Calm the Crying: The Secret Baby Language That Reveals the Hidden Meaning Behind an Infant's Cry

by Priscilla Dunstan

One of the world’s foremost parenting experts offers a revolutionary guide for translating a crying baby’s urgent messages. 

Like many new parents, Priscilla Dunstan was at her wit’s end trying to ease the crying of her colicky infant son. Then she made a startling His sounds varied according to his needs, and she could decipher their meaning by tracking the sound as a physical reflex. Unlike learned languages, Dunstan soon realized, every newborn from birth to three months possesses a natural, reflexive communication system for signaling hunger, tiredness, the need to burp, lower gas, and general discomfort. Thirteen years of research culminated in the Dunstan Baby Language, now made available to all caregivers in Calm the Crying.



Helping readers learn to recognize and respond to exactly what their baby needs, Dunstan’s remarkable program covers ten sounds in total that can be identified and used to calm a baby. Brimming with diagrams and photographs, Calm the Crying reduces the frustration of wasted time spent addressing the wrong needs. A baby’s cries are a powerful form of communication—now made even more powerful because the message can be understood loud and clear.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 4, 2012

Reviews

[Nari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a good book to have on hand in the early months for new parents. As a new parent, its helped me decipher the yelps and cries of my young child. The premise of the book is that newborns have 3 words for 3 distinct needs: food, exhaustion, and gas. (Neh, owh, and eh).

I first picked up this book with some skepticism. There are a lot of books on this topic out there, but it was the simplicity of this book that drew me to it. Having scanned it briefly, (there is only so much time to read when trying to deal with a crying newborn), I quickly memorized the words for the cries and started to really pay attention to my child's cries. Sure enough, the need and the noise matched when Priscilla Dunstan had discovered. What I thought was just a cute sigh, was actually my child's word for feeling tired. Using this book, along with visual cues (rooting with mouth, sucking, eyes dropping, rubbing eyes, etc) I am not quickly able to figure out what is going on my child and how to quickly respond to minimize the cries and tears. Its been incredibly helpful and I only wish I had found this book sooner. It would have saved me a lot of frustration. The only complaints I have is that I wish there were newborn words for "I'm hot/cold" and "change my diaper now."

[Jennifer Weitzman Koch]

I didn't read the book...just watched her interview with Oprah on YouTube and it TOTALLY WORKED! Those first three months were a breeze (at least from a 'what does that cry mean' standpoint). It was beautiful. I could immediately tell if he was hungry, needed to be burped, was uncomfortable,was trying to go to the bathroom. The only one I never encountered was the sound for 'I'm sleepy,' I guess because I was clued in to his other cues. Anyway, don't read the book, watch the video because you hear the sounds she's describing.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sounds promising, would have been great with Sophia (aka the crier!), but I must have a terrible ear because I can't distinguish the difference. Mostly I just hear (I'm peeved, fix it mommy.)Oh well. Hope it helps someone.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's certainly a lot of good information in this book. But as a new parent, who has time to read (especially when your child is crying a lot)? If your baby has already arrived, do yourself a favor and watch Priscilla's Oprah segment on youtube - it's much easier to hear what she's talking about than have it described to you in a book. We also checked out her DVD series from the library - while it had lots of examples, there wasn't a ton in the DVD that wasn't covered in the Oprah clip.

Baby here = watch youtube clip
Baby not here = give the book a read