First, the thing nobody tells you. Infant crying follows a predictable curve. It increases from around two weeks, peaks somewhere between six and eight weeks, and declines substantially by three to four months. At the peak, two to three hours of crying a day is within the normal range. If you are in week six and drowning, you are at the hardest point, and it does get better.
Work through causes in this order:
- Hunger — including cluster feeding in the evenings, which is normal and not a sign of low supply.
- Nappy — including a hair tourniquet around a toe or finger, which is easy to miss and genuinely painful.
- Temperature — check the back of the neck, not the hands. Overdressing is very common.
- Wind — hold upright, try different positions.
- Overtiredness — the most missed cause. Count back: have they been awake longer than their wake window?
- Overstimulation — too much light, noise, handling, or too many visitors.
- Needing contact — sometimes the answer is simply being held. That is a real need, not a bad habit.
If crying is intense, prolonged and clustered in the evening, and your baby is otherwise healthy and feeding well, that pattern is often called colic. We wrote about it separately: soothing a colicky baby. On medication of any kind, ask your pediatrician — we do not recommend or compare treatments.
What helps in the moment:
- One input, not five. Bouncing plus singing plus patting plus talking overwhelms an already overloaded baby. Pick one and hold it for a few minutes.
- Continuous low-frequency sound. Womb recordings, heartbeat, a steady hum. Continuous, not intermittent.
- Containment and motion. Firm holding, gentle rhythmic movement.
- Skin to skin. Reliably lowers stress for both of you.
- Go outside. A change of air and light interrupts the cycle surprisingly often.
- A visual anchor once the peak has broken — a slow high-contrast pattern can stop the crying loop from restarting.
When you have nothing left. If you feel yourself becoming angry or desperate, put your baby down somewhere safe — on their back in the cot — leave the room, and take a few minutes. A baby crying alone briefly in a safe space is not harmed. Never shake a baby. If you are struggling, tell someone: your partner, a friend, your health visitor or your doctor. Asking for help is not failure, and persistent inconsolable crying is one of the recognised triggers for parental crisis.
Seek medical help urgently for fever, a weak or unusually high-pitched cry, difficulty rousing, poor feeding, vomiting, blood in the stool, breathing changes, or if the crying is a sudden dramatic change from your baby's normal pattern.