Nursery World - To the point... (38)

This week's columnist Robin Balbernie says we should let babies cry all they need to - and respond to them faster I was sitting outside a restaurant recently and watched a young mother lift her crying baby into her pram and wheel her off, still crying. The baby plainly wanted a cuddle and I suspect mum might have wanted to give her one, but these days we are not meant to encourage babies to cry for attention. This is a stupid idea.

I was sitting outside a restaurant recently and watched a young mother lift her crying baby into her pram and wheel her off, still crying. The baby plainly wanted a cuddle and I suspect mum might have wanted to give her one, but these days we are not meant to encourage babies to cry for attention. This is a stupid idea.

Crying is irritating - it is meant to be. It is a distress signal that demands a response, and so the idea of training babies not to do this is attractive to many, especially those whom Joan Raphael-Leff called 'regulator mothers'. Crying, and responding to crying, is coded into our brains, important mutual regulatory systems whose successes at achieving their aims have ensured the replication of the genes responsible for such behaviours. A baby cries because she wants her parents to do something for her that she cannot manage for herself, such as make her feel safe or sort out a need. If the cry is ignored then someone has broken their end of the evolutionary bargain.

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