By now you know your baby well enough to decipher their different cries. There’s one for pain, a needed diaper change, hunger and another for tired. But sometimes, no matter what you do to try and please them, there is no consoling them. You’ve tried everything you know to do to make your little one happy but the tears and screams just keep coming. What are you to do and how do you keep yourself from losing it? An inconsolable baby can be very nerve wracking and the more worked up you are the harder it will be for baby to calm down.

First of all, your baby can feel your tension and aggravation. Before you can calm them down, you have to calm yourself down. Lay your baby down in their bed, where you know they are safe, turn around, leave the room and close the door. Take the monitor with you but have it off. Only turn it on long enough to listen in. Go somewhere in the house where you cannot hear your little one crying from their room or put some head phones in. Listen to a song or two and take a breath. When you have taken a time out and feeling more relaxed, go back to your baby and work on the soothing.

Colic sucks. There’s no other way to put it. It sucks for the baby and it sucks for the rest of the household too. At a store near you, you can pick up gas relieving drops to help with the gas but that doesn’t always do the trick. With my kids, skin to skin contact always worked. Strip your baby down and run a bath for the two of you. Lay your baby on you so you two are lying tummy to tummy. Make sure to grab a wash cloth or two to help keep baby warm. Before you know it, baby will be passed out.

Don’t have time or the energy to get into the bath with your little one? Try the kitchen sink. No matter how worked up my son has managed to get himself, running water always distracts him from what he is upset over. I turn the faucet on with warm water, sit him on the edge of the sink and let him run his toes and fingers through the water. It usually calms him enough for me to get him to finish nursing and then off to a much needed nap. Feel free to share your calming techniques. What works for you and your little one?