| Language Milestone |
What it means |
Links to Literacy | ||
| Babies cry in different ways to tell you what they need |
Babies need to be able to tell us when they need nourishment, when they are in discomfort, or when they need to
to know that we are near. They do this by crying.
Crying is an instinctive, rather than learned behaviour at first. At birth babies know how to signal hunger, pain, fear, or discomfort. Baby cries, and we respond appropriately, by feeding, changing, holding, soothing, talking, hugging, etc. But soon every mother learns that there are different cries for different needs. The hunger cry is different from the cry of boredom, or the cry of pain. Baby is now learning how to get attention, and how to communicate with his or her parents.
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Infants communicate with their parents the only way they know how, by crying. This begins the communication process, which
eventually grows and develops into speech.
Baby learns that sometimes a boredom cry won't get attention, while a scream of pain will. So gradually baby learns how to tell people what s/he wants by crying in certain ways, or at certain times. Babies quickly learn how to get attention. Parents understand crying, and interpret what they hear. They understand what baby wants and satisfy his/her needs by picking up, cuddling, talking, feeding, changing, etc. At the same time they know that baby will eventually develop better ways of communicating.
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