Fussy Babies, Postpartum Depression and PURPLE Crying
When the baby’s crying triggers your own
When I talk about the weeks after my daughter was born, I usually mention that she had squishy thigh rolls and thick brown hair that cascaded down the back of her neck. I also mention that she cried inconsolably for hours every night, because that is my prominent memory of that time. Luckily, my spouse had three weeks of paternity leave, so in those first weeks we took turns rocking or bouncing her on the yoga ball until she fell asleep. Some nights we volleyed her back and forth from 10 p.m. until most of the neighborhood was gearing up to start their day the following morning.
If my spouse is present when I’m recalling our early days as parents, he will just shrug. He doesn’t remember those nights at all. He looks back on the first weeks of our daughter’s life happily. He says the hardest part was how it affected me. I was so worried about this new little creature we created that I went days without sleep and cried constantly. I was eventually diagnosed with postpartum anxiety and depression.
Many women with postpartum depression and anxiety commonly report that they don’t feel bonded to their babies. It’s hard to feel bonded to a tiny, needy person who screams in your face for six hours at a time, accepting none of your offers to soothe them. Those of us who are already predisposed to postpartum mood disorders might take this missing bond as a personal failing. Postpartum mood disorders lie to us and tell us that our babies don’t like us or we aren’t good enough to comfort them.
In most cases, a crying baby alone isn’t going to cause someone to develop postpartum depression or anxiety. But for women who are susceptible, the feelings of failure combined with the inability to get restful sleep are the devil’s cocktail. Before my daughter was born, I had several tell-tale risk factors, including a history of hormone-induced depression and anxiety, a rocky support system and a family history of depression.
Crying and postpartum depression occur in a loop
Unfortunately, a fussy baby (we used to call all fussy babies “colicky,” but now that term applies to babies with pain or illness) and a tired and depressed mom can feed off of one another. Depressed mothers interact less with their babies, babies have an unmet need that causes them to cry, and mom gets more depressed. Moms with fussy babies get depressed and stay depressed. It’s especially hard to recover from the emotional and physical trauma of this chaos all while recovering from the physical changes of pregnancy and birth.
The chaos of a crying baby feels like an emergency to a new mom. MRI studies of mothers listening to their babies cry show increased blood flow to areas of the brain associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The hallmark characteristics of OCD are stressful intrusive thoughts and compulsions that help relieve the stress of these thoughts. When a mom hears her baby cry, she can be triggered to obsess over the health of the baby or her abilities as a mother.
The relationship between postpartum depression and inconsolable infants is profound. Women with postpartum depression are twice as likely than those who aren’t depressed to say their babies are difficult and fussy. Women who say their babies are inconsolable are also twice as likely to report they are depressed.
Inconsolable crying hurts the bond between mom and baby
I was working in an academic setting, earning my doctorate degree, when my daughter was born. It wasn’t a paying job, so there was no official maternity leave, but it was understood that I would only take the time medically necessary before I would return. Three weeks postpartum, I made my way back to campus, clutching my searing C-section incision as I walked up the stairs to take an exam. I was tired and nervous, but three hours without the piercing echo of her cries was intoxicating. I went back the next day even though I didn’t need to.
I continued to dive back into my pre-baby life, leaving her at home with a babysitter on most days. What I really needed to do was to sit at home and just be with her. I needed to hold her skin-to-skin and accept her as she was without interpreting her behavior as an insult to my ability to mother her. I didn’t know this, though, so instead I left, causing the divide between us to grow deeper and deeper.
Colic versus PURPLE Crying
There is a term for this period in life when babies are difficult to comfort. The Period of PURPLE Crying is a time of rapid infant development when babies are just plain mad. They are developing at such a rapid pace that their delicate little nervous systems are all jumbled, and not even the most attentive, natural mother could prevent this overload. PURPLE crying starts at around two-weeks-old and lasts until about four-months-old. It’s called PURPLE crying not because the baby turns purple (my baby was mostly red-faced), but it is an acronym that stands for:
Peak of crying
Unexpected
Resists soothing
Pain-like face
Long lasting
Evening
In our house, we used to call it the witching hour. Any time between 6 and 10 p.m, she’d contort that beautiful little face into a knot for no apparent reason and screech until she decided it was over, usually an hour or two before the sun came up. I didn’t know about PURPLE Crying. I blamed these episodes on my diet (breastfeeding), the lack of our bond and her dislike of me. As I bounced her on the yoga ball, I would count to 500. “In 500 bounces, she’ll go to sleep,” I would tell myself, hopeful. She never went to sleep in 500 bounces.
She was difficult to console, but just to be clear, there is a difference between a baby who is struggling to adapt to life outside of the comforts of amniotic fluid and a baby who has a condition that needs medical attention. Signs that crying is caused by something more than neurological adaptation include a fever, arching the back while crying, making gurgling noises, projectile vomiting, spitting up clear fluid and refusing breast or bottle when it is milk time. My baby ate well and slept okay once she was finally asleep. It was because all of her needs were met, including comfort, food and sleep, that I felt like a failure. She was still miserable, crying tears of what sounded to me like grief.
Your baby won’t cry like this forever
The first time I felt a connection to my daughter was when she was five months old and learned how to blow slobbery baby bubbles. I blew bubbles at her, and she blew them right back. We were communicating! In that moment, I felt that she saw me and knew me. It was the first time she’d ever given me anything back, any sign that she knew I loved her. Until that moment, it was a long and dark five months filled with her shrill, unrelenting screams and my growing self-hatred.
Four years later, there are still some bad days during which I don’t feel like the best mom. But looking back on that time, I wish I could hug myself and say, “You are doing the best that you can,” and, “It’s not your fault your baby won’t stop crying.” I’d also tell myself it was okay to be depressed and worried when she cried, and that it wouldn’t be like that forever. I’d stare at my former self knowing that she was thinking about dying, running away, or both, every hour of every day and feel immense empathy for her.
If I could reach out to any mom who feels the same way, the most important thing I would tell her is that it will get better. PURPLE Crying does not last forever and you will sleep again. It seems like the world is crashing down around you, but the chaos will end and you will see that inside your baby there is a little person just waiting to emerge. It is going to be okay.
To be honest, I still think my daughter cries more than most kids her age. She’s very sensitive, physically and emotionally. I don’t like to admit it, but I think she inherited it from me, because I, too, am an incredibly sensitive person. My mom has a lot of stories to tell about the sweet, sensitive things I did as a kid, but she says I was the easiest, peachiest baby.
I still have a physical reaction when I hear a baby’s distressed cry. A few weeks ago on a neighborhood walk, we walked past a home with a new baby. I shivered as my stomach flipped and my heart fluttered. “What’s wrong?” my spouse asked me. “It still shakes me,” I said, nodding toward the wails seeping out of the upstairs window. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, gave me a squeeze and said, “We survived it, babe.” I am so grateful it is over.
If you are contemplating hurting yourself or your baby, or if you’re in a life-threatening situation, please contact your doctor or midwife, call 911 or go to a hospital immediately. You can reach the 24-hr National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1.800.273.8255 and the Postpartum Support International HelpLine at 1.800.944.4773(4PPD)
For text support, text the Postpartum International HelpLine at 503.894.9453 or text HOME to 741741 to reach the National Crisis Text Line.
