Making Themselves Heard

A common toy is a plastic drum full of other plastic instruments. Typically, there is a recorder, a tambourine, maracas, a kazoo, some jingle bells and of course, drumsticks. These instruments sound fantastic if you possess a certain joie de vivre or the ability to bang two things together. If you have more than one child, you have an insta-band and it is tons of fun for everyone for this band to rove about the house. Besides your impending headache, you will notice that the children all play at once, with no subtlety or thought as to how the instruments sound, all together, all at once. It is every man for himself and that is standard fare for children. As dependent creatures, making your needs known without a thought for others is akin to survival. If you do not scream and cry about your hunger, your wet bum or your unwanted solitude, none of it will be resolved.

Babies cry an average of three hours a day. Aside from other signs like rooting, yelling is all they have in their arsenal of communication. Once your milk supply is established and the baby has been through her first two growth spurts, the crying usually lessens or at least seems more purposeful. You will notice different sounding cries early on. Somehow you will know which cry means feed me, change me or swaddle me so I can barely move and put me down with a knit hat on my head. Recognizing these sounds will enable you to meet some needs before they become desperate. A cry of desperation always sounds worse than any others and is that much harder to calm.

Letting babies “cry it out” early on will likely result in missed cues. Getting through those first six weeks with the understanding that it is a time of settling in and not an indication of what life will be like forever and ever, will help with coping. Once things settle down, figuring out which cry and fussy sounds can be left alone will be easier. Once you get the hang of which cries are the ones OK to respond to more slowly, you could end up with a sleeping baby as opposed to one choking on their own tears.

Like adults, all babies are different. Some will be more emphatic with their cries and some will be more complacent. Either way, give them a chance to teach you what they are saying before you stop listening. Knowing your baby and their earliest form of communication will help you to become a more confident parent and your baby will thank you.

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