Excessive crying (sometimes called "colic") in young infants is a clinical problem of importance to parents and to primary care providers. Recent thinking on "colic" has proposed that the excessive crying (more than three hours per day) represents an extreme of the crying behavior normal in the young infant. This study examines the relationship between maternal temperament factors Approach and Flexibility, infant temperament and infant crying at four to eight weeks of age.

One hundred and ten women, recruited from prenatal classes in their last trimester of pregnancy, answered the Dimensions of Temperament Survey (Revised) (Windle & Lerner, 1986) about their own temperaments. When their infant was four to five weeks old, at a home visit, mothers rated their infant's temperament on the Early Infancy Temperament Questionnaire (EITQ) (Medhoff-Cooper, Carey & McDevitt, 1990) and a researcher rated the baby's temperament during a simulated physical exam using the Practitioner Assessment of Upset and Consolability Scale developed for this study. Following the home visit the mother kept a record of her infant's behavior for three days using the Infant Behavior Record developed for this study.

Only infant temperament was found to be related to crying by the infant at four to eight weeks. Using a three-way ANOVA, maternal temperament factors (Approach and Flexibility) were found not to be related to crying either by themselves or in interaction with Infant Difficult temperament. Regression of the separate infant temperament dimensions on amount of crying showed the dimensions Mood and Intensity to be predictive of amount of crying.