To punish a baby under 6 months for crying is it more effective to slap or withhold food?

Answer 1

it's best to figure out why it's crying

Improvement:

A baby under 6 months should never be punished for crying. Crying can be a signal that humans are unable to express something wrong at any age, for children under 6 months it is also the ONLY way they are able to express that something is wrong.

Physiologically: Crying is not just a signal that a body needs help - among other functions, crying triggers hormones and neurotransmitters that allow bodies to handle stress, remove harmful build-up, and lubricate eyes.

Colic and similarly unexplained crying in babies might be triggered by ongoing development of digestive and intestinal systems that can occur even full-term babies that are perfectly healthy. If the baby is healthy, warm, clean, and not being hurt by people or its environment we can rule out the causes we DO understand but babies can't talk so it is impossible to rule out the millions of reasons the baby could be crying that have to do with how it feels.

Psychologically: When an older child/adult/friend/spouse/sibling cries but is not apparently ill, we can ask and they can try to give details about whether they are stressed, sad, angry, happy but even well-read adults with huge vocabularies at their disposal may be unable to explain or verbalize what is making them cry.

Babies' only mode of communication is crying. Whether or not something is obviously wrong, the baby feels that something is wrong. They might have a stomach pain we don't understand or they might have an emotional pain/sadness because they miss being curled up in a warm, wet womb - we have absolutely no idea and absolutely no way of knowing. Baby is asking for help that we don't know how to give.

When we punish children and babies for crying, we are punishing them for asking for help and that may damage their ability to register and process negative situations and discourage them for asking for help when faced with negative events/feelings in the future.

Informal evidence of this psychological impact could relate to the stereotype about adult men being more reluctant to ask for directions when they are lost - baby boys are discouraged from crying more commonly than girl babies.

So although it may be extremely stressful to hear a baby crying, if you are certain there are no external reasons for the baby to cry, do your best to live with it. Get help from others if you can. If you are really alone, try to treat the baby how you would want to be treated if you were sick or going through something painful that you knew could not be cured and were not sure that it would pass. I would want some sympathy, encouragement, and patience - if I also couldn't feed or dress myself, I'd probably need more hugs and warmth. If you ignore crying, the baby doesn't know if his crying isn't working or if you are just not noticing has every reason to cry more - wouldn't you if you were crying out for help and people just walked past you?

As difficult as this may seem, we are learning that babies understand much more than we previously thought. They sense stress and anxiety and have awareness of probabilities. Babies respond to your stress and fear and could cry even more because they notice their crying is freaking you out. Read all the NEW research you can find about the physiology of colic - the more you know, the less you will have to fear. I stress NEW because 20 years ago, we knew even less about crying and punishing babies was accepted by many cultures - we are just learning about the long term impact of baby punishment - shaken baby syndrome is diagnosed only in extreme cases that may cause death but in early stages of development, brain damage can easily be inflicted through all kinds of baby punishment.

Don't punish your baby. Don't punish yourself.

If you've tried already started experimenting with different kind of punishment, don't punish yourself. Most of us were socialized to associate crying negatively and forget we also cry to express joy in some of the best times of our lives. Babies learn through repetition and you're not too late to change what the baby expects. Try consistent sympathy and encouragement, even if it feels goofy. Tell your spouse and any other caregivers so the baby doesn't get mixed signals and learn that only one of you will be there to help through a negative event.

Full disclosure: I'm not an expert on babies or crying. I study management science and human behavior in organizations. I am currently investigating risk management and the benefits of fostering a workplace where crying is considered "safe" to prevent the kind of group-think, not-speaking-up-mentality that led millions of otherwise reasonable bankers and business people to make the decisions that led to the financial crisis. Billion dollar companies are investing huge amounts of money to train executives NOT to punish adults from crying and instead seeing emotion as a valuable source of feedback that something is going on they are not aware of - and these people know how to talk.

Punishment at any age should be related to something people do that is wrong - crying anyone for crying is like punishing someone for sweating - what we see is only a tiny piece of what our bodies are doing- we SEE the wetness but sweat is the way our bodies cool themselves down when we are hot and babies may not even have the glands developed to do sweat.

A few sources:

Child physiology and psychology:

http:/wwwzperiodznaturalchildzperiodzorg/jan_hunt/cryingzperiodzhtml

http://www.crh.org/body.cfm?id=154

http:/wwwzperiodzcolicfactszperiodzcom/causeszperiodzhtml

http:/wwwzperiodzbabyzperiodzcom/jjpi/babyzhyphenzcare/EarlyzhyphenzInfantzhyphenzCryingzhyphenzAzhyphenzGuidezhyphenztozhyphenzParentszhyphenzandzhyphenzCaregiverszperiodzpdf

Business related:

http://www.leadingup.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=19&name=DLFE-99.pdf

http://hbr.org/2008/09/social-intelligence-and-the-Biology-of-leadership/ar/1