The Language of Crying

No I am not a cry baby. Because crying is my language: It’s my only way to communicate. Next time my baby hears the word cry baby, if she had the mouth to frame words: she’d smack back saying - hey you, go get your research done well! This is the only way I can communicate! 

What’s language after all? It’s a medium of expression. Even with all the diction and face to face interactions, adults fail miserably in communicating, forget communicating, they find it hard to even talk or complete a sentence without preconceived notions or judgement. 

So all the baby knows, is to cry. Cry to communicate everything. Consider this, imagine ringing a bell for every little thing. How do you spot the difference? Granted if there’s a different bell tone for each type, and it’s all well demarcated, you can tell because of the pre-programming. You cannot interpret with artificial intelligence to understand the types of crying of newborns. Each to one’s own as well, btw. It’s not so that the neighbour’s kid cries in a certain way and hence I’d take it that mine cried for possibly the same reason, or may be an older grand child probably cried for some reason. There’s only so much you can do to calibrate. For the rest, it’s a painstakingly rewarding process to understand the types of crying and attending to it on time, every time. It takes grit and high levels of patience to understand the behavioural patterns round the clock, to get why your little one is crying. As with the pregnancy, every child is unique too. Of course, there could be commonalities, however, there’s no shortcut to understanding the reasons of crying of your own little one.

And so began my journey with motherhood, trying to understand those extended cries of hunger, to those little ones, to the disgruntled ones, to needing of my warmth, to the discomforts, to the little sounds, to when she’s about to doze off, and what not. What’s even more emotional is the fact that I end up crying myself seeing the little one cry…without any rhyme or reason.

It’s just like troubleshooting, you have a few checkpoints, that are your SOS guide, like a Triage Handling Mechanism. Thanks to my project handling experience that came in handy, the most important aspect that I could easily adapt was the notes-taking portion and staying organised, with a lot of discipline. It may sound so old-school, but it’s definitely worth every second. How would you respond if the house is on fire, such is the urgency with which you’d need to act when dealing with newborns. Imagine the amount of preparation that needs to go in throughout the 24 hrs! The last few weeks have been a great blessing for me in every way, because every hurdle was an opportunity in understanding my little one’s language a little better. It’s not so much that I have a mastery over it, yet I am beginning to construct sentences with the help of my newborn. See how they are your teachers already?! 

This full-time occupation at hand is an opportunity to build tons and tons of patience and perseverance. The most important trick of the trade is to keep yourself levelheaded every single time, and NOT PANIC. 

So cry on, my baby. It’s never a sign of weakness! You’ll know that it’s a beautiful vent for clogged emotions. In your case, it’s for the basic needs after all! 

Each to one’s own. Let’s remember that, before making judgmental cries!