The dial on your baby's nervous system
If your baby cries a lot, it is important that you have your baby assessed by your local GP, to rule out a medical condition. This page belongs to collection of short articles and videos in plain language, called When baby cries a lot. Together, these articles and videos will give you a brief and simple summary of the Possums 5-domain approach to the crying baby in the first 16 weeks of life. For comprehensive information on this topic, please go deeper into the Possums programs, or you might consider reading The discontented little baby book.
I’d like to share an important idea with you. This is the idea of the dial on your baby's sympathetic nervous system, which acts in their brain and body.
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The dial is like the volume control in your baby.
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The sympathetic nervous system is the ‘on button’ in your baby’s brain and body. It switches on when your baby has physical or safety needs.
All the latest brain science tells us that responsive parenting is best for your baby’s development. Your responses help your baby keep the dial turned down on the sympathetic nervous system.
Babies dial up to communicate to us, whether it's because they are hungry, or needing a change of what is around them, or wanting to be held. Babies communicates their needs through signs or cues. This includes their body movements, the expressions on their face or the noises they make. This is how they tell you that they need something.
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When your baby dials up, they might start groaning and grunting and stretching.
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As the dial turns up more, your baby might start grizzling and fussing.
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When your baby cries, the dial on the sympathetic nervous system is turned up quite high.
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When baby is screaming (oh how upsetting that is for parents!) your baby’s dial is turned up as high as it can possibly be!
It is helpful for your baby if you can respond to their communication or cues before they get really dialled up. Responding keeps their sensitive little sympathetic nervous system as dialled down as possible. It’s also true that sometimes babies will cry despite our best efforts, especially when they are very young.
Our aim as parents or carers is to keep the little one as dialled down as much as we can – even though we can’t always respond immediately, especially if we have an older child to care for, and even though responding doesn’t always work to dial the baby down.
Recommended resources
What is meant by the dial on your baby's sympathetic nervous system?
Why responding to your baby matters
Acknowledgements
I'm grateful to Professor Sophie Havighurst, Ros June, and Caroline Ma at Mindful, The University of Melbourne, for their feedback on the articles in the Brief & simple section of The Possums Sleep Program. They helped me keep the language plain and the concepts as accessible as possible.
Selected references
Jeong J, Franchett EE, De Oliveira CVR. Parenting interventions to promote early child development in the first three years of life: a global systematic review and meta-analysis. Plos Medicine. 2021:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003602.