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Home › Articles › Behavior › From Shrills to Sobs

From Shrills to Sobs

Deciphering Baby's Cries

By Katherine Bontrager

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You've just come home with your new bundle of joy, but that joy is supplemented by crying – and lots of it. Is Baby hungry? Dirty? Tired? Colicky? Or just plain angry? Experienced parents claim you can decipher what any given cry actually means. Is there truth to these rumors? And if so, where do you begin to bridge that gap of understanding?

"Babies' cries are more than ways to get attention; they are the only way infants have to communicate," says Dr. Marcus DeGraw, medical director of Pediatric Subspecialty Services at St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich. Dr. DeGraw knows from more than just medical experience; he also is learning from his role as a new dad.

But while crying is a baby's only way to communicate, can parents learn to interpret those shrill sounds?

"Having a new 4-week-old grandson and having discussed this question with his mom, also a pediatrician, we would, indeed, find this to be true," says Dr. Charles Shubin, the director of pediatrics at Mercy FamilyCare, a division of Family Health Centers of Baltimore. "Essentially there's a learning curve where the baby 'teaches' the caretakers what the different kinds of cries mean. There is a good bit of trial and error, i.e. the cry because of needing a diaper change versus the cry for needing to be fed can sound similar until one figures out from experience what each means."

And that learning curve may have an expiration date. According to Michelle Metzger, a mother of two from Allen, Texas, a parent has to learn within the first couple of weeks how to interpret the cries successfully. "That way, the baby can have confidence his needs will be met correctly," she says. "Otherwise, babies will just start crying the same all the time since they know the parent won't be able to interpret anyway."


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