Communicating with your baby
Your newborn may not be able to talk yet, but that doesn’t mean they’re not communicating with you. In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about baby communication cues.
Presented by
WHAT’S COVERED IN THIS GUIDE
- What are baby cues and why do they matter?
- How to read baby cues
- Understanding crying
- Responding to crying
- Soothing your baby
- Adjusting the surroundings
- Baby communication patterns
- How to know if something is wrong
What are baby cues, and why do they matter?
LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLE
0:00
During the first three months, your baby is getting used to the world, and you are getting used to your baby. As a new parent, it’s common to feel confused and overwhelmed by how your baby communicates. After all, they can’t use words to simply tell you what they want. The good news is infants have their own way of communicating — called baby cues — that you can learn how to interpret.
Think of these cues as your baby’s own innate language, that they’ll start using the day they’re born. There are a lot of different baby cues out there, but here’s how to sum them up:
- A cue can take the form of a vocalization, a facial expression, or a physical movement.
- Cues can be subtle, like opening the mouth, or obvious, like crying.
- Cues range from early, when your baby first begins to experience a need like hunger, to late, like when they’re overtired.
- A single cue can have multiple meanings. For example, a tongue sticking out could mean your baby is hungry or full.
The earlier the cue, the more subtle it tends to be. Learning how to identify and quickly respond to your baby’s early cues has a ton of benefits. It can help your baby feel safe, establish a secure attachment, and prevent crying — a late cue that can lead to frustration for both baby and parent.
How to read baby cues
Learning to read your baby’s early cues — before things devolve into crying — is key. This can be hard at first, since every infant is different in precisely how they communicate. Luckily all babies share a set of basic needs like hunger and tiredness, so there’s a good chance their cues are signaling a particular need. Parenting expert Priscilla Dunstan1 conducted research with hundreds of babies to identify 5 key sounds that indicate which need your baby is trying to signal.
EXPLORE BABY CUES
"I’m hungry"
Look for these behaviors:
- Restlessness
- Mouth opening
- Turning head
- Stretching
- Hand to mouth
Listen for the “Neh” sound babies sometimes make when they’re hungry.
Look for these behaviors:
- Fussing after feeding
- Breast or bottle refusal
- Looking or pushing away from food
- Back arching
- Body stiffness
- Jaw clamping
Look for these behaviors:
- Squirms if laid down
- Fussing mid-feed
- Chest tightening
Listen for the “eh” sound babies sometimes make when they have to burp.
Look for these behaviors:
- Rigid body
- Pulling legs up to tummy
- Grimacing
- Distressed and urgent cries
Listen for the “eairh” sound babies sometimes make when they have gas.
Look for these behaviors:
- Jerky movements
- Squirming
- Stopping feeding
- Shivering, cold hands and feet
- Sweaty head and warm tummy
Listen for the “heh” sound babies sometimes make when they’re uncomfortable.
Look for these behaviors:
- Lack of eye contact
- Turning head away
- Squirming
- Kicking
Look for these behaviors:
- Yawning
- Staring blankly
- Touching face
- Rubbing eyes
- Lack of interest
- Jerking limbs
Listen for the “owh” sound babies sometimes make when they’re tired.
Look for these behaviors:
- Bright, wide open eyes
- Alert and responsive
- Eye contact
- Smiling
- Smooth movements
- Reaching arms out to you
Listen for the cooing or babbling sounds babies can make when they’re ready to play.
It’s normal to feel anxiety over understanding your newborn’s behavior and communication. Be patient with yourself and your baby if it feels impossible at first. By paying attention to your child’s cues and Dunstan sounds, and running through the list of common needs we’ve provided, you’ll start to recognize your baby’s communication patterns over time.
References
1 dunstanbaby.com
EXTERNAL RESOURCES
Understanding your newborn's cries
As a new parent, one of the hardest challenges you’ll confront is your baby’s cries. Crying is a big part of how babies communicate; it can also be overwhelming and frustrating for a sleep deprived parent. Since babies cry for many reasons, figuring out why your baby is crying and how to calm them down takes time, practice, and a whole lot of patience.
Why do babies cry so much?
It’s important to understand that while there are exceptions, most babies cry...a lot. In fact, it’s normal for babies to cry up to 3 hours a day in the early weeks!1 As parents, we often think our baby is crying because something is wrong, but this isn’t always the case. Crying actually falls into two categories: expressive and communicative.
Expressive crying is a normal part of your baby’s development in the first 3 months. Simply put, your infant may cry as they develop early vocal, motor and communication skills. There’s nothing wrong, and no need to be addressed...your baby is simply experiencing a lot of growth and this type of crying is a behavioral response!
Communicative crying is exactly what it sounds like. This type of crying is often a late baby cue, and the point is to get your attention and alert you to an immediate need. Usually, this need falls into one of the common categories: your baby is hungry, tired, uncomfortable, or in need of a break.
Your baby will use both types of crying from day one, but as they get older, their cries tend to become more communicative and less expressive.2 Crying can be hard to interpret, and go on for what feels like an eternity — especially in the first few months.
EXPLORE BABY CUES
"I’m hungry"
Look for these behaviors:
- Restlessness
- Mouth opening
- Turning head
- Stretching
- Hand to mouth
Listen for the “Neh” sound babies sometimes make when they’re hungry.
Look for these behaviors:
- Fussing after feeding
- Breast or bottle refusal
- Looking or pushing away from food
- Back arching
- Body stiffness
- Jaw clamping
Look for these behaviors:
- Squirms if laid down
- Fussing mid-feed
- Chest tightening
Listen for the “eh” sound babies sometimes make when they have to burp.
Look for these behaviors:
- Rigid body
- Pulling legs up to tummy
- Grimacing
- Distressed and urgent cries
Listen for the “eairh” sound babies sometimes make when they have gas.
Look for these behaviors:
- Jerky movements
- Squirming
- Stopping feeding
- Shivering, cold hands and feet
- Sweaty head and warm tummy
Listen for the “heh” sound babies sometimes make when they’re uncomfortable.
Look for these behaviors:
- Lack of eye contact
- Turning head away
- Squirming
- Kicking
Look for these behaviors:
- Yawning
- Staring blankly
- Touching face
- Rubbing eyes
- Lack of interest
- Jerking limbs
Listen for the “owh” sound babies sometimes make when they’re tired.
Look for these behaviors:
- Bright, wide open eyes
- Alert and responsive
- Eye contact
- Smiling
- Smooth movements
- Reaching arms out to you
Listen for the cooing or babbling sounds babies can make when they’re ready to play.
If you find yourself losing patience or becoming angry over your crying baby, know that these emotions are normal. Take a deep breath, take a moment away to calm yourself, but never yell, shake or hit your baby. Such actions can hurt your child, and will do nothing to stop their crying.
References
1 whattoexpect.com/first-year/newborn-sleep.aspx
2 psycnet.apa.org/record/1990-24930-001
How to respond to your crying baby
Go through this list whenever your newborn is crying. You may end up combining multiple steps or going through all the tactics more than once before something works. As with most things related to parenting, there’s no single right way to respond to your baby’s cries.
Give touch a try
Studies show that touch triggers an oxytocin spike for both baby and parent, making it an incredibly effective temporary calming mechanism. The momentary flood of feel-good hormones can provide the breather you both need, so when in doubt, try holding your baby before figuring out what to do next.
Beyond serving as a chill pill, touch provides a slew of benefits for your baby: it regulates body temperature, heart rate and breathing. It boosts cognitive development. It even deepens bonding between you and your child. Infant massage can be a healthy way for you and your baby to relax. Here’s how to get started.
You’ll spoil a crying baby by holding them too much.
Addressing basic needs
Are they hungry?
This is the single most common basic need. During the first three months of life, your baby will spend a lot of time feeding. On average, newborns feed every two to four hours,2 and all babies go through growth spurts where they want to feed even more frequently than that! Try offering your baby a bottle or breast.
If you’re breastfeeding, your baby’s cries mean you can’t make enough milk.
Are they tired?
On average, newborns sleep anywhere from 14 to 19 hours a day, often waking only to feed before drifting off again. 4 If your baby is crying for this reason, they’re likely already overtired, which can make calming them much more difficult and time-consuming. Try loosely swaddling them, moving to a darker and quieter place, offering them a pacifier, and rocking or patting them.
If you don’t establish good sleep routines in the first weeks, your baby will never be a good sleeper.
Are they uncomfortable?
Your newborn will pee as often as every 1 to 3 hours,5 and can poop up to 10 times a day.6 A soiled, soggy diaper can trigger crying very quickly, so it helps to check and change your baby’s diaper every 2 to 3 hours, if not more. Make sure you’re changing the diaper correctly too: one that’s too tight, loose, or poorly positioned can also cause your baby discomfort.
Are they sick?
If you’ve tried several tactics without luck, check your baby for the most common symptoms of illness. These include:
-
Abnormally high or low temperature
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Rash
- Coughing
Certain symptoms are more serious than others. Here’s when you should call your doctor.
Is a stray hair to blame?
As unusual as it sounds, this condition happens often enough with newborns that it has a name: hair tourniquet. Hair tourniquets only affect very young babies, when their appendages are small enough that a stray hair or fabric thread can wrap around them, causing pain and cutting off circulation.
Hair tourniquets can become serious if left untreated for too long, and may even require medical intervention to treat. If your baby is inconsolable, check to see if a hair or thread is wrapped around one of their fingers, toes, or their penis.
References
1 ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2809453/
2 healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/feeding-nutrition/Pages/How-Often-and-How-Much-Should-Your-Baby-Eat.aspx
3 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10226183/
4 whattoexpect.com/first-year/newborn-sleep.aspx
5 healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/Pages/Babys-First-Days-Bowel-Movements-and-Urination.aspx
6 healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/abo3062
How to soothe your baby
Did you know that compared to most other mammals humans are born one trimester early? The earlier exit is actually perfectly timed — any longer in the womb and babies’ heads would be too large to travel through the birth canal! This also means that the first three months of a newborn’s life is a critical period of development.
Pediatrician Dr. Harvey Karp1 popularized the easy to remember 5 s’s: swaddle, side/stomach, shush, swing and suck. These 5 soothing strategies can calm your baby and help them sleep better.
Swaddle
Swaddling imitates the cozy, secure feeling your child experienced during their nine months in the womb. This is a great step to try early and in combination with the other soothing strategies, since it may help your baby settle down faster and stay calm longer.
It’s important you swaddle your baby correctly. Here’s how to do it:
Side/Stomach
On their back is the only safe position for your baby to sleep, since it significantly reduces the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).2 Unfortunately it’s not a great position for calming babies that are crying. This orientation feels unnatural to your newborn, who is used to moving more freely while supported by amniotic fluid in utero. Moving your baby to their side or belly while they’re fussing can recreate this sensation and deactivate the startle reflex.
To try this strategy, hold your baby on their tummy, their side, or over your shoulder (always being careful to support their head and neck).
Shush
You may think your baby needs absolute silence to sleep. But the truth is, your baby was constantly surrounded by noise during their time in the womb. They could hear the constant sound of your blood flow, which is louder than a hair dryer or vacuum cleaner. A similar type of white noise can help your baby sleep during the fourth trimester.
Mimic the rumbling white noise your baby experienced in the womb by loudly saying “shhhhhhhhhh” in your baby’s ear as you hold them on their side or stomach. You want your volume to match your baby’s crying here — so don’t be afraid to get close to their ear and be loud! As your baby begins to calm, slowly decrease the volume of your shushing.
Swing
Life in utero wasn’t quiet for your baby, and it wasn’t static either. They were constantly moving in the womb, afloat in a fluid-filled environment that shifted and swayed every time you took a step. Movement was often quick and small, so while gentle rocking works on an already calm baby, a different type of motion is required to soothe a crying one.
Use fast, tiny movements to soothe your upset newborn. It’s critical you keep your rocking small — shaking your baby can lead to permanent brain damage. Learn how to swing here:
Suck
Without the innate sucking reflex, babies would have a pretty hard time eating. And even though they’re fed via umbilical cord, babies begin sucking in the womb, often practicing on their fingers until they’re born. This is why sucking has such a comforting effect on newborns — it focuses their attention while reminding them of the safe, cozy womb.
Offer your baby a pacifier. This is a great one to combine with other soothing strategies. Pacifiers can be introduced after breastfeeding is well established and have been proven to reduce the risk of SIDS in the first three months.3,4
References
1 happiestbaby.com/blogs/baby/the-5-s-s-for-soothing-babies
2 kidshealth.org/en/parents/sids.html
3 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21505778/
4 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16216900/
EXTERNAL RESOURCES
Giving your baby a change of (s)pace
The immediate environment can have a big impact on your newborn. Lights, noise, sights...there’s a lot going on! This is particularly true during months 0 - 3, when your baby is still transitioning from life in the womb to life in the outside world. By making adjustments to emulate your baby’s in utero experience, you can soothe them with more familiar surroundings.
Environment
Take a minute to tune in to the surroundings. Is there a lot of noise, silence, or a specific sound? Are there lots of people around, or too much commotion? Is it hot...cold? Something about your baby’s immediate environment may be upsetting them.
Try walking into a quieter, darker room, or going outside. Create white noise by running the vacuum, or turning off the light. Check whether your baby might need more layers or less.
Motion
Take your baby for a ride in the car or stroller, or place them in a baby swing. Marrying touch with motion can be a powerful combination for calming, so try carrying your baby in your arms while you walk, or in a sling or front carrier.
Space
Babies need a break from people too sometimes! Your baby’s cries might be a signal that they need a break from stimulation and people. Giving them some space can help them self-regulate and calm down.
Like every soothing strategy, providing space won’t always work, and you don’t want to give your baby space for too long if it’s not helping calm them. Here’s a good rule to follow: when giving your baby space, allow them to cry no more than 1 minute at a time per week of life, with a max of 10 minutes. If a minute’s passed and your baby is still fussing, then space is not what they need at the moment.
Baby communication patterns
You may be wondering if your newborn’s crying is normal. Fortunately, experts have asked the same question. Research has found that crying follows a pattern during the early months, with a typical increase and peak, followed by a decrease.1
Simply put, babies cry. Crying tends to increase in the first 2-3 months of life, with most newborns reaching a “crying peak” around week 6. Once that peak is hit, crying decreases, and by 3 months, parents can expect their newborn to cry for about an hour a day.
Babies also develop patterns around when they cry. These patterns can become apparent as early as 10 days from birth. The most distinct pattern coincides with the crying peak, when babies tend to cry in clusters. Known as “the Witching Hour”, this period of increased fussiness usually happens at the end of the day, between the hours of 6pm to midnight.2
Of course, every baby is different. Your infant might hit their crying peak at 3 weeks of age, while another won’t reach the top of Meltdown Mountain until week 8. The amount of crying will differ from baby to baby as well: some will peak at an hour of crying a day, while others may cry for up to five hours.
Keeping track of your baby's crying
If you're interested in learning more about your baby’s crying patterns and what they could mean, home monitoring can be helpful. Keep a written record of the following:
- When your baby cries within a single day. Crying can be incredibly aggravating, and you may feel like your baby cries all the time. Tracking exactly when the crying happens and how long it lasts provides clarity. Chances are, there’s a concentrated time of day your baby cries and it lasts for less time than you think. Besides providing perspective, tracking helps you plan ahead for the times of day when your baby tends to cry. Being ready with a set of soothing strategies and any support plan for yourself can make life a lot easier.
- When your baby cries within a week. Zoom out and track your child’s patterns over the course of a week. Is their crying getting worse or better? If it’s improving or about the same, then the cries are probably normal and will phase out over time. If it’s getting worse, it could be an indication of a deeper issue that requires medical attention. Having a clearly documented journal of when crying happens (for example, after every feed) can help your doctor diagnose and treat an underlying cause.
References
1 https://dontshake.org/purple-crying
2 psycnet.apa.org/record/1990-24930-001
EXTERNAL RESOURCES
How to know if something is wrong
It can be really tough to know whether your baby’s behaviors are “normal”, especially in the early months. If your baby’s crying falls noticeably outside the typical crying patterns for newborns, it might be a signal of an underlying medical issue. Here are some of the most common types, and how to know if your baby is experiencing one:
EXPLORE COMMON CAUSES OF CRYING
Colic
Colic is defined as 3 or more hours of crying per day, for at least 3 days per week, in an otherwise healthy infant under 3 months of age.
The most common symptom of a food allergy is blood in stool. Other symptoms include eczema, wheezing, diarrhea or vomiting.
Signs of reflux include crying immediately after or during a feed and arching the back or seeming uncomfortable while feeding.
When to seek professional help
Most infants who cry excessively do not have a serious underlying medical problem. But if the common causes outlined above have been eliminated and your baby continues to cry outside the typical pattern, you should speak with your healthcare provider.
Call your baby’s medical provider during normal office hours if any of the following occur:
- You have concerns about how to manage your crying baby
- Excessive crying continues after your baby is older than four months
- Your infant fails to gain weight
Always call your baby’s medical provider right away if they’re presenting with any of these symptoms:
- Bloody stool or trouble urinating
- Excessive or projectile vomit
- Crying continuously for over 2 hours
- External injury or suspected internal injury
- Never satisfied after feeding
- Refusing food or drink for more than a few hours
- Showing signs of lethargy or decreased responsiveness
- Fever 100.4F or higher. This symptom is considered an emergency if it occurs within the first 28 days.
Last but not least, parents need help sometimes too. If you’re feeling increasingly angry about your baby’s crying, call someone for support and take a break. If you feel the urge to shake, smother or slap your child, step away from them and call 1-800-4-A-CHILD to speak with a professional counselor.
Prolonged and inconsolable infant crying has been linked to symptoms of maternal depression.1 A mother’s feelings of helplessness when it comes to soothing her baby can be a powerful indicator of her risk for depression. Call your doctor if you or your partner are experiencing such symptoms. If you’re experiencing immediate distress, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline offers emotional support 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255.
References
1 pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/131/6/e1857.short