Work through the short list first: hungry, wet, too warm or cold, gassy, overtired, overstimulated, wanting to be held. Crying on its own is usually not an emergency. There is one exception that overrides everything else, and it is the next paragraph.
🚨 Go to the ER now: any baby under 3 months with a fever
A rectal temperature of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher in a baby under 3 months old is a medical emergency. Go to the emergency room immediately. No exceptions.
This holds even if your baby seems otherwise fine — no other symptoms, feeding normally, calm. AAP guidance is to contact your pediatrician immediately at this temperature in this age group, because a young infant needs to be examined to rule out serious infection.
Do not wait for morning. Do not wait to see if it goes down. Do not give any fever medication to a baby this young before speaking to a clinician. Go.
Now, assuming that is not what is happening: you have fed them, changed them, burped them, rocked them, and they are still crying, and it is 11 p.m., and you are starting to feel something you do not love. This section is for that.
What should I check first?
- Hungry? Even if they ate recently. Growth spurts compress feeding intervals hard.
- Wet or dirty? Check even if you checked twenty minutes ago.
- Too hot or too cold? Feel the back of the neck or chest, not hands or feet. Hands run cold in healthy babies.
- Gassy? Bicycle the legs, hold them upright against your shoulder, try tummy time while awake and watched.
- Overtired? Newborns often manage only 45 to 90 minutes awake before they need sleep again. Past that, they get wired rather than sleepy.
- Overstimulated? Lights down, sound down, fewer hands. Sometimes the answer is less of everything.
- Wanting to be held? Hold them. Being held is a need at this age, and you cannot spoil a newborn.
What if I have tried everything?
The 5 S's — Swaddle, Side or Stomach position, Shush, Swing, Suck — are Dr. Harvey Karp's technique, from The Happiest Baby on the Block. They are widely taught in hospitals and widely liked, and they work best done together rather than one at a time.
The safety limit on the "S" that matters most: the side or stomach position is only for a baby who is awake and in your arms. Karp's own materials are explicit: you can hold a baby on their side or stomach, but it is not safe to place a baby on their side or stomach to sleep. The back is the only safe sleep position. The moment your baby is asleep or leaving your arms, they go on their back, on a firm flat surface, with nothing else in the space.
Other things worth trying:
- Go outside. A change in air, light, and sound resets both of you surprisingly often.
- White noise. A fan, a running faucet, a white noise machine at a moderate volume across the room.
- Hand the baby to someone else. A fresh, calm pair of arms can change the whole situation in thirty seconds, and accepting the handoff is a strength, not a surrender.
What if I feel like I cannot take it anymore?
Put your baby down in a safe place — crib or bassinet, on their back, empty space — walk away, and take a few minutes to calm down. Then go back and check on them.
A baby crying alone in a crib is safe. This is not neglect and it is not failure. It is the recommended response, taught by Seattle Children's Hospital and the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome as part of the Period of PURPLE Crying program, and it is the single most important thing on this page after the fever rule.
Never shake a baby. Shaking an infant, even briefly, even out of desperation, can cause severe and permanent brain injury. Prolonged crying is the most common trigger, which is exactly why the walk-away plan exists — it is designed for the moment you are in.
Feeling furious at a baby you love does not make you a bad parent. Nearly every parent has had a version of that moment. What matters is having a plan for it before it arrives:
- Decide now where you would put the baby down.
- Decide now who you would call — partner, friend, family, your pediatrician's after-hours line.
- If you are alone and at the edge, call someone. If there is no one, call your pediatrician's line.
- If you are worried about what you might do, the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline is 1-800-422-4453, 24/7, and the Crisis Text Line is HOME to 741741.
- If you have been feeling persistently low, anxious, or not like yourself since birth, tell your doctor. Postpartum Support International: 1-800-944-4773. This is common and it is treatable.
Is this colic?
Possibly, and the definition changed in ways that matter to you.
The old standard many websites still use — the Wessel "rule of threes" from 1954 — required crying more than 3 hours a day, at least 3 days a week, for at least 3 weeks. The Rome IV criteria dropped the three-week requirement, on the reasoning that three weeks was arbitrary and it is unreasonable to make worried parents wait that long before getting help.
Under Rome IV, the clinical picture is:
- Infant younger than 5 months when symptoms start and stop
- Recurrent, prolonged crying, fussing, or irritability with no apparent cause, that caregivers cannot prevent or resolve
- No evidence of poor weight gain, fever, or illness
You do not need to wait three weeks to bring this to your pediatrician. If the crying is wearing your family down now, that is reason enough to call now.
For context: colic affects an estimated 3% to 28% of infants, usually starts in the second or third week, peaks around six weeks, and resolves by 12 weeks in 60% of infants and by 16 weeks in 90%.
Evidence note. The familiar "crying peaks at 6 weeks" curve dates to 1962 and is being revised. A 2022 meta-analysis in Child Development pooling parent-reported data across countries found the peak may come closer to four weeks, and that meaningful crying continues past six months for many babies. If your baby's crying does not follow the classic curve, your baby is not doing it wrong.
When should I call the pediatrician?
Beyond the fever rule above, call for:
- A cry that sounds different — unusually high-pitched, weak, or moaning
- Refusing to feed, or noticeably fewer wet diapers
- Vomiting (especially forceful or green), blood in stool, or a marked change in stools
- Floppiness, unusual sleepiness, or difficulty waking
- Crying that started after a fall or injury
- Crying that goes on for hours without let-up and is not like your baby
- Your instinct that something is off. Pediatricians take this seriously, and so should you. You are not wasting their time.
Call 911 for trouble breathing, blue or grey color around the lips, unresponsiveness, or a seizure.
How long does this last?
The hardest stretch is usually the first three to four months, and it does end — for the large majority of babies, well before the halfway point of the first year. That is not a platitude; it is what the colic resolution numbers above describe.
The bottom line: run the checklist, use the 5 S's while your baby is awake and held, keep the sleep surface safe and flat, and put the baby down and step away whenever you need to. Ask for help early and often. You are doing a genuinely hard job, and needing a break is part of doing it well.
Want guidance built around your baby's exact age? Ask ParentingAI. [Try it free.]
Sources
- American Academy of Pediatrics / HealthyChildren.org — Fever and Your Baby: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/fever/Pages/Fever-and-Your-Baby.aspx
- Infantile Colic (clinical review), StatPearls / NIH National Center for Biotechnology Information Bookshelf: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK568787/
- Rome Foundation — Rome IV Criteria: https://theromefoundation.org/rome-iv/rome-iv-criteria/
- Seattle Children's Hospital — The Period of PURPLE Crying: https://www.seattlechildrens.org/health-safety/parenting/purple-education-crying/
- National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome — Period of PURPLE Crying: https://dontshake.org/purple-crying
- Harvey Karp, MD — The 5 S's for Soothing Babies (The Happiest Baby on the Block): https://www.happiestbaby.com/blogs/baby/the-5-s-s-for-soothing-babies
- American Academy of Pediatrics / HealthyChildren.org — How to Keep Your Sleeping Baby Safe: AAP Policy Explained: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/sleep/Pages/a-parents-guide-to-safe-sleep.aspx
- Vermillet A-Q et al. — Crying in the first 12 months of life: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cross-country parent-reported data and modeling of the "cry curve," Child Development 2022: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.13760
Last medically reviewed: August 2026 Last updated: August 2026
This article is for informational purposes only and does not replace advice from your pediatrician. Always consult your healthcare provider for medical questions about your baby.
In an emergency, call 911. For a suspected poisoning, call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222.