If I Cry Differently Will You Understand?

In general, all of us adults are sensitive to the crying and screaming of a baby, but we might feel anxious and confused when we do not understand what our baby is trying to transmit to us by doing this.

In the neonatal units, sometimes when these types of baby concerts happen, it is difficult to differentiate which one of them is emitting the most urgent need.

However, when it comes to your baby, discovering the message that he or she transmits through his or her crying and screaming can be an adventure that will surprise you. 

Babies frequently use the same tone of voice to indicate their different types of demands. Certainly for the people taking care of them in the neonatal intensive care units and then for the parents, without these types of manifestations it would be very difficult to know what the baby needs, since the baby’s codes are hidden behind their crying and screaming that constitute of a language that all mothers, fathers, and caretakers need to know.

It is common that during the first days that your baby is home that he or she will cry incessantly to the new needs of adaptation and will do so a lot more than when he or she was in the incubator.

In those circumstances, the mothers and fathers tend to become desperate because it is difficult for them to remain calm and act with common sense, which sometimes causes chain reactions that end up with a guilty part, whether this is real or not.

Feeding the baby, showing him or her a toy, changing their diaper, giving him the pacifier or changing her position in the crib all seem insufficient when the baby is irritated.

Since almost always what babies want is the closeness of their mother, the easiest, quickest and most efficient thing to do is to place them into direct skin-to-skin contact and to sing them a song in a very soft and soothing voice, another nice thing is to give the baby a soothing warm bath. When I first brought my daughter home she would only sleep if she was lying on my bare chest and would not respect the schedules. Her screaming demands were so frequent that my neighbors assured us they couldn’t sleep.

It is important to point out, in this aspect, that since not all babies cry in the same way, it is necessary to first learn to differentiate the different types of cries, since almost always crying is what a lot of babies do when they want us to be by their side.

If the baby is not well, it is possible that the crying or screaming will be different, more intense and will last longer, but each mother will need to observe these things and figure them out with a lot of patience.

Fortunately, all mothers are able to tell their baby’s cry between hundreds of other cries, which naturally indicates that with interest and training it will not be difficult for you to know what your child is trying to say to you at a determined moment.

Some mothers have commented to my surprise, that they have had corporal reactions when the cry of their baby was due to hunger, for example, by feeling more sensitivity in their nipples.

In my specific case, the first thing I learned about my daughters deep cry was the sound she made when she wanted to be on my chest.

However, the truth is that the crying and yelling of premature babies are more urgent and work as an alarm and in such frequency that there is no other thing to do but to go and see what it is the baby needs.

If the babies are taken care of and the sensation of abandonment decreases, its possible they will stop yelling but maybe not crying, since they frequently take a long time to calm down, but this is not due to a lack of attention but to other factors that probably have to do with the separation they went through during the first hours of their lives. Because of this, since our children need a lot of available hours, contact and attention, it’s fundamental that we learn to know then as much as possible, or up to the point they allow us to. It is important to remember that our babies have had two births, and that possibly the second is more traumatic than the first. Attend to your baby as much as is necessary and as much as the baby asks of you. Cuddle the baby or walk him etc, doing this will not cause your baby to become spoiled. If your baby cries because he or she wants to be near you, this is reason enough to be with the baby.

Because of this, a mechanical attitude on your part, in other words, not having an affective response, will not resolve or take care of the baby’s demand.

While your baby is in the incubator, what you will need to learn is the yell he or she makes when in pain, which is often times longer, extremely sharp and strong, followed generally by silence caused by apnea, or because the baby momentarily stops breathing.