The impact of the crying on parents is at least as important as the crying itself.

Until recently, the focus in research into infant crying and colic was on the crying and its causes. As evidence grew, it became clear that:

• Most babies who cried a lot were healthy and developed normally.
• Babies in general had a crying ‘peak’ around about 1-2 months of age.
• What upset parents was not the amount of crying so much as the fact that parents (and professionals) could not stop it.
• This ‘unsoothable’ crying, too, was linked to the early months and disappeared with age.
• The crying peak and unsoothable bouts were probably caused by normal developmental processes. (More information on this is given in the research article Why do babies cry excessively?).

Research also showed that the impact of the crying on parents – and consequences for the infant where parents had difficulty coping with it – were at least as important as the crying itself. There is evidence, for instance, that:

• Parents who think the crying means the baby is still hungry can stop breastfeeding too early.  Others over-feed their baby.
• The crying can trigger parental distress, frustration and depression.
• This can lead to poor parent-child relationships, problems with child development, and infant abuse in a small number of cases.

In spite of this evidence, there are no routine NHS services to support parents in how to manage the crying.

By providing this website and other evidence-based services which support parents, we hope to improve parental wellbeing, infant outcomes, and the NHS.