Apparently, geography matters. If it seems like your infant cries over everything and nothing, these new guidelines could help ease your mind.
All babies cry at some point, but a new study indicates that how much your baby cries might depend on what country you live in.
Researchers from Warwick University in Britain conducted what’s known as a ‘meta-analysis’ of studies.
It’s a statistical procedure that doesn’t involved fieldwork but combines data from multiple studies that have already been done by others.
In this case, researchers looked at data that detailed the crying habits of about 87,000 babies from countries such as Germany, Denmark, Japan, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain.
What did they find?
Babies from Canada, Britain, Italy and the Netherlands seem to cry more than their counterparts from Denmark, Germany and Japan. These guys are the least fussy.
Average Crying Times
(photo credit: www.pixabay.com)
Why the differences? It’s hard to say. Whether the results are due to differences in parenting, pregnancy experiences or genetics, researchers couldn’t tell.
Perhaps parents in Canada, Britain and the Netherlands are more open to admitting that their child cries, whereas parents from Japan, Germany and Denmark are too ashamed to report it- but that’s a stab in the dark.
What is certain are some averages. Of all the babies studied, researchers found that young infants generally cry for about 2 hours each day in their first two weeks of life.
As life goes on, they tend to cry even more. They peak at about 2 hours and 15 minutes in the following weeks, but then go back down to only crying a little over an hour, by the time they’re 3 months old.
If your own child seems to be far outside these general guidelines, don’t worry. They could have colic and a visit to the doctor could be in order to ensure they aren’t sick or lacking some kind of care.
Photo credit: FamVeld/Shutterstock
