You've had a gentle and tender day with baby, you settle down at the end of the day and surpriiiiise — when you're both at rest, baby starts crying. Let's try to understand why.
"Release crying" refers to intense crying, often at the end of the day, when all of baby's needs seem to be met (fed, clean, rested). The term remains debated: it puts a name on crying that we don't always know how to explain. It appears mainly from birth to 3–4 months and eases as the nervous system matures.
Release crying, what's that all about?
Baby is fed, clean, cuddled and yet starts crying at the end of the day? You've attended to all their needs (well, mostly) and yet they cry without stopping?
The term "release crying" could be a form of intellectualization that adults apply to the signals babies give without being able to understand them... A bit of a catch-all word, like "colic" sometimes, which becomes the explanation for "almost everything".
So yes, we may hear talk of "release crying" as an attempt to explain crying that we haven't always been able to understand.
Feeling safe with you (or another close person), they can "let go" and seek comfort. This can be frustrating, we know, because we feel like we've "done everything" to calm baby without feeling like we're succeeding.
What to do during release crying?
Understanding that continuing to be present in the relationship means seeing in these cries a need we don't yet understand — and that's okay. Unable to speak, baby communicates through crying and invites us to keep searching and help them settle.
Listening to baby and your instincts
The only way to "stay in the conversation" with baby and maintain communication would be to listen to baby and your instincts, armed with a curiosity aimed at seeking the deeper causes of baby's crying.
- With the desire to interpret and understand, a little like when we look for the solution to a riddle or a puzzle
- When baby settles: we know we have understood baby's need and responded to it :)
The most important thing: simply being there
What would be harmful for the baby is not the act of crying, but having to cry ALONE.
So as long as you are there and trying to find solutions:
- by offering rocking (practically constant during their 9 months in the womb, with the containment that reminds them of the uterine environment in which they were weightlessly wrapped at all times by amniotic fluid)
- by offering your arms
- by singing…
Feel free to also personalize the way you go about feeding, or to bring your own touch to the way you care for your child, who is unique. Every cry and the response it invites you to find is an opportunity to deepen your communication with baby :)
"Release crying": at what age, for how long?
Since this word is often applied to evening crying in very young babies, it's worth specifying what period we're talking about. These intense late-day cries are most frequent in the first weeks of life, with a peak around the 3rd week, and they noticeably space out by 3–4 months — when baby's nervous system matures and their digestion settles.
This is therefore not a permanent state of affairs: it's a phase. If you're wondering "how long is this going to last?" while rocking your baby at 7 p.m., the answer is more a matter of weeks than months. But be careful not to too quickly file all crying under this convenient label: every evening baby cries remains an invitation to search, not just to tick the "release crying" box.
Release crying: can babywearing help?
To free up your arms and gain mobility, wrap babywearing, sling babywearing or a baby carrier can be a solution to soothe them, as you are responding to their primary needs.
Also in this vertical body-to-body position, your body acts as a hot water bottle to help with any difficult digestion (since their 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 receives a kinesthetic response through the touch and containment offered by a baby carrier or wrap.
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What if it wasn't "just" release crying?
Precisely because the term can serve as a catch-all word, it must not become a screen hiding a real discomfort. Staying in the relationship also means knowing when to refer to a healthcare professional (doctor, child health clinic, midwife, pediatrician) when certain signs appear:
- The crying lasts several hours every day and seems truly inconsolable, day after day.
- They are accompanied by fever, vomiting, refusal to feed, or weight loss.
- Baby seems in pain all the time, not just at the end of the day (reflux or CMPA may be hiding behind the label "release crying" or "colic").
- You can feel that you yourself are at the end of your rope: your wellbeing matters too.
Consulting a professional is not giving up on understanding baby: it's broadening the search. And if exhaustion overwhelms you in the face of the crying, keep in mind Allo parents bébé (0 800 00 34 56) or the 119 — asking for support is taking care of baby and of yourself.