Calming Your Crying Baby
Suppose you are facing two problems: The baby is awake, and the baby is crying. This may seem to be one situation. It isn't; it's two. If it was daytime and your baby was awake, this wouldn't be a problem unless he was crying. Because it's night and you want to sleep yourself, her being awake is keeping you awake.
Until your baby is ready to go back to sleep, your best effort should be to try to calm her down if she's crying so that, though she's awake and keeping you awake, at least she's not fussing or screeching. If you can calm her down, perhaps your spouse and other children can get back to sleep, even if you can't.
If the baby's still up after a while, you can wake your spouse and let him or her take the next shift while you get a little sleep. But as you hold her, rock her, or otherwise soothe her and perhaps eventually feed her again, if she's awake long enough for that, be alert for a signal that she's ready to go back to sleep.
But how do you calm down a crying baby? There are a number of things you can try that will soothe and relax your little one so she is ready to fall asleep.
Alert!
Occasionally a baby's crying can upset a parent, especially a sleepless one, to the point that a parent will lose self-control and do something to jeopardize the baby's well-being. If you feel yourself at the breaking point, hand the baby off to your spouse or simply put the baby back in his crib. He will not harm himself by crying or screaming alone in his crib for a few minutes while you get control of yourself. Under those circumstances, he is better off screaming on his own without being comforted than being at risk with a parent who is reacting emotionally.
