{"id":2993,"date":"2011-03-16T21:13:47","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T19:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/zaparents-blog\/?p=2993"},"modified":"2022-06-08T21:25:13","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T19:25:13","slug":"de-coding-the-cry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/baby-to-teens\/baby-health\/de-coding-the-cry\/","title":{"rendered":"De-coding the cry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Crying is probably the number-one thing that scares men away from kids.\u00a0 If you\u2019re anything like me, you just come near a child and the tears start rolling.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the one thing that can make you hate being alive and feel like a complete failure as a parent.\u00a0 But reality check, it\u2019s inevitable if you are or are planning to be a parent so you need to know what it\u2019s all about and how you can de-code what your baby is trying to tell you.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, babies aren\u2019t born with the ability to articulate what he or she needs, so every word that comes out of their mouths will sound something like this: \u201cWWWAAAAAAAAA!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not ideal.\u00a0 Especially when there\u2019s a list of things it\u00a0<em>could<\/em> be and you have no clue how to identify any of them.<\/p>\n<p>Over the first few weeks of my son\u2019s life, my wife and I managed to whittle the reasons for crying down to a list of four things.\u00a0 I can confidently say that any time my kid decided to bleat like a little goat (I\u2019m not lying, that\u2019s what it used to sound like), we\u2019d use the process of elimination:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nappy \u2013 even the smallest pee can make the baby uncomfortable.<\/li>\n<li>Tired \u2013 babies get Les Miserables when they are tired.<\/li>\n<li>Over-stimulated \u2013 If too much is going on.\u00a0 Being passed from one grandparent to the next, too many colours or movement\u2026this can lead to the baby becoming over-tired and excessively moany.<\/li>\n<li>Hungry \u2013 if it\u2019s close to feeding time (or if we suspected a growth spurt) **BUT be careful not to comfort feed if any of the other steps have already worked.\u00a0 I\u2019ll deal with feeding strategies in another post.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are other reasons that babies cry, like being too hot or cold, being sick, or just plain bored, but in most cases, we found that one of the four listed above were the cause of the commotion.<\/p>\n<p>The hardest part about crying is letting your baby cry for a while so you can figure out what type of cry it is.<\/p>\n<p>No, I\u2019m not heartless, letting babies cry serves lots of purposes.\u00a0 Most importantly, crying allows you to learning your baby\u2019s cry-pattern or cry-disposition.<\/p>\n<p>A cry-pattern is a very distinct pattern to how your baby cries when he or she is hungry, or uncomfortable.<\/p>\n<p>Parents who have learnt their baby\u2019s cry-pattern will easily be able to have a listen and predict what is wrong and if when the cry will end.<\/p>\n<p>But to learn your baby\u2019s cry-pattern you have to let your baby cry\u2026sometimes for up to 45 minutes.\u00a0 And it\u2019s the most heart-breaking thing in the world, but after a few days you\u2019ll be able to tell if baby\u2019s hungry, attention mongering, or being attacked by the Tokoloshi.<\/p>\n<p>HIGH FIVE for progress!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b><i>Note: If you enjoyed this article, and would like to stay updated with more, you can:<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li2\"><i><\/i><span class=\"s1\"><i>Subscribe to our free weekly Jozikids\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/member-registration\/\"><span class=\"s2\"><i>newsletter<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>\u00a0 for parents in Gauteng<\/i><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li2\"><i><\/i><span class=\"s1\"><i>Like us on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jozikids.co.za\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"s2\"><i>facebook<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li2\"><i><\/i><span class=\"s1\"><i>Follow us on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/instagram.com\/jozikids?igshid=1n8cwedrewul\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"s2\"><i>instagram<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Crying is probably the number-one thing that scares men away from kids.  If you\u2019re anything like me, you just come near a child and the tears start rolling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":249772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baby-health"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}