The Experts: Priscilla Dunstan

Last spring, a new mom friend of mine told me that everyone will tell you that you'll know what your baby wants when they cry and you don't always know and don't let that make you feel bad.  I nodded.  And I thought to myself, well maybe YOU don't know what YOUR baby wants, but surely I will.  I know better now.  It seems that the more I try to tune in to what Cece wants, the harder it is to understand.  Priscilla Dunstan came up with a program to dissect baby language.  I blogged about this before as well.  It may well work, but I found it to be one more thing that made me feel like I couldn't understand her and SHOULD be able to.  She would be screaming and I'd be focused in on her mouth to see if the tongue was touching the roof of her mouth and making the neh sound.  Ridiculous, I realize - but at the time it all made perfect sense to me.  Fortunately I did not purchase the video myself, it was loaned to me.  Also, as with the rooting reflex and many other infant reflexes, these sounds (neh, eh, eairh, and...I already forget the other one) disappear too around 4 months.  I kept thinking to myself, well, even if this works, what will I do when she's 4 months old?  So, in my personal opinion, Dunstan Baby language is interesting and thought provoking, buuuut, if all it does is make you a little crazy, I'd suggest not knowing.  Because, well, sometimes ignorance IS bliss.