Excessive infantile crying: a review of the literature

Excessive infantile crying is a widespread problem which exerts a serious impact on families' lives. The prevalence, cause, and treatment of the problem have been addressed in the literature for many years but with varying degrees of success. Variation in definition of excessive crying leads to difficulty when comparing results between studies. Flawed method and inadequate sampling characterise many studies in this field, often seriously limiting the usefulness of the findings. Progress has been made in some aspects of excessive crying, and other approaches hold promise of success, but wide gaps remain with regard to cause and treatment.