Hello! My name is Camille Potgieter. I'm a birth doula, therapeutic reflexologist and certified Dunstan Baby Language instructor living in my native sunny South Africa. (I'm new to steemit, feel free to point out my rookie mistakes. Please be gentle!) https://www.facebook.com/becomeababywhisperer/
My passion is helping new parents and their tiny babies to have an easy, awesome start to their lives together. As an anarchist this is very close to my heart.
So let me tell you all about the world's first infant cry classification system.
Yes, you read that correctly. It is possible to hack the code of a new born baby's cries. This system (dubbed Dunstan Baby Language, or DBL for short) was discovered by Australian opera singer and mother Priscilla Dunstan, in 1998. If you would like to find out more about the nuts and bolts of this groundbreaking discovery, check out my first ever blog post. Priscilla shared her system with the world on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2012. Here is an 18 minute extract from that episode.
The short version is that babies have automatic reflexes which are triggered by needs within their bodies: hunger, sleepiness, the need to burp, abdominal pain from trapped gas, skin discomfort such as being too hot, too cold or needing a diaper change. Five very basic physical needs. In order to express their needs to their parents, babies will add a sound to the reflex, which produces a distinct noise or "word" for each need. These "words" are common to all neurologically healthy, full term babies of both genders and all ethnic backgrounds
This means that DBL is exactly what you are thinking it is. A skeleton key that opens all the doors. A simple "decryption tool" which provides priceless benefits:
- More sleep for everyone.
- Less crying. A lot less.
- No need for "gatekeeping" behavior on the part of exhausted new mothers. Dad really can take care of the baby alone for as long as necessary.
- Siblings can hear the words and be more involved in the care of the new baby.
- More stress-free time for the baby in which to pick up language, learn about his surroundings and enjoy his family.
- A more PATIENT baby. (Yes, really.)
- A deep bond of trust and respect between you and your baby.
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. - Hendrix
Strangely, after all the points I just mentioned, this post is not about how DBL works.
It's about a related phenomenon, namely, why 99% of parents are NOT INTERESTED.
What if We Understood Our Babies' Cries?
Imagine a world where every person is listened to, respected, understood and appropriately responded to, from the moment of their birth. Imagine bringing a new human being into the world and having it be the most joyful, fulfilling, ethereal experience you have ever had. Doesn't that picture negate the concepts of attention deficit drugs for children, juvenile corrective facilities, prisons, wars, sociopaths, bullies, child abuse, domestic violence and addiction? Would these things even exist in a world where every child knows in the deepest part of himself that he is worth listening to, that he is not alone, that if he asks for help that help will always come in one form or another? That she has power, value, a contribution to make and at least one person in the world who will always have her back?
Are you getting a feeling for why this is so important to me? Are you building a mental picture of the way society could function if we treated babies differently than we currently do in the western world? Are you imagining the kind of adults those children would grow up to be?
For those who don't know much yet about the life-long consequences of regularly letting a baby "cry-it-out" (whatever that means) then here is a very compact and well cited article that gives a crash course in the neurophysiology of crying and how it affects the permanent structural development of a baby's brain. Heads up, it's mind-blowing.
I hope the above paints a picture of what I was feeling when I first discovered this tool. I was overjoyed. I felt utterly privileged to have found this information. I was so enthusiastic that I completed the two month online DBL instructor course in three days. I was determined to help the thousands of parents who would soon be beating down my door to learn how to decipher their child's needs and make crying obsolete. Imagine my confusion when my efforts were met with skepticism. Disinterest. Scorn. Anger.
I had no idea what was happening. Was I living in a twilight zone where black was white and down was up? For weeks I felt dejected and oddly betrayed by my fellow humans who didn't want to hear what their babies were saying to them. More than four years later, I understand a little better. I learned how deep the rabbit hole goes. I changed my ideology from confused and reluctant democrat to libertarian to anarcho-capitalist. I learned about positive things like unschooling and realised how easy it would be for a DBL baby to be unschooled, having all that stress free time virtually from birth, in which to learn how to learn. I learned about horrible things like trauma based mind control. I made peace with the fact that not everyone is ready to believe that this world is made for pleasure, peace and prosperity. It's not because of stupidity, or malice, or any bad intentions on their part. It's simply how the system disfigures us.
Granted, people who adopt a natural, "attachment" style of parenting are usually very in tune with their babies. Undisturbed natural birth, breastfeeding, avoiding vaccination, co-sleeping and carrying the baby in arms or a kangaroo style wrap all contribute to a very close bond with your baby. Babies raised this way rarely cry. But what about the mothers who are alone, or very young, or recovering from addiction and abuse? What about those who were neglected or abused themselves as children and have no concept of how to nurture a helpless human being? What about the people who are still holding tightly to the paradigm that the government owns their child, that the mainstream media always tells the truth, that picking up your baby will spoil them? What about the people who have never heard of peaceful parenting? I have seen these kinds of people become attachment parents in front of my eyes (even before they had a word for it) as a natural consequence of learning to trust and understand their babies with DBL. Does it make sense why I believe it can literally change the world?
In December of 2015 I posted a short video on my facebook page of the first three newborn words: Neh, Owh and Eh. Hunger, sleepiness and the need to burp, respectively. For about six months it languished on the page with maybe twenty likes, generated by me sharing the post on my personal page with my friends and family. Then a few weeks ago, without warning, it just went crazy. The likes and shares doubled every few hours, and it has now been viewed over 96 000 times with 766 shares from my page alone. I couldn't believe it. I spammed the comments with links to other content that I knew would help people, I liked every single comment and replied to as many as I could. One woman in Australia sent a private message asking for help with her baby who was crying a lot. I rejoiced in the power of social media.
But my like/share/comment -fueled dopamine high subsided and I finally started noticing the pattern in the comments. Ninety-nine percent of them were people tagging their friends or family. I stalked a few of these profiles. Childless people tagging new parents. I couldn't understand what was wrong?? What is it that makes so many mothers and fathers with real, live, screaming babies reject this knowledge?
Maybe it's for this reason.
The Dunstan Baby Language system is not difficult to learn. The words are not difficult to hear or remember.
What IS difficult is reprogramming your brain to see your baby as someone who KNOWS what they need, who you need to listen to and trust and respond to immediately.
We have been brought up to believe that there are only two classes of people: subjects (children, students, patients, citizens) and controllers (teachers, parents, doctors, governments.) By the time we have children, we are so desperate to stop being subjects and start being controllers, that the idea of trusting a baby and bending to their will can be very counter-intuitive.
What if this is a false dichotomy between controller and subject? What if the reality is that parent and baby are a unit, perfectly designed to help one another get through life? What if listening to your baby and responding to their ACTUAL NEEDS, makes them more patient, more happy, less demanding, more empathetic and more intelligent?
Try it!
After four years of helping parents to learn this system (the odd ones who can find it in their hearts to trust in the goodness of the design of the human being) I am convinced that learning about the natural design of the earth and it's creatures is more important than being in control of every aspect of it. Life was never meant to be traumatic and painful. I know it is that way now, but if you take the terrifying leap of faith and TRUST in your innate, divine ability to parent your child, and their natural, inbuilt ability to help you do it well, some of the most coveted commodities on the earth become yours for free. Peace, joy, trust, and enough sleep!
Resources: BabyEars app for iPhone for $4.99, or the instructional DVD for $30.
Priscilla's book Calm The Crying with sound clips to help you learn the words