If the baby cries and hugs, will it spoil the child in the end?
The other day I received a request for help from a new mom:
The baby is three months old and has always been the mother-in-law helping me with the child. Every time the baby cries, the mother-in-law does not let me hold the child, she told me that the child is particularly attentive, if you cry and hug, he will often threaten you with crying in the future.
She said that the children in the eldest sister-in-law's family are hugged when they cry, and now the children are held every day, and they can't put it down, and the adults are particularly tired.
I think what my mother-in-law said has a certain truth, and now that the baby is crying, I insist on not holding it. But as a mother, every time I look at the tragic appearance of my child crying, I am particularly distressed.
Now it's really a double torture.
Many people will tell new mothers that they should never hold their children when they cry, otherwise they will spoil their children. If you really believe it, you will regret it in the future!
Infant psychologist Freiberg wrote in "The Magic Years": "To learn to control parents with crying, the baby must have thoughts, the ability to perceive the objective world, and understand causality. ”
Especially for a baby within 5 months, if he knows how to use crying to control adults and realize his own ideas, it can only be said that your baby really has "superpowers"!
So, why do children cry?
Babies cry from birth and are the only way babies of this age can express their needs.
Psychologists have done a 4-year-long study of more than 3,000 different babies' various cries and pointed out that there are generally 5 reasons for babies' crying: hunger, drowsiness, physical discomfort, psychological discomfort and boredom.
See? For babies, his crying is mainly due to physical and psychological needs, rather than the "threat to adults" that parents think.
Some parents say, "However, if the child cries and I don't hold it, the child's crying will indeed decrease. ”
There is a concept of "separation anxiety" in developmental psychology, which goes through three stages.
In the first stage, your baby will cry to express a request for help, hoping to be helped.
In the second stage, when the baby is ignored and unable to improve the predicament, the urgent desire to desire the mother will be hit, the hope will be shattered, and the disappointment will be disappointed, so the crying will be reduced, and emotional indifference will appear.
In the third stage, the child, powerless, seeks out strangers who can be approached in an attempt to adapt to the new environment.
That is to say, the child's crying is actually a request for help from the parents, and once there is no response, the child's emotions will be affected, and he will feel discouraged, thus reducing crying.
Therefore, the child cries but does not hold, which seems to correct the behavior of crying and playing, but in fact, it is hurting the child, which has a great impact on its physical and mental health.
The theory of stages of psychosocial development states that the main developmental task in the early infancy is to gain a sense of trust. Parents who ignore the baby's crying will lead to serious insecurity of the child, resulting in the child's poor sleep, easy to be disturbed, loss of appetite, and even behavioral problems, if the child is in this state for a long time, the child's intelligence, personality and social adaptation development will be affected.
What exactly should we do with crying babies?
A classic study by psychologist M. Ainsworth found that babies who get a timely response from their parents at 0-3 months cry less at 8-12 months.
We already know that a baby's crying is all about passing on information and attracting adults to take care of themselves. So when the baby is crying, we must not sit idly by, but respond positively.
When hearing the baby crying, the mother must first give verbal positive response and feedback, so that the baby knows that the signal I sent has been received, that someone cares about me, and helps the child quickly establish a sense of security.
Secondly, immediately go to the child's side and judge the reason why the child is crying, is it hungry? Sleepy? Or is it peeing? Someone to play with? Help your child deal with the trouble right away and let the child know that his needs can be met.
The third step is to give an emotional response, through talking, laughing, teasing and emotional communication with the child, to meet the child's needs for pleasure.
If the child is still emotionally unstable, the child should be picked up in time, hugged, coaxed, so that the child can find the best sense of security in the arms of the parents.
In fact, crying is the language of communication between the baby and adults, the more in the child's childhood, give him a positive response, full understanding and sufficient love, will help the child to establish a solid sense of security and a stable sense of order, after growing up, his personality, emotions and personality can be more gentle and rational, in the self, to people can be more calm and rational, become a truly happy person.