My daughter just had her first baby; she will be one week old tomorrow. Here is my problem. My daughter is crying a lot and says she is overwhelmed. It really bothers her when the baby cries and she cannot sooth her. Plus, she says her voice doesn't sooth the baby like mine does. I am worried that my daughter might be having a little depression. What can I do? I go stay with her during the day until her husband comes home and I thought that was making it better, but last night before I left I heard her talking to one of her friends and she said she cries at the drop of a hat, which she had told me earlier but I felt she was feeling a little better in the day. I guess she wasn't. I don't remember feeling this way when I had my first. What can I do to help her aside from helping with the baby and house?

MsHopeful, I sense your beautiful mother’s heart in what you write. I can see how it must feel for your daughter when her baby cries and she cannot soothe her. I also see how it must feel for you when your daughter cries and you cannot soothe her.

The tears and sadness are not a sign of inadequate mothering by either of you. As magical as the journey of parenthood is, it often begins with a period of feeling blue. A woman’s body is the scene of a powerful changing tide of hormones in the days and weeks after a baby is born. The rising hormone levels that gradually effected the incredible changes in your daughter's body during the time she was carrying your granddaughter have now precipitously dropped.

Most new mothers, MsHopeful, (perhaps as many as 90%) will have periods of weepiness, mood swings, anxiety, unhappiness, and regret. Usually this lasts for a few days or less and is quickly forgotten (it may have happened to you, even though you don’t remember!). Sometimes the blue period comes and goes for six weeks. For some moms, the blues don't begin until the baby stops nursing (another time of major hormonal shifts). Hormones, however, are not the entire story...

Every new beginning is also an ending of what was before. Every ending is a beginning. Whenever a baby is born, the world will never be the same. This is wonderful. It's also okay to grieve for the loss of the way life was before.

Now add to all this -- SLEEP DEPRIVATION! Your daughter may be more exhausted than she has ever been. Whenever people are sleep deprived, they are more subject to swings of emotion and to feelings of inadequacy. This, by itself, is enough to cause a blue period.

And the baby’s crying: Research has shown that women with the postpartum blues tend to have babies who cry significantly more than those of their counterparts. It hasn't been proven whether the fussy, crying babies make moms sadder, or whether the sad moms make the babies less happy -- but it seems to me that both are true, and that the crying is a vicious cycle.

A grief reaction, at a time of great stress (and insistent noise), in a person who is chronically sleep deprived, all built on a shifting foundation of tremendous hormonal surges -- it's a wonder that postpartum blues aren't more of a problem. Most of the time, though, the powerful positive feelings that also accompany this time of new beginnings soon displace the sadness.

There are several things you can do to help:

• Help your daughter get as much sleep as possible. If she is breast-feeding, she will probably feel sleepy just after nursing. Encourage her to take a nap. "Sleep when the baby sleeps."
• Get your daughter out of the house. Even brief breaks can be very restoring, especially if you get outside.
• Release your daughter from as many of her usual roles and responsibilities as possible. At the same time, help your daughter to realize that she is not marginal to the household. She is an incredibly important person!
• Shower your daughter with praise and encouragement.
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