Story at a glance
- A study compared techniques to get a crying baby to sleep.
- The findings suggest the best method is to hold the baby and walk around with them for five minutes without any abrupt stops or sudden changes in direction.
- After that, researchers suggest sitting down and holding them for five to eight minutes before gently laying them down to sleep.
There may be an optimal technique available for parents when struggling to soothe a crying infant, according to new research.
Japanese researchers behind a study published this week in the journal Current Biology conducted a series of experiments to determine if there’s a favorable approach to calming a crying newborn and putting them to sleep, which is a common situation frustrating for both parent and child.
The findings suggest the best method is to hold a crying baby and walk around with them for five minutes without any abrupt stops or sudden changes in direction. After that, researchers suggest sitting down and holding them for five to eight minutes before gently laying them down to sleep.
To come to this conclusion, scientists used baby heart monitors and video recordings to compare changes in infant heart rate and behavior as a set of 21 mothers acted out activities commonly used to calm crying newborns. The scenarios included walking and carrying the baby, pushing the baby in a stroller, holding the baby while sitting and putting the baby directory into a crib or cot. Data was collected from babies that were asleep, alert and calm or crying and scored accordingly.
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Among the babies studied, all had stopped crying after a five-minute walk and had reduced heart rates, while about half fell asleep. Just sitting and holding a crying baby did not appear to work. Monitors showed the baby’s heart rate increased and crying persisted.
“Walking for five minutes promoted sleep, but only for crying infants. Surprisingly, this effect was absent when babies were already calm beforehand,” Kumi Kuroda, a researcher with the RIKEN Center for Brain Science in Japan who developed the study, said in a statement.
The study found babies were extremely cognizant of the movement of their mothers. Heart rates increased when moms turned or stopped walking or infants were separated from their mothers.
Infants in the study often woke up if they were put down to sleep in their cribs before getting about eight minutes of sleep. That’s why researchers suggest sitting with a sleeping baby for five to eight minutes after walking around so they go into a deeper sleep.
“The key parameter for successful laydown of sleeping infants was the latency from sleep onset,” Kuroda said.
Researchers previously studied the “transport response” in other mammals, in which infants become passive and develop slower heart rates when being carried by their mother. Kuroda and her team found such a response in both mouse pups and human babies.
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