Your baby will start showing more stress symptoms now. Techniques to help, include sucking (thumb, or pacifiers). Sucking has a quieting response by getting the heart, blood pressure, and respirations to become more even and easy. This may be due to one of those neurotransmitter patterns discussed several months ago. Sucking may be a normal, needed response until the child is two years old. It is better to start some limitation on it, however, at this age, when the child will be spending more time out of the bed. One line of thinking suggests keeping the pacifiers in the bed, and encouraging a child to use sucking as a relaxation mechanism mainly in his/her own bedroom. It isn’t good for a child’s mouth/teeth to suck all the time, and eventually, this relaxation technique will need to be replaced with something more practical. Some people think that prolonged sucking may lead to nail biting and smoking, as mechanisms of oral stimulation. Another Stress Management technique to start at this age goes back to understanding the brain’s need for time to process information. Most of us need more time alone to process information when we get upset, so leaving your baby alone for a few minutes when upset may help. Being consistent in how you approach and work with your baby will let him/her know what to expect, and greatly diminishes stress, as does keeping the daily schedule consistent.