It’s helpful for parents to know, so that they can be prepared for what is often called colic, but which is actually unexplained end of the day crying. This usually begins at around 3 weeks of age, peaks at 8 weeks and usually is over by 12 weeks of age. It can last for up to 3 hours for at least 3 days a week and it drives most parents crazy. But if you know it’s coming, you can try to get the help you need – relatives, friends – to give you some backup so that you can take a break, because it’s just really hard to deal with that crying day in and day out. And it’s hard to deal with it, because you see your baby crying and there is really very little that you can do to comfort your baby. So what helps a bit is to do a little bit less rather than more. First check your baby for all the things that you already know might typically cause crying, make sure that your baby is comfortable, not hungry, not wet. And once you’ve done all of those things, you can do a little bit of rocking and soothing, but don’t do too much, because it turns out that that probably wears the baby out and what you’ll notice is when you rock and soothe and coo, the baby does quiet while you’re doing it, but as soon as you stop, the baby wails and shrieks even louder. So if you do a little bit less, you actually may be not wearing the baby down so much and the shrieking and wailing that you get after the soothing may be a little bit less intense and less… a little bit less long. But the main thing is to make sure you’ve got some backup, so you can take some breaks and to know you’ll get though it. And if you don’t get through it by 12 weeks, be sure to talk to your pediatrician about it to make sure that it isn’t something else going on.