A woman at prenatal class mentioned Dunstan Baby Language, and I thought it sounded interesting and made sense, but I only looked into some more details this morning. A woman in Australia named Priscilla Dunstan has a photographic memory for sound, and when she had her son, learned to interpret his cries. She was featured on Oprah recently, and a brief summary is here. The sounds a newborn makes are based on reflexes, and since crying is the newborn's way of communicating, it only makes sense that their specific cries have specific meanings. This woman was simply able to put words to the cries. For example, the "hungry" cry sounds like "neh" and is based on the sucking reflex, where the baby has his/her tongue at the roof of the mouth, making the "n" sound. The sounds are as follows:
"neh" - hunger
"eh" - needs to burp (air in chest)
"owh" - sleepy
"heh" discomfort
"eair" gas pain, crampy (lower belly)
So far, so good as far as accuracy - you can, of course, buy her DVD which has lots more information from dunstanbaby.com
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2 comments:
I saw that Oprah episode (being an at home mom now and all). Thought it was really interesting. Did you happen to buy the dvd? I am considering for future kids..wondering if anyone has seen it - and since you mentioned...
Deb
No, I didn't buy the DVD, but a couple at prenatal class did and thought it was great (although they hadn't had their baby yet!) :) Someone else recommended the 'Baby Whisperer' books to me, and since she has four excellent kids who all sleep very well, I borrowed one from the library and bought another - they're excellent, too! Between the 'Baby Whisperer' routine and knowing what the cries are, we have one happy baby who cries very little and we pretty much always know why, so far. :)
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