In 2012, the NSPCC began piloting a psycho‐educational film that was designed to help all expectant and new parents cope with their babies' crying and reduce the incidence of non‐accidental head injuries in infants in the UK. It was hypothesised that having strategies to use when they were struggling with their babies' crying would be one of the key factors in helping parents cope and the film provides parents with examples of coping strategies. A quasi‐experimental evaluation design, namely, comparative surveys followed by propensity score matching, was used to assess if parents who had watched the film had utilised these strategies more than a comparison group of parents who had not. Parents also participated in focus groups to explore their experience of watching the film. The study found that parents who had watched the film in the antenatal period or postnatally after discharge from hospital were significantly more likely to report using a range coping strategies in response to their babies' crying, compared with parents who had not watched the film. Parents who had watched the film in the immediate postnatal period in the first few days after birth, before discharge from hospital, were less likely to use these strategies. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. ‘A psycho‐educational film… designed to help… new parents cope with their babies' crying and reduce the incidence of non‐accidental head injuries’ Key Practitioner Messages The psycho‐educational film Coping with Crying is an effective way to give parents strategies to cope when faced with their babies' crying. The film should be shown in the antenatal or postnatal period, after parents have left hospital but before the baby is six weeks old, to have the greatest impact.