Sunday, April 15, 2007
Baby crying is actually communication
I think I'm a normal male in that I dislike to hear baby crying. Maybe I'm at a restaurant, or on a bus, and I hear a baby crying very loudly. I don't know the baby or the people with the child, but I just want the noise to stop.
Well, now as a future father I need to know more. When watching the movie "Meat the Fockers" I remember Robert De Niro's character (Jack Byrne) trying to "ferberize" the baby, saying responding to a crying baby only encourages it to cry more. In the movie when the baby cried they would try to ignore the baby, and pay no attention to him. This is wrong. From what I've learned it's actually taking things out of context from what Ferber wrote about sleep training for babies.
When a baby cries, it's trying to communicate in some way. Crying is one of the building blocks in communication learning for the baby. Ignoring the baby when it cries can lead to future delays in it's learning to talk. Baby cries should be met with comfort and attention. The baby can't talk yet, and is using crying as a method to try and communicate with you. Pay attention to it. I know it's difficult (probably more so for Dads) to always be able to figure out WHY the baby is crying. I think some of that comes with experience. I found a webpage that has audio of babies crying and analyzes what each cry means. Click here to go to it. I'll have to wait and see if this helps me or not.
Well, now as a future father I need to know more. When watching the movie "Meat the Fockers" I remember Robert De Niro's character (Jack Byrne) trying to "ferberize" the baby, saying responding to a crying baby only encourages it to cry more. In the movie when the baby cried they would try to ignore the baby, and pay no attention to him. This is wrong. From what I've learned it's actually taking things out of context from what Ferber wrote about sleep training for babies.
When a baby cries, it's trying to communicate in some way. Crying is one of the building blocks in communication learning for the baby. Ignoring the baby when it cries can lead to future delays in it's learning to talk. Baby cries should be met with comfort and attention. The baby can't talk yet, and is using crying as a method to try and communicate with you. Pay attention to it. I know it's difficult (probably more so for Dads) to always be able to figure out WHY the baby is crying. I think some of that comes with experience. I found a webpage that has audio of babies crying and analyzes what each cry means. Click here to go to it. I'll have to wait and see if this helps me or not.
# posted by Rick @ 5:24 AM 
