There are times when you definitely want to scream in frustration because your baby has been crying out loud for reasons that you don’t know what he really needs. Accept the fact that part of your child care experience is dealing with the cry of your baby. Of course, dealing with it entails a long lasting kind of your patience.

Without patience, for sure, you may just end up compromising your child’s safety.

There is a condition that may possibly happen if you are one type of a person who is likely to cause some abuse. It is called the Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS). Also called as Battered Baby Syndrome, it is one of the leading causes of mortality in infants. It is a form of child abuse that occurs when an abuser violently shakes an infant or small child, creating a whiplash-type motion that causes brain injuries.  Actually, it can be 100% prevented.

A newborn’s neck muscles are not yet strong. Therefore, they are extremely vulnerable to mishandling. Every parent or caretaker should know that an ultimately safe infant care must be given to a newborn.

A shaken baby is likely to develop swelling of the brain that can cause head and even brain trauma. This sad consequence can lead to serious health problems later in life. Worst to know, almost half of these kinds of situations end in death.

So if you are likely to be on the verge of almost getting to your limits, do not touch your baby when you are angry or upset. Be on a time-out. Walk away and compose yourself first before going back to your baby to comfort him. But if you are close to your breaking point, switch off with your spouse or any other person with you in your house. If you are by yourself, secure him down into safety. You may walk into another room to gain your composure before returning.

You do not want for sure that your baby will be put into abuse. If you will be in your baby’s shoes, you may not want to be innocently traumatized as well. Violent shaking is NEVER an accepted behavior to express any of your deepest anger or frustrations.

Colic is one of the babies most usual problems. They cry to death. Colic babies cause severe sleep deprivation, frustration and exhaustion in parents as they worry constantly try to quiet the infant. But it is your infant care responsibility to nurse your baby in this kind of condition.

Colic crying consists of frequent and prolonged outbursts. According to experts, the most common reason for colic is abdominal pain in babies and the two most common reasons that cause tummy ache in infants are discussed here along with their symptoms and cures:

-Reflux or Gastro-esophageal Reflux Disease (GERD): Since the circular band of muscle where the esophagus joins the stomach in babies is not fully matured yet, it allows stomach acid to flow into the esophagus and this causes heartburn and irritation in the lining.The symptoms that manifest, babies cry a lot and are inconsolable. They spit up after feeding, writhe in pain, have frequent wet or sour burps and cannot sleep properly.
For cure, breast milk easier to digest and will reduce the chances of reflux. For colic babies, give half the amount at once but twice as often. Especially in bottle-feeding, it helps to digest milk better. After feeding, keep the baby upright elevating his head for about 30 to 45 degrees for at least half an hour. It is a must to burp the baby immediately after feeding. If your baby still remains colicky, the doctor may prescribe medication to reduce stomach acid.
-Allergy: A component of a formula or something in a mother’s diet who is still breastfeeding may act as an allergen for the baby.The symptoms that manifest: Apart from symptoms of GERD, the other symptoms of allergy may include diarrhea and raised rashes on the face and body of the baby.
For cure to this, feed your baby more frequently and in smaller amounts. If you are bottle-feeding for the baby, try a hypoallergenic formula. Cow’s milk is the most common infant allergen, so you can eliminate it for a week from a breastfeeding mother’s or baby’s diet and see whether it improves the condition of your baby. Other things that may act as allergens for the baby are soy, wheat, eggs and nuts.

Those mentioned are some of the possible ways to sooth your baby’s colic. However, most babies outgrow that condition at the age of about three to six months. Find the best way to nurse your baby.

Every child has a unique language development pattern so the parents should not worry too much about their children not following the growth chart as they had expected or should not think that their child can become a child prodigy just because he achieved some language milestones quicker than what have been reflected in charts. Yet, on the other hand, child development experts emphasize the need of recognizing a handicap, autism or some other deficiency in the child as early as possible as the right intervention at an early stage can minimize its effect to a great extent and can even enable the child to live almost a normal life.

There is a wide range of individual difference in language learning and the chart only reflects what most babies do at a given age. In this article, we will discuss how to tally the child’s achievements with a growth chart without being overstressed or anxious about it and know whether your baby is normal or needs help. Here is a generic chart for ‘Infant Language Milestones’:

* 0-3 months: Infants cry, coo or gurgle. They respond to parents’ voices by being quiet and looking into their eyes. They start sucking quickly or slowly in response to various sounds according to how they like it.
* 4-6 months: Babies start to babble with sounds like ‘mama’, ‘nana’, ‘dada’ or ‘gaga’. They love to use their newfound speech, turn their necks to see where the sound is coming from in its direction, respond to voices and sounds like crying if there are spoken to harshly, cooing with music and get attracted to toys that make sound such as rattles and even TV and mobiles.
* 7-12 months: Babies’ babble becomes more coherent as they start making some sounds repetitively. They listen attentively when they are spoken to and start understanding some common words like ‘book’, ‘milk’, ‘bottle’ and ‘potty’ along with ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’. They can even understand simple commands like ‘come here’, ‘go’, ‘sit down’ and ‘kiss mom’. They generally say their first words when they are about a year old.
* 1-2 year old: Babies generally start saying one-word sentences at one year of age like ‘milk’, ‘book’ and ‘park’, followed by two-word sentences such as ‘go park’, ‘teddy bear’ or ‘daddy office’ when they are two year old and in the third year, they say three-word sentences such as ‘I want book’, ‘milk is hot’, ‘cookies are good’. Then, they generally start using the language properly. Toddlers also start recognizing body parts by their name and point to them along with pictures in a book. They can also follow easy commands such as ‘Kiss the aunt’, ‘Sit on the chair’ and ‘Use spoon while eating’.

However, even when babies cannot express themselves they recognize and understand certain words and know more than they can say. Thus, there is a difference between ‘receptive language’, which means understanding the words and how they are used in combination to communicate and ‘expressive language’, which means producing sounds that requires motor skills required for speech too. Thus, babies who are not still able to speak can still communicate using sign language such as ‘Stop crying’.

It is important to know whether your baby is just going to talk late or has a hearing problem or language delay. In the first six months, all children babble irrespective of the fact that they are deaf or not. However, if they are too silent and do not respond to parents’ voices that should warn you that there is some problem. Children with language and hearing disorders stop babbling instead of moving on to more complex patterns and coherent speech between 6 to 12 months. Receptive language is more important than the expressive language so a child who has not said his first word is communicating by other means such as lifting her arms to be picked up, pointing and responding to simple commands than she is probably just a late talker.

If a child is not interested in communication at all and does not try to imitate adult actions or don’t make eye contact than probably it shows developmental disorder or language delay. If it is accompanied by delay in other milestones such as sitting and walking than parents need to be worried even more and seek help immediately. Children born prematurely, suffering from Down syndrome or had succumbed to meningitis are at higher risk for developmental delays and hearing, speech and language problems. In such cases, parents should immediately visit their pediatrician who can help them to find whether there is hearing loss in the child. However, infants as young as 3 months can now be fitted with hearing aids, which help them to learn language, just like normal children. Other reasons of language delay can include persistent middle-ear infections. So, parents are advised to get frequent infections evaluated.

According to researches and studies, music can help in child development- both cognitive and behavioral. Music therapy is increasingly becoming popular among kids and therapists believe that certain tones, rhythms and vibrations can actually help treat various medical and behavioral problems in babies and adults alike. It has been seen that lullabies in parents’ voice indeed make babies feel more secure and loved and can help them thrive. It has been seen that relaxing music and 20 minutes of vocal lullaby twice daily helped premature babies and preemies to thrive better, slowed their heart rates and increased the amounts of formula and oxygen they took in.

Similarly, colicky babies or teething babies that hurt and cry a lot are easier to soothe with songs that have soothing melody and steady rhythm. However, if parents love the lullabies, then it works much better than instrumental music, even if they are unable to carry a tune and have to make up the lyrics because they simply can’t remember the words. Another study showed that the brain waves of kids with attention-deficit or hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that listened to three 40-minute recordings of classical music per week for about six months, moved to higher levels and that they could focus or concentrate better on the tasks assigned to them while they were listening the music.

Listening to regular music sessions periodically throughout the day and classical rhythmic music such as that of Mozart or Haydn can help calm a kid, when he is restless or very tired such as after school. Some kids can learn better or show improvement in their efficiency levels when they do their homework while playing music. However, some kids are just the opposite and cannot just concentrate on studies or work while the music is on, so it basically varies from individual to individual. Kids who face difficulty in following directions may show better results and pay more attention to you if they are given directions in playful, rhythmic, singsong tunes. So, music does help health and stimulate development of a kid.