Dunstan Baby Language

Don't laugh.

Well, go ahead and laugh; I don't care. It worked for me!

I watched an episode of Oprah during one of my hours of bedrest at the end of my pregnancy. (Truth be told, I never watch Oprah - ha. Josh's mom called and suggested I watch this particular episode. You'll see why.) Oprah's guest for the day was Priscilla Dunstan, a woman who claims that all babies from 0-3 months "speak" five different words/cries. She was presenting Dunstan baby language to several moms of new babies, suggesting that if a new mom is able to identify which cry her baby is crying, it is a whole lot easier to meet that baby's need! The basic "words" are:

Heh - "Change me"

Neh - "I'm so hungry"

Eh - "Burp me"

Eairh - "I have wind" (lower gas)

Owh - "I'm sleepy"

(For the never-lets-you-down, always-as-expected, concise and clear Wikipedia definition, click here.)

The Oprah show demonstrated how well the language worked, as Ms. Dunstan "fixed" each and every crying baby on the program. They even called the moms back after a month or so to describe how it had helped them out at home. 

I was skeptical. I thought it was nuts. It is nuts. But it works! At least, it worked for Ben and me. I was soooo grateful to be able to distinguish between hunger and the need to burp at 3 a.m.! After all, if your baby is crying because he needs to burp, and instead of burping him, you feed him more, you're really just making it worse. 

These are the "words" I found most helpful: 

I could hear a clear neh sound when Ben was crying hungry. It was more like "NEEEEEEEEEEEEH!" in his loudest cry.

I heard a fairly distinct eh-eh-eh-eh when he needed to burp.

Later, I heard the owh sound when he was sleepy, although I followed a pretty good sleep routine with him (that's for another post) which helped me identify his need for sleep in other ways.

So, take it as you will, but I know I loved having this little pearl of wisdom.