Scientists say they have found an effective way to stop a baby from crying in the middle of the night

Scientists have found nearly half of all crying babies will fall back asleep within five minutes when their mothers are nearby.

The research looked at four methods: mothers holding their baby while walking; rocking them in a pram; holding them while seated; and laying them down in a cot.

They found moving babies back and forth in a pram has a similar calming effect but to a lesser extent.

“I have raised four children, but I couldn’t foresee the key results of this study until the statistical data came up,” said Dr Kumi Kuroda from ​​Riken Centre for Brain Science.

Researchers found walking around with babies for five minutes without any abrupt stops or sudden direction changes, and then sitting down while holding them for another five to eight minutes is the secret formula.

“The first five to eight minutes of sleep is shallow sleep,” Dr Kuroda explained.

During periods of shallow sleep, or rapid eye movement (REM), breathing becomes fast, irregular, and shallow.

As the name suggests, eyes tend to move quite rapidly, and muscles become immobile.

“So if you immediately place their infant down after they’re asleep, you’ll hit the shallow sleep, they’ll wake up and you’ll be unsuccessful. That’s why you want to wait for five to eight minutes after the infant falls asleep.”

“This roughly 15-minute method is worth trying before they start seriously worrying about what’s wrong with the baby,” Dr Kuroda said.

Sylvia Song contributed to this report