The Happiest Baby on the Block and The Happiest Toddler on the Block 2-Book Bundle pdfdrive com

“Help Me … The World Is Too Big!”
How Overstimulation Causes Crying
Avoid overstimulation with toys, lights, and colors; this
fatigues the baby’s senses.
Richard Lovell, Essays on Practical Education, 1789
Considering how exciting the world is, it’s a wonder that all babies
don’t get overstimulated! Fortunately, most are great at shutting out the
world when they need to. However, if your baby has poor state control,
even a low activity level may push him into frantic crying. He may begin
to sob because of a tiny upset, like a burp or loud noise, but then get so
wound up—by his own yelling—that he’s soon raging out of control.

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These babies cry because they get overstimulated and then stuck in
“cry mode.” If we could translate their shrieks into English, we’d hear
something like “Please … help me … the world is too big!”
“Help Me … I’m Stuck in a Closet!”
How Understimulation Causes Crying
Your baby is not crying to make you pick him up, but
because you put him down in the first place.
Penelope Leach, Your Baby and Child
Our culture believes in the strange myth that a baby wants to be left
in a quiet, dark room. But what is this stillness like for your new baby?
Imagine you’ve been working in a noisy, hectic office for nine months.
One morning you come to work and find yourself alone—no chatter, no
ringing phones, no commotion. Soon, the stillness gets on your nerves.
You begin pacing and muttering, until you lose it and scream, “Get me
out of here!”
This scene is similar to the way babies experience the world when
they come home from the hospital. Although our image of the perfect
nursery is one where our little angel sleeps in serene quiet, to a newborn
that feels a bit like being stuck in a closet.
As strange as it sounds, your baby doesn’t want—or need—peace and
quiet. What he yearns for are the pulsating rhythms that constantly
surrounded him in his womb world. In fact, the understimulation and
stillness of our homes can drive a sensitive newborn every bit as nuts as
chaotic overstimulation can.
Does understimulation mean babies cry because they’re bored? No.
Unlike older children and adults, babies don’t find monotonous
repetition boring. (That’s why your baby is happy drinking milk day
after day.) Rather, they find the absence of monotonous repetition hard
to tolerate. Their cries ask for a return to the constant, hypnotizing
stimulation of the womb. Fussy babies often take three months before
they become mature enough to cope with the world without this
rhythmic reassurance.
Either understimulation or overstimulation can be terribly unsettling

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to young infants; however, even worse is to experience both at the same
time. When an immature baby is subjected to chaos in the absence of
calming, rhythmic sensations, it can drive him past his point of
tolerance!