm him down. He spits out his breasts, arches in his arms, doesn’t want to lie in the crib, sleeps poorly at night and during the day... You checked his diaper for dryness, picked him up, made sure he wasn’t cold or overheated, but the baby still won’t stop talking ((Does this sound familiar?
Before I tell you about the possible causes of crying, I want to draw your attention to this point... The described situation occurs especially often in inexperienced young mothers or women prone to panic. Remember: first of all, you need to calm down! Children are very sensitive to the atmosphere around them. When a woman is nervous, doesn’t know what to do, worries and goes from one extreme to another, this only aggravates the situation, heats up the situation, provoking increased nervousness in the baby.
So, have you calmed down? Now let's try to understand the reasons for the baby's crying!
Maybe he's hungry
Finding out that a newborn is hungry is not difficult. He will greedily search for his mother’s breast with his mouth, suck, smacking his fist, call his family loudly and shrilly, and rarely write. As soon as you offer your breast to your baby, he will immediately grab it tenaciously and immediately calm down. But it also happens differently... All the signs of hunger are visible, but the baby indignantly spits out the offered breast and freaks out. What is the reason for this behavior? In fact there are several of them:
Not enough milk.
Mom's breasts are empty, so all the baby's attempts to suck something out of her fail. The baby gets nervous and stops sucking. (How can you tell if your baby is getting enough breast milk?)
Tight chest.
There are women whose milk ducts are too narrow, which greatly complicates the process of “extracting” milk for the baby. Not all newborns have the strength to cope with such a problem. If a young mother is not promptly told how to cope with this, then the result can be very sad: from the complete cessation of breastfeeding to the development of lactostasis and other serious breast problems. Similar troubles arise in women for the following reasons:
- a weak premature baby who was unable to completely suck out the milk as it continued, which led to stagnation and internal blockages of the ducts;
- incorrect actions of the staff in the maternity hospital, who did not tell the young mother about the importance of frequent feeding and did not help get rid of excess milk;
- improper attachment of the baby, which led to cracked nipples, painful feeding, and the inability to fully empty the ducts.
I recommend reading: Should a newborn be woken up for feeding day and night?
Inappropriate size or shape of the mother's nipple for the baby.
Yes, such a discrepancy also happens when the size or hollowness of a woman’s nipple is inconvenient for the baby. This problem can be solved. Buy special silicone breast pads that will help you with breastfeeding at first. Most often, as the child grows, this problem disappears, and further feeding occurs without the purchased “device”.
As you can see, an initially incorrect approach to the first feedings can lead to the baby being hungry and therefore capricious. I experienced first-hand all the “delights” of establishing a breastfeeding system, so I can confidently recommend such options for solving the problem.
Advice! Give breastfeeding to the baby more often. Don't listen to the nonsense about feeding by the clock. If the baby is weak or simply cannot suck out all the milk that has arrived due to the formed lumps, then be sure to express regularly until you feel completely soft, light and empty. After you see that the baby stops sucking and falls asleep from fatigue, offer him the milk expressed from the previous feeding from a spoon or measuring syringe. Gradually, all congestion will be eliminated, and the baby will be able to easily suck out milk to the last drop.
If you can’t cope on your own, then invite a breastfeeding specialist to your home. Under his clear guidance, you will definitely be able to establish this undoubtedly important process for mother and child.
monthly weight gain will tell you whether your baby has enough food Well, if there is a need to find out this as soon as possible, then the easiest way is to conduct a “wet diaper” test - count the number of urinations per day. But for this you will have to hold the screamer for one day without diapers.
Oh, these colics...
The second cause of baby crying in 70% of cases is intestinal colic. How to recognize them? Increased gas formation is very painful for the baby. At this time, he plaintively cries monotonously, strains, blushes, screams and arches, squeezing his legs, or twisting them. The main reason for painful spasms is that the baby’s digestive system is just beginning to adapt to the intense work of digesting new food. But what else can trigger colic? For greater convenience, I will describe point by point the possible reasons that parents should pay attention to:
- Disturbance of microflora, predominance of pathogenic environment, infectious diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.
- Immaturity of the nervous regulation of the intestines.
- Lack or excess of food.
- Incorrect attachment of the newborn (while eating, he swallows a lot of air).
- Lactose deficiency.
- Incorrect transition from one formula to another during IV or simply an unsuitable formula for the baby.
- Food allergies.
How to help your baby? To rule out all sorts of disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, the presence of allergies and other pathologies, you need to consult a doctor and, in his direction, undergo all the necessary examinations. To prevent the baby from swallowing a lot of air while sucking, apply it to the breast correctly (the baby should take not only the nipple, but also part of the areola into his mouth). After feeding, or better yet, even once during it (when changing breasts), hold the baby in a “column” position until you hear the air come out.
If all of the above points are met, but the baby is still uncomfortable, then laying on the stomach not long before feeding will come to the rescue; a warm diaper during attacks, which will warm the painful area; use of medications recommended by the doctor for bloating: the simplest fennel tea or dill water . It also wouldn’t hurt to review a nursing mother’s diet by removing foods that cause gas formation and allergies.
If the newborn is worried about colic, then he will calm down when he poops. Daily bowel movements are mandatory for a baby . (Colic in a newborn: causes, and how to deal with it?)
Is the baby too excited?
As everyone knows, any experience comes with time. It’s good if new parents have wise grandparents at home as assistants. And if not? The main mistake of some mothers and fathers is failure to adhere to the daily routine. It seems that it could be simpler: if you want, sleep, if you don’t want, don’t sleep. But in fact, the child’s nervous system is still so unstable that without guidance from adults, the baby will not fall asleep on its own. As a result, the newborn becomes so overexcited that he reacts by screaming to any attempts to calm him down. He worries, twitches his arms and legs when changing clothes, cries in his sleep, after bathing.
A symptom of overexcitation and immaturity of the nervous system can be a tremor of the chin in a newborn. In this case, it should be shown to a doctor.
How to help your baby? First of all, you need to strictly follow the sleep and feeding schedule. Walk 2-3 times in the fresh air every day. Do not raise your voice in the presence of a child, eliminate irritating factors as much as possible. How the baby will behave greatly depends on the psycho-emotional state of the mother.
Or maybe it's the weather
To my surprise, I learned that more than 2/3 of babies are weather dependent. Their nervous and vascular systems have not yet had time to get used to the new conditions, and when the weather changes, the little ones often experience mood swings, causeless excitement, restless sleep, loss of appetite, lethargy, and moodiness.
What should I do? Well, since we can’t influence the weather in any way, that means we’ll influence the baby! Warm water when bathing, the affection of our beloved mother and the same mandatory daily routine will help us cope with crying for this reason.
I recommend reading : How to properly bathe a newborn
Grumpy child
I have a theory that children like Gavin have been to this world before and are not at all happy to return here. Maybe I'm wrong, but whatever the reason, such a child is a real beech. Nothing around him is happy, and he does not intend to hide it. Gavin whines in the morning, rarely smiles during the day, and putting him to bed becomes a nightly ordeal. Nannies cannot stand his temper, and his mother always has to look for new ones. At first, Gavin was hostile to swimming. Whenever someone tries to change his clothes or change his diaper, he fidgets and gets irritated. Mom tried to establish breastfeeding, but her milk supply was slow, and Gavin did not have the patience. Even after switching to formula, feeding remains a problem due to his whims and irritability. To calm down a “grumpy” child, you need a lot of patience - these children often get angry, scream and cry especially loudly and persistently. Mommy’s or daddy’s “shh” should be louder than their scream. They hate being swaddled, and in this case they will certainly not remain silent. If the “grumbler” has completely gone wild, it is better to rhythmically say “ti-ho, ti-ho,” while slightly swaying back and forth.
Colic
A long, inconsolable, heart-breaking cry will tell you about their presence. Colic most often occurs in the evenings, sometimes at the same time (for us they coincided with the beginning of our favorite family series). The child's limbs tense, his fists clench, his back arches. Sometimes the tummy is swollen. The baby draws his legs in and twitches them impatiently, as if he wants to relieve the pain. To us, colic was somewhat reminiscent of contractions: the pain subsided sharply and returned after a minute or two.
Colic is a painful ordeal not only for the baby, but for the whole family. We must bravely survive this time. They stop around 12–14 weeks. Remember: colic is not a disease, but a natural physiological process. However, you can try to help the child.
Take the baby in your arms and let him move. Warmth can help - a diaper ironed on the stomach with a hot iron, a warm heating pad. Try gentle massage around your navel in a clockwise direction. The doctor can recommend some safe medications - they can reduce the baby’s suffering, but without consulting a specialist, do not rush to carry out tests on the child.
