“Is this normal?” is one of the most common questions a new mother asks about her crying baby, and it deserves a real answer rather than a reassuring shrug. So let’s go through what the actual research says counts as ordinary newborn crying, what colic technically is, and what genuinely warrants a call to your doctor.
Crying is a normal, expected, and even increasing part of early life
Newborn crying doesn’t decrease steadily from birth. In most babies, total daily crying actually increases over the first weeks, tends to peak somewhere around six to eight weeks of age, and then gradually eases by three to five months. Paediatric researcher Dr. Ronald Barr, who has studied infant crying extensively, describes this as a normal developmental phase, one that arrives on a broadly predictable timeline in healthy infants and resolves on its own, not because of anything a parent does or fails to do.
So what is colic, technically?
The clinical definition most commonly used in research traces back to paediatrician Morris Wessel, who in 1954 proposed what’s known as the “rule of threes”: crying for more than three hours a day, on more than three days a week, for more than three weeks, in a baby who is otherwise well-fed and healthy. More recent clinical criteria (the Rome IV criteria) have shifted the emphasis slightly, focusing less on a rigid hour-count and more on crying that is prolonged, difficult to soothe, and doesn’t have a clear cause, in an infant who is feeding and growing normally.
What’s worth sitting with here: even by the strictest definition, colic is specifically defined as crying in an otherwise healthy, well-growing baby. The diagnosis, where it applies, is really a description of a difficult but non-medical pattern, not a sign that something is wrong with your baby.
Why the label matters less than you’d think
Whether or not your baby’s crying technically meets the rule-of-threes definition changes very little about what actually helps in the moment, co-regulation, touch, movement, and checking the ordinary basics. Where the label does matter is in taking the guilt out of it. Colic, by definition, is not caused by parenting choices, and a baby who cries a great deal is not a baby who is being failed by their mother.
The signs that mean this isn’t ordinary crying or colic
Please contact your doctor promptly, or seek urgent care, if crying is accompanied by fever, repeated vomiting (especially green or bloody), a swollen or hard abdomen, blood in the stool, your baby refusing feeds altogether, unusual lethargy or difficulty waking, a high-pitched or weak cry that’s different from their usual sound, or if your instinct is telling you clearly that this is different from your baby’s normal crying. Trust that instinct. You know your baby’s ordinary sound, and a real change in it is information worth acting on.
The reassurance, and the boundary, together
Most crying, even a great deal of it, in a baby who is feeding, growing, and otherwise well, falls within the wide range of normal newborn development. This article can help you understand that range, and I hope it takes some of the guilt out of the hardest evenings. It is not, and isn’t meant to be, a substitute for your paediatrician’s assessment of your individual baby. If in doubt, always call them; that instinct is never something to second-guess yourself out of.
With care, Gayle.
