crying Archives - The Parenting Cafe

I recently had a 12 hour flight, returning from Europe. When I boarded I was sitting next to a young family – Mum, Dad and a 3 year old boy. As usually happens on flights, the hostess gave the boy a Kids Pack with an assortment of things to amuse him. While people were still boarding, he straight away got into the re-usable stickers – having a wonderful time sticking them on the arm rests and table tray.

As we prepared for take off, the hostess came round and told the parents he would need to put the tray table back up. The parents immediately responded, with no warning nor explanation to the child, grabbing the stickers, and shoving the table back up. Naturally he was upset, as he’d been having fun. His response…. to scream!

I’m pretty sure this has worked well for him in the past, which is why kids quickly learn that it’s an effective method of getting what you want! Read more

Do you sometimes have difficulty working out why your baby is crying? What is it, that they want? And even when you’ve tried a few things, they still cry!

Think about this…

Imagine if you were the baby and you were saying: ‘I’m tired’, and your carer feeds you instead! And then when you say again: ‘I’m tired’, then they decide to burp you… or change your nappy – the result would be one unhappy baby – and probably one upset and distressed parent!

This is what often happens with a newborn and new parents. It’s like we are both talking different languages, and can’t really understand what the other is saying. And so we take a guess – and sometimes we are lucky and get it right, and other times not!