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A crying baby
Work the checklist for a crying baby, stay calm when nothing works, and know when to ring the parents.
1Watch
Minute thirty-two
Minute thirty-two
A sitter walking a crying baby round a lounge. The clock reads 8:32. An empty bottle and a dummy on the side. Her face. The film stops as she looks at the phone on the table.
20 secondsThis is not a horror film. It is a Tuesday. Watch her decide.
2The idea
Crying is how a baby talks
It is normal. It is the only thing they have got. Some babies cry a lot in the evening for reasons nobody has ever found. A crying baby is not a sign you are doing something wrong. It is a baby. Your job is to work the list, calmly, and know where the line is.
The list: Hungry? Nappy? Wind? Too hot, too cold? Tired? Wants holding? Something hurting: a label, a hair wound round a toe or finger? Bored, so a change of room? Go through it in order, one at a time. Each takes a minute or two. Most crying is one of those, and the list finds it.
3The idea
When nothing works
Sometimes nothing works. You have done the list twice, it has been half an hour, and they are still going. Put the baby down on their back in the cot, step out, breathe, and ring the parents. Not because you have failed. Because that is the point where parents want to be told, and because a sitter who is getting wound up is the one thing in the room that could go wrong.
Ring the parents when: thirty minutes and nothing works. The cry sounds different, high, weak, or a scream. A temperature, vomiting, a rash, a bump. Or you feel yourself losing it. Ring 911 first if the baby is floppy, hard to wake, blue around the lips, or breathing looks like hard work. Then do what they tell you. Then the parents.
4The idea
Dani, 8:32
Dani has done the list. Fed at half seven, nappy clean, winded, not hot, not cold. Held, walked, sung to. Thirty minutes. The baby is red and screaming and nothing else is wrong. Dani puts her down on her back in the cot, shuts the door, stands in the hall and breathes for a minute.
She rings the mum: She has been crying half an hour, I have done everything on the list, she is not hot and she is safe in her cot. What would you like me to try? The mum says try the white noise app, and she is ten minutes away anyway. Asleep in six minutes. The call took forty seconds. The mum would have wanted it at minute twenty.
5Your turn
The sequence
The sequence
A crying baby. Drag the checklist into order and work it. The baby responds, or does not. A timer runs, and the card tells you at what point it wanted you to ring the parents.
In two of the five rounds, nothing works. That is deliberate.
6Decide
Thirty minutes. You have done the list twice. Nothing. What is next?
Pick one to carry on.
7Say it
The call, in four facts
Say this to the parent on the phone, in a level voice
“She's been crying half an hour. I've done the list. She's safe in her cot. What would you like me to try?”
Four facts and a question. It tells them you are calm, and it tells them what to say next.
8Find them
Which of these mean ring the parents now?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Say out loud to a parent the four things that mean you would ring them: the time limit, the different cry, the symptoms, the feeling. Then say the ones that mean 911 first.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
Check the list. Stay calm. If nothing works, put the baby down safely and ring the parents. That is not failing.
Next lesson: Tantrums