A new mother lazing in childbed is a blessing for her family” is an old Swiss proverb. Maternal rest and recuperation after birth was a common concern in the past and was frequently supported by the extended family. However, mothers today barely enjoy restful days after birth; instead they enter directly into the challenge of combining baby- and selfcare. They often struggle to soothe a crying baby, while coping with their own exhaustion, which can adversely affect family health. Surveys on maternal health consistently report tiredness and fatigue as the most frequent complaint postpartum, affecting 46%-87% of new mothers [1, 2]. Inconsolable infant crying is the most cited reason why parents consult health professionals [3]. To date little is known on how mothers confront and handle these challenges after birth. Routine postnatal care lacks effective strategies to alleviate the burden of infant crying and maternal tiredness which can adversely affect family health in the earliest stage. Following the traditional division between neonatal and maternal healthcare, research has usually focussed on conditions affecting either the mother or the neonate, but little attention has been given to the interplay of infant crying and maternal tiredness. While maternal tiredness after birth can be seen as normal reaction to the efforts of gestation and birth [4], maternal fatigue is more severe than tiredness, and can be defined as imbalance of activity and rest [5]. Whereas tiredness is naturally relieved in the circadian rhythm by periods of sleep, fatigue persists through the circadian rhythm, cannot be relieved through a single period of sleep, and is accompanied with a negative feeling [6]. Fatigue hampers the well-being of the affected person and is known as risk factor for the development of postpartum depression [7] and for a slightly less optimal development of the infants’ fine motor and coordinative skills [8]. Postnatal infant crying is currently regarded as a normal part of a child’s neuro-behavioural development following a typical curve which peaks during the sixth week postpartum at nearly 3 hours crying per day, and declines to below 1 hour per day by 12 weeks of age, with large inter-individual variation [9, 10]. Excessive crying is usually defined by ‘Wessel’s rule of three’. It lasts more than 3 hours on more than 3 days per week, and recurs for more than 3 weeks [3, 11]. Such crying behaviour is a known risk factor for the development of maternal postpartum depression, dysfunctional parent-child relation and, in extreme cases, for shaken baby syndrome or other forms of child abuse [12-14]. Our interest in the present research project was not limited to the pathologic forms of maternal fatigue and excessive crying, but embraced the entire continuum from physiologic maternal tiredness to fatigue, and from normal to excessive infant crying. If healthcare is to address the prominent concerns of parents caring for a neonate, we need a deeper understanding of how infant crying and…