Babies cry a lot, and most of the time it’s completely normal. Newborns cry an average of two to three hours per day, and some healthy babies cry even more than that. The challenge is figuring out whether your baby is going through a normal developmental phase, is uncomfortable for a fixable reason, or is showing signs of something that needs medical attention.
The Peak Crying Period Every Baby Goes Through
There’s a well-documented phase of infant development sometimes called the Period of PURPLE Crying. It starts around two weeks of age, gets worse each week, peaks during the second month of life, and gradually tapers off by three to five months. During this window, your baby may cry intensely for long stretches, often in the late afternoon or evening, and nothing you do seems to help. The crying can sound like your baby is in pain even when nothing is wrong.
This phase is not caused by something you’re doing or failing to do. It happens across all cultures and all feeding methods. It’s one of the most common reasons parents search for answers about excessive crying, and it resolves on its own.
Common Fixable Reasons for Crying
Before assuming your baby has a medical issue, it helps to run through the basics. Hunger is the most frequent cause of crying in young infants, and it comes around more often than many parents expect, sometimes every one to two hours in breastfed newborns. A wet or dirty diaper, being too hot or too cold, overtiredness, and overstimulation are the next most common triggers. Babies who are overtired often cry harder and have more trouble falling asleep, which creates a frustrating cycle.
Gas is another major contributor. Babies swallow air during feeding, and if they aren’t burped well, the trapped air causes discomfort. Try burping your baby midway through a feeding and again at the end. Holding your baby upright for 15 to 20 minutes after feeding can also help. Gentle bicycle motions with their legs can move gas along.
Colic: When Crying Exceeds the Norm
If your baby cries for more than three hours a day, more than three days a week, for longer than three weeks, and is otherwise healthy and well-fed, the clinical label is colic. Roughly 10 to 25 percent of infants meet this threshold. Colic is not a disease. It’s a description of a pattern, and no one fully understands why some babies fall into it and others don’t.
Colicky babies tend to cry at the same time each day, usually in the evening. Their faces flush, they pull their legs up, clench their fists, and seem impossible to console. The good news is that colic follows the same timeline as the PURPLE crying period. It peaks around six to eight weeks and almost always resolves by four to five months.
Reflux and Digestive Discomfort
Spitting up is normal in infants. But when reflux causes pain or interferes with feeding and growth, it crosses into a condition called GERD. Signs that reflux is bothering your baby include arching the back during or right after eating, refusing to eat or eating poorly, frequent forceful vomiting, gagging or trouble swallowing, and irritability that’s worst around feeding times. Some babies with reflux don’t spit up visibly at all. Instead, the stomach contents come partway up and go back down, irritating the esophagus. This is sometimes called silent reflux, and the main clue is persistent fussiness tied to feedings combined with poor weight gain.
If your baby shows these patterns, your pediatrician can evaluate whether reflux is contributing to the crying and discuss options like adjusting feeding positions, smaller and more frequent feedings, or in some cases thickening feeds.
Cow’s Milk Protein Sensitivity
Between 2 and 7.5 percent of infants react to cow’s milk protein, which can enter breast milk if the nursing parent consumes dairy. It can also be present in standard formula. Symptoms vary widely but often include fussiness, digestive problems like diarrhea or mucousy stools (sometimes with streaks of blood), skin rashes or eczema, and vomiting. In exclusively breastfed infants, the prevalence is lower, around 0.4 to 0.5 percent.
The tricky part is that symptoms can be delayed, showing up hours or even days after exposure, making the connection hard to spot. If your baby has persistent unexplained crying along with any of these digestive or skin symptoms, a trial of eliminating dairy from the breastfeeding parent’s diet (or switching to a specialized formula) for two to four weeks is the standard way to test whether cow’s milk protein is the problem. Improvement usually becomes noticeable within one to two weeks if sensitivity is the cause.
Soothing Techniques That Work
A well-known approach uses five strategies designed to recreate the sensory environment of the womb. They work best when used together rather than one at a time.
- Swaddling. Wrapping your baby snugly in a blanket provides the contained, secure feeling they had before birth. Make sure the swaddle is firm around the arms but loose around the hips to protect hip development.
- Side or stomach position (while held). Holding your baby on their left side can help with digestion and feels more calming than lying on their back. Always place them on their back once they’re asleep.
- Shushing. A loud, sustained “shhhh” near your baby’s ear mimics the sound of blood flowing through the placenta, which was a constant backdrop in the womb. White noise machines work on the same principle.
- Swaying or swinging. Small, rhythmic movements replicate the motion your baby felt when you walked during pregnancy. The key is gentle, jiggly movements, not wide swings.
- Sucking. Offering a pacifier or a clean finger satisfies the sucking reflex and has a direct calming effect. A baby can’t cry and suck at the same time.
If one technique doesn’t work within a minute or two, layer on the next. Some babies need all five at once before the crying breaks.
Red Flags That Need Immediate Attention
Most crying, even the exhausting kind, is not dangerous. But certain signs alongside crying indicate something serious is happening. Get medical help right away if you notice any of the following:
- Fever in a baby eight weeks old or younger. Any fever at this age requires urgent evaluation, as it can signal a serious infection.
- Inconsolable crying with a high-pitched or unusual sound. A cry that sounds distinctly different from your baby’s normal cry, especially if it’s shrill and unrelenting, can indicate significant pain or neurological distress.
- Difficulty breathing. Rapid breathing, grunting, flaring nostrils, or skin pulling in between the ribs are all signs of respiratory distress.
- Green or yellow (bilious) vomiting. This can signal a bowel obstruction and is always an emergency in an infant.
- Bloody or “currant jelly” stools. Dark red, jelly-like stool paired with episodes of intense crying alternating with periods of unusual calm or lethargy can indicate a type of bowel obstruction called intussusception.
- Lethargy or extreme sleepiness. A baby who is very difficult to wake, seems limp, or has noticeably reduced responsiveness needs immediate evaluation.
- Unexplained bruising or swelling. Any bruising on a pre-mobile infant, or localized swelling on the skull, warrants urgent attention.
- A swollen, discolored finger, toe, or penis. A strand of hair can wrap tightly around a small appendage, cutting off circulation. This is called a hair tourniquet and is easy to miss but causes intense pain.
Taking Care of Yourself Through It
Hours of inconsolable crying can push even the most patient parent to a breaking point. That response is human, not a failure. If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, putting your baby down in a safe place like a crib and stepping away for five to ten minutes is always the right call. Babies are not harmed by crying alone in a safe space for a few minutes, but they can be harmed by a caregiver who has lost control.
Tag-team with a partner, family member, or friend when possible. The crying peak is temporary, even when it doesn’t feel that way. Most babies who cry excessively in the first few months are completely healthy and settle into a calmer pattern by four to five months of age.