Shortly after Elise was born, people started asking me "Can you tell her different cries apart yet?" I couldn't. And I felt really crappy about it-- like I was a bad parent-- until I realized that she didn't HAVE different cries at first.
It took a couple of weeks before she made noticeably different noises, and then another couple of weeks after that before I could tell what was what. Now, on top of noticing different cries, I have that mother's intuition going on, so sometimes I just KNOW that she's tired or hungry or wet.
When she's wet she makes a sort of "nuh nuh nuh" sound. And when she's hungry she makes this cry that almost sounds like a sarcastic laugh. "Aha aha aha." She doesn't make those sounds every time she's wet or hungry, but if she makes them when she cries, I know what's bothering her right away.
So, tonight just before bed Husband was holding Elise and she started to cry. He was trying to comfort her. "You know, she's making the sound like she's wet. Did you check her diaper?" I asked.
It wasn't wet.
So I jumped up and rushed her to the toilet. Major poo.
To my knowledge she has never made that cry BEFORE her diaper was soiled. I think she was saying, "I don't want to sit in my own crap. And you guys seem to get a big kick out of it when I use the potty. SO... let's make this a win-win situation and you just take me to the potty right now. RIGHT NOW!"
It was really cool.
I've read that once they realize that they don't have to sit in poo, a lot of babies do really well with cueing their caregivers to take them to the potty when they have to poop. All babies have accidents when they're learning elimination communication, but apparently poopy accidents are usually much fewer and farther between than the pee-pee ones.
I wonder if it was just a fluke, or if Elise was really trying to communicate with us.
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