What Is He Saying?

      We have been trying to get better at understanding our little man as his cries are now most distinct and his needs greater. When he first came home from the NICU, he seemed to have 2 cries: (1) the first cry that he would utter upon waking, meaning 'feed me,' and (2) significant grunting combined with crying that usually happened with him tensing his whole body or moving his legs up and down together, meaning 'this fortified breast milk is wreaking havoc on my tummy. Now it appears he is trying to tell us more, and giving him a bottle every time does not always fix the problem and has even ended up in significant spit up from an obviously full tummy.
     Our friend Tina suggested we check out Dunston Baby Language, so we checked it out of the library and have found it most helpful when trying to interpret his cries. We still are struggling when he combines cries, but overall feel we are doing a better job at understanding him.

      We also are trying to pay attention to his body language, such as this massive yawn he is showing us on the right. He also tries to scoot his body up your chest if he is uncomfortable and needs a burp or if he is trying to get away from a full diaper.
     The hardest is when he is overstimulated, a new phenomenon that can sometimes look a lot like hunger as he usually wants to suck on the binky to calm himself down.  Taking the bottle has an initial calming effect as he is in fact sucking, but he can then become even more irritated when he has an overfull belly in addition to being overwhelmed in general. There are times when he has been like this that we need to bring him into his room, shut out the light and leave him alone in the crib. This is of course super new to us as he has before needed to be directly on you for comfort. However, helping him to learn some independent soothing now is good and may help us for future naps/bed times when he gets older.