This is one of parenting's best kept secrets.

Your baby is crying. You've done everything you know to get him/her to stop. You’ve changed the diaper, offered food, checked the temperature of the forehead, and triple-checked for open safety pins, and your baby still cries. Shushing, walking, rocking, and lullabies haven’t worked either.

The next time this happens remember this tip:

 

Intend that your baby cry until he/she no longer needs to.

“Intend” is totally different than simply putting-up-with or trying your best to accept it. Notice above that I used the words, “get him/her to stop.” This is what most compassionate parents do, they try to stop the baby from crying, to "fix" him/her. Usually what a parent does, so he/she (the parent) doesn't have to experience the pain the baby is experiencing, is to whisper repeatedly, “Shush, shush, it’s OK.” “Everything’s OK.” “Mommy’s here.” "Mommy loves you.” even, verging on anger, "For God's sake, please stop."  etc.* What this does is make the baby wrong for crying. The baby gets (if only non-verbally) that the parent doesn’t want it to do what it’s doing yet the baby has no choice (more about this below). All the shushing further upsets the baby—

 

Baby: "What do you mean "shush? You're not getting it, I'm having an upset and I'm not having any success getting you to get what it's about. Work with me on this. What do you think it might be about?"

 

Later in life the child spends a fortune in therapy trying to figure out why they are stuck in anger and addicted to trying to change the behavior of their loved one.

Intend  means that it must be your idea that your baby cries when he/she is crying. You must support your child in communicating what he/she is communicating. Once you “get” his/her communication the child will be complete. If you go unconscious and refuse to look within to see what it’s about you leave the child no choice but to continue crying.

Crying is the way a baby completes hundreds, if not thousands, of experiences of fear, confusion, upset, hurt, and pain from as far back as conception. Most all of these incompletes happened while in the womb. Babies hear, feel, and experience all the arguments, all the times the mother felt hurt, upset, worried, or invalidated. It heard all the TV shows, all the news reports (the condition of the planet), not that it understood the content but that it picked up the vibes of concern, doubt, and fear. Possibly he/she experienced an intuition, "Whatever it is that that's going on out there it sure is scary." Few mothers have the thought that a prolonged painful birth delivery could possibly be her integrity at work, supporting her in acknowledging life's perpetrations. Most arrogantly refuse to believe that out-integrities such as cheating on a high school test, no car insurance, bills past due, lies on applications such as for food stamps, outstanding unacknowledged deceits, incomplete relationships, have an effect on desired outcomes. Arrogance always begs to be humbled. No child would willingly choose to enter into a world in which his/her mother is still blaming an ex, still treating him/her abusively.

Babies are integrity meters: A baby can immediately tell when the integrity is out between his/her parents. When parents resort to their imitation of communication the vibrations are different. When one parent is hiding a thought from the other the space is different. A baby does what it can to draw attention to the fact that something’s wrong. If crying didn't complete the issue then later in life the child starts to misbehave. If that doesn’t work they do poorly in school or get sick, anything to bring in outside help so as to restore the experience of integrity, of love. It’s not that parents don’t love each other any more, it’s that the love has become conceptualized. They have lost their ability to create joy and happiness at will. There's something warm and fuzzy when parents giggle, when they don't, something's wrong.

When parents are in integrity, when they are whole and complete, all withholds delivered, all perpetrations verbally acknowledged, all abuses and deceits acknowledged, then everyone is whole and complete. The vibrations are soothing and quieting. It’s the experience of love, of parents being in communication with each other.

Here's two examples of incompletes a baby might have:

Example #1 If during pregnancy the father yelled at his wife in upset, “Jesus! I told you . . . ” The communication being, “that was stupid of you” (a condescending communication to his wife), the baby experienced an upset. Things were harmonious and all of a sudden the baby experienced the shock the mother felt (not upset as in angry but upset as in the game board being turned upside down, as in someone getting in the way of a great surfboard ride). The baby felt what the mother felt for the father to say such a disrespectful thing to the wife he loves, and, what it felt like to be on the receiving end of the abusive communication. If the father immediately followed up the outburst with an acknowledgment—that he knew it was abusive—thereby completing the experience to the mother’s satisfaction, (including a warm hug) then the baby also felt the harmonious vibration of humble atonement and completion. If the father is/was so unconscious that it didn’t occur to him that he was abusive, if he does it (yells and communicates condescendingly without cleaning it up through to the experience of love) all the time, and if the mother is so addicted to abuse (to be spoken to condescendingly) that she creates (allows/supports) such abuse, then both parents are unconscious and the baby simply feels confused and incomplete. That specific yelling incident, that abuse, will be an experience that will need to be completed when it (the baby) has time, when it has the means, the tools (crying/behaviors) to express the sadness and pain of witnessing such an interaction. Life is never ever quite the same after an unacknowledged abuse.

Example #2 If during pregnancy the mother ate foods that were unhealthy then the baby also experienced the vibrations of remorse, guilt, grief, shame, and disgust, perhaps a shuddering reaction to the toxicity. Each bite of something that was supposed to be wholesome, nutritional, and nurturing produced a nerve-tingling-bio-chemical shudder for the baby triggered by the mother's own unconscious thoughts of disgust. The thoughts of feeling helpless and not in control were shared with the baby. If the mother doesn’t know how to clear, to disappear such thoughts, then she is still dragging around remnants of those incomplete experiences (read about The Clearing Process, it's free. Do five clearings, one per day for five days in a row). It could be said the baby will have to keep crying until the mother completes her experience of guilt (an acknowledgment process supports one in completing life's incompletes, all life's perpetrations). During a three-hour consultation a communication-skills coach can support you in locating the incomplete, the incident, that’s triggering the baby’s hurt and pain.

Crying is a baby’s way of supporting parents in acknowledging (completing) abuses, of getting back into loving communication with each other.

Misbehaving teenagers are stuck as babies who have not completed their experience of crying. Integrity can be created or restored though clearing. I say "created" because most parents brought their condition of being out-integrity into the relationship and therefore there never has been an experience of integrity; that's what their child has been trying to communicate its entire life (this is the case in 95% of all families).

For more about this topic read: The Aware Baby by Aletha Jauch Solter.

* Examples of what works: Use your own words. Parent: “Yes, tell me all about it.” “Good. Tell me some more.” “Yes, I know. Tell me more.” “Thank you.” “Good boy (/girl).” “Tell me some more.” “I love you so much.” “That’s it. Get it all out.” “Yes, I know it hurts.” “Tell me all about it.” “That’s good. Get it out.” “What else?” etc. All the while keep looking to see what you are withholding from your spouse. Look and see what thoughts, perpetrations, judgments, you have withheld (stuffed) in the name of harmony. If you have thoughts that you’re not willing to share then you are unconsciously masterminding a divorce. And, you’re teaching your child to not communicate openly, honestly, and spontaneously.