You've spent a sweet and tender day with baby, you're settling down at the end of the day and surpriiiiise, when you're calm, baby starts crying. Let's find out why.
What's a discharge cry?
Baby is full, washed and cuddled, yet he starts crying at the end of the day? You've taken care of all his needs (well, normally or almost) and yet he cries without stopping?
The term "discharge crying" could be a form of intellectualization that the adult makes of the signs that the baby gives him without him being able to understand them... It's a bit of a catch-all term, like "colic" which is sometimes used to explain "almost everything".
So yes, we can hear talk of "dumping cries" to try and explain cries that we haven't always been able to understand.
In trust with you (or someone else close to him), he can "let go" and seek comfort. This can be frustrating, as we know, because we feel we've "done everything" to calm baby, but we don't feel we've succeeded.
What to do about crying discharge?
Understanding that continuing to be in a relationship means seeing in these cries a request that we don't yet understand, and that's normal. For want of being able to speak, baby's cries are a way of communicating, inviting us to keep searching and help him to calm down.
Listen to baby and your intuition
The only way to "stay in the conversation" with baby and maintain communication would be to listen to baby and your intuitions, equipped with a curiosity that aims to find the root causes of baby's crying.
- With the desire to interpret and understand, a bit like when we're looking for the solution to an enigma or a puzzle.
- When baby calms down: we know we've understood baby's need and responded to it :)
The most important thing: just being there
What would be harmful for the baby is not the fact of crying, but the fact of having to cry ALONE.
So as long as you're here and you're trying to come up with solutions :
- by offering cradling (practically constant during its 9 months in the uterus, with the containment that reminds it of the uterine environment in which it was weightless, permanently enveloped by amniotic fluid)
- by offering your arms
- singing...
Don't hesitate to personalize the way you feed your baby, or to personalize the way you care for your unique child. Every cry and response he invites you to find is an opportunity to broaden your communication with baby :)
Discharge crying: can babywearing help?
To get your arms back and gain mobility, babywearing in a sling or baby carrier can be a soothing solution, as you're meeting your baby's primary needs.
Also, in this vertical body-to-body position, your body serves as a hot water bottle to help with any digestive difficulties (as the digestive system is not mature before 3 months).
Some of baby's primary needs, such as sucking (not necessarily hunger), can be soothed when baby has a kinaesthetic response to the touch and containment offered by the baby carrier or wrap
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