Baby talk
Ever wondered what your baby is trying to tell you?
Sarah Tennant discovers three techniques for decoding your baby's
communications.
People really don't have a lot of respect for babies. A
friend of mine recently told me she didn't bother visiting her
nieces until they were six months old because babies "don't
interact" until then. Another friend once asked me if my
three-month-old could still recognise me when I was wearing a
hat!
Particularly among the childless, the idea that babies are tabula
rasa with no ability to communicate is still popular. How many
mothers have recognised signs of communication from their babies,
only to be told "It's just wind" or "He can't possibly be
talking yet"? It's no wonder new parents find their babies so
fascinating - we are conditioned to expect mysterious, inscrutable
aliens, and we get little people!
Fortunately for babies, medical science is once again beginning to
catch up to maternal wisdom. Neuroscientists and behaviourists have
discovered that babies are not, after all, born a few wet wipes
short of a pack. In fact, they come pre-programmed with startlingly
complex abilities to recognise and communicate with their
parents.
The problem, then, is on our end. Parents today are the unfortunate
heirs of both the structure of the nuclear family, which lacks the
continuous baby-rearing knowledge passed down in multi-generational
families; and a theory of baby-training which stresses controlling
and suppressing, rather than understanding babies' communication.
As a result, today's parents are left pacing the floor at 3am,
muttering to our darling infants between clenched teeth "What do
you WANT?"
Cry, baby
The most obvious method of communication babies possess is crying.
Now that the horrible idea that babies cry to exercise their lungs
has been debunked, the question remains: Why do they cry?
The answer to this was discovered by a mother - Priscilla Dunstan,
a one-time opera singer and concert violinist. Dunstan's eidetic
memory (the aural equivalent of photographic memory) allowed her to
play Mozart perfectly after a single hearing as a child. As a
mother, it helped her pick out patterns in her baby's cries.
Intrigued, she began keeping notes on her son's different crying
sounds and found that they followed a pattern - different noises
for different needs. Several years later, Dunstan has developed and
marketed this system of decoding cries as Dunstan Baby
Language.
The language is based on five "words" or sounds within cries which
all babies instinctively use, regardless of nationality. A hungry
baby, for example, produces a cry with a "Neh" or "Nah" sound,
formed as the tongue touches the roof of the mouth - the suckling
reflex with sound added. Dunstan also identified "words" for four
other needs - "Eh" for the need to burp, "Eairh" for lower wind or
gas pain, "Owh" for tiredness and "Heh" for discomfort (often
caused by a wet nappy). International studies have confirmed the
existence of these "words" in babies up to three months, after
which babies tend to stop using the language.
The benefits of being able to determine what your baby needs are
enormous. Not only do mothers - particularly young and first-time
mothers - feel empowered at being able to meet their babies' needs,
but fathers are also able to decode the cries. Knowing that the
baby has a need he can meet, such as changing a nappy, is a
psychological boost to a dad who is used to being told "baby needs
his mum" at every cry! One study reported that babies slept better,
fathers were more involved in infant care and mothers were less
stressed after families adopted the Dunstan system.
Of course, it's not always that easy - some babies only use three
or four of the "words", while others mix them up into a cacophony
of, "I'm hungry, cold, tired and lying on the Lego." And some
parents balk at the hefty price tag on the DVDs, which are only
useful for the first three months of the baby's life. Still, the
basics of the program are easy to find online, and for some parents
the system may just be enough to stop them tossing their newborn
off a roof and heading for Appaloosa.
Needing to go
The Dunstan "Heh" sound of discomfort often indicates the need the
change a nappy. Another system, known as Elimination Communication
(EC), goes one better - it teaches parents to recognise when
the baby is about to fill the nappy. Also known as Natural Infant
Hygiene, Potty Whispering, Elimination Timing and Diaper Freedom,
EC essentially begins the potty-learning process at birth.
Again, the system is based on the universal biology of babies -
newborns are born with an awareness of elimination. Swaddled in
disposable nappies which suck moisture away from the skin, Western
babies lose that awareness at about six months. Cloth-diapered
babies may remain slightly more aware, as the sensation of wetting
is more noticeable - in fact, disposable training pants which feel
wet are now on the market to replicate that sensation (side note:
Am I the only one who finds that slightly insane?). Either way,
babies become accustomed to wetting their nappies, only to slowly
re-learn awareness of elimination at potty-training time.
ECed babies, on the other hand, never lose this awareness. From
birth, parents take note of a baby's individual "need to go"
signals, which can vary from a repeated kicking to a general
fussiness. Once the signals have been recognised - usually with the
help of a lot of naked time - parents respond to them by taking the
baby to an appropriate pottying location and giving a cue sound.
The sounds can also vary - many parents' use "Pssss", while others
make up whistles or even little jingles (parenting has to be fun,
right?). Over time the baby learns to associate the cue sound with
pottying, and thus learns to use bladder and bowel control until
she has reached the pottying spot and heard the cue.
The mention of EC tends to invite snorts from other parents - it
seems impossibly high-maintenance, unworkable and perhaps just
plain weird. On the other hand, most of the world has practiced it
successfully and happily for millennia. Nomadic tribes don't pause
every few days to wash and dry cloth nappies - they simply
note their babies' signals, take them to a pottying location, cue
them and carry on. In cultures which foster strong parent-child
attachments, EC is no big deal - it is simply a part of everyday
life. On the contrary, from such a perspective keeping children in
nappies seems positively bizarre.
In Western society, EC tends to attract mothers with an
impressively laid-back approach to life. While EC has a goodly list
of benefits - earlier potty learning, eliminating nappy rash and
huge environmental karma points - most ECers stress that they
practice it primarily as a means of communicating with and
respecting their babies. Accidents, or "misses", are
philosophically chalked up to developmental stages - babies often
forget about pottying while they learn to crawl, for instance - and
homes with white carpet are wisely avoided.
If this still sounds too hard-core, EC need not be a full-time
affair. Many families use nappies at night or when out and about,
and EC message boards provide warm support for parents who EC 24/7
or even once a week. (According to DiaperFreeBaby.com, a successful
"catch" even once a week helps babies retain their awareness of
elimination.) Starting the process with older babies is harder, but
not impossible. In fact, many parents start EC after realising they
do it anyway - any parent who waits for her child to wet again
before putting the new nappy on has already spotted a pattern.
Timing potty opportunities for just following a breastfeeding
session or nap is a good way to ease into EC with a baby of any
age.
Baby sign language
Having established that babies can communicate hunger, pain,
tiredness, gas, burps, and the need to eliminate, one might be
forgiven for thinking that that's all they want to talk about. But
while studies have so far failed to come up with a universal baby
word for "teddy" or "car", baby sign language demonstrates that
such objects are indeed on our babies' minds.
Unlike Dunstan baby language or EC signals, baby sign is learned
rather than instinctual. As a result, just like adult sign
language, it varies according to region. Nor is baby sign identical
to the adult sign language of a community; most baby sign language
is derived from the adult version, but uses simpler syntax.
Occasionally a few gestures are altered to make them easier for
baby hands to sign; however, a child who learns baby sign is
usually able to transition to NZSL later with minimal
difficulties.
For most families, of course, baby sign is simply replaced with
verbal communication. A common myth about baby sign is that it
delays speech; properly practiced, the reverse is true. As baby
sign is always accompanied by the spoken word, signing babies
usually speak earlier, dropping the gesture once they have become
familiar with saying the word. As signing usually starts at around
eight months and the average baby only says his first word at 12
months, signing represents a significant head start in
communication. A baby can sign fluently while still at the
stuttering stage for speech, and some continue to use signs for
complicated words like "elephant".
Signing also helps prevent tantrums in non-verbally fluent toddlers
- "more" and "food" being two signs which make frequent
appearances! Most babies start off with a few simple signs - "Mum",
"Dad", "milk", "sleep" and "nappy" - and then get hooked,
demanding new signs as fast as Mum can look them up. And parents in
turn tend to get hooked on the insights into their babies'
minds.
Leslie Kung knows the benefits of baby sign better than most. A fan
of signing as part of an attachment parenting philosophy, Leslie
also deals with her son's life-threatening food allergies. When
feeding 16-month-old Bailey some crumbs of supposedly gluten-free
cake, he balked and signed that his face was beginning to feel
itchy. It turned out the cake's baking powder contained traces of
flour - enough to potentially cause an anaphylactic reaction.
Leslie is now even more impressed with the ability of pre-verbal
children to communicate.
Each of these three systems illustrates a rediscovered truth about
babies: That they may be small, but they ain't dumb. By respecting
the ability of babes to communicate, we not only have another
reason to feel smug about our wondrous offspring, but we are
constantly reminded of their person-ness. I can't think of a better
thing to keep in mind... especially at 3am.
Resources and further
reading
* Dunstan Baby Language www.dunstanbaby.com
* Elimination Communication: Ingrid Bauer, Diaper Free! The
Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene (2000; Plume,
2006). Bauer coined the terms "elimination communication" and
"natural infant hygiene" after learning of the practice in
traditional cultures.
* Laurie Boucke, Infant Potty Training: A Gentle
and Primeval Method Adapted to Modern Living
www.diaperfreebaby.org
* Baby Sign Language www.baby-talk.co.nz
* Karyn Warburton, Baby Sign Language for Hearing
Babies (Berkeley 2004)
Sarah Tennant lives in Hamilton with her husband,
Dominic, and daughter Rowan (1).
As seen in OHbaby!
magazine Issue 7: 2009
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