I Had a “Purple Crier” Here’s what I did By Dr Alison McClymont
Purple Crying as defined on the NHS website: P – Peak crying: Your baby might cry more
each week - the most in the second month, then less in months three to five.
U – Unexpected: Crying can come and go and you don’t know why
R – Resists soothing: your baby might
not stop crying no matter what you try.
P – Pain-like face: a crying baby might look like they are in pain, even when they are not.
L – Long lasting: crying can last as long as five hours a day or more.
E – Evening: your baby might cry more in the late afternoon and evening.
“All babies cry.” “Have you tried doing x/y/z?” “You should let her self-soothe.” “Its gas.” “It’s reflux.” I heard it all and I tried it all. I spent hours researching different ways to hold babies, different massage techniques, cranial osteopathy, homeopathy, changing my diet, changing feeding times, changing feeding positions, infacol, colief, chamomile oil, changing sleep positions, getting elevated sleep pillow
things, playing white noise, playing music, changing bedroom temperatures, sleeping in car seats, not sleeping in car seats and endless walking up and down stairs. I even tried a strange practice of stepping up and down off a coffee table… there was not one thing I wouldn’t try. But nothing worked - she still cried.
What Purple Crying looked like for me For the first 5-6 months of my eldest child’s life, she cried unrelentingly for up to 5 hours at a time. The mornings were usually the worst and the only thing that stopped her was near-constant breastfeeding on my part, and this I did. I had many people tell me that I should “feed on a schedule”, but breastfeeding was the only thing that offered me some mental space, and I did it happily - my daughter seemed to relax only when she was on the breast. I tried a dummy for a day, but she refused and in my newmother-sleep-deprived state I was so overwhelmed by different messages, I latched on strongly to the idea that a dummy was not the solution. I remember feeling confused, exhausted, emotionally battered and completely out of my body. I went to a play date with some other new mums and watched in astonishment as one mother just lay her baby down to sleep without any crying whatsoever or any convoluted routine of breastfeeding/bouncing/commando rolling away from the cot. “Is she just going to sleep like that?!” I asked, as though I was witnessing some kind of Jan-Mar 2022 Toddle About Warwickshire 13
