Do you find it’s always a guessing game as to why your baby cries? I’ve always had that feeling with my baby on her first month. It’s frustrating when no matter how I try, I just couldn’t calm her down.

It took me more than a month to figure out my baby’s crying pattern through trial and error. Luckily I had my mother to guide me on differentiating my baby’s cry. That is if she cries a certain way, it might be that she’s hungry. Of course, I can’t be accurate all the time but it helps in decoding what my baby wants and make her stop crying.

Here how my cry decoder works on my baby Clarrise …

• When Clarisse is hungry, she would let out a low-pitched cry which starts off slowly and gets louder shortly afterwards. It goes like short cycles of sound and quiet. That a pretty good hint for me to start feeding her. Now that Clarisse is 5 1/2 months old, it’s a lot easier to know when she’s hungry. She would use her tougue to lick my chest or her face will lean on my breast when I’m carrying her.
• When Clarisse is tired, she would keep on whining indefinitely and rub her eyes. I’d rock her to sleep or feed her breastmilk while lying on the bed, she would easily fall into sleep.
• When Clarisse want to be held, she would sound like she’s talking to me. It’s more like calling me instead of crying for attention. Now at five months, she would also turn her body sideways and lift her head. If no one responds to her after a while, she will start yelling and her face will turn red.
• When Clarisse is in pain, especially when having colic attacks, her cry is intense. There’ll be moments when she hold her breath for a few seconds out followed by high-pitched wails. Her face will turn bright red from crying and hands are clenched.
• When Clarisse is sick or feeling discomfort, she would cry irritably and no matter how I soothe her, her crying continues. From my experience, I remember when Clarisse had high fever during her third month, she would let out a constant soft, weak and whimpering noise even when she was sleeping. It’s a very painful and worrying sound to hear for mothers.

Not all babies having the same way of crying when they are in need of something. So, we usually trying hard to undertand what our baby needs through trial and error.