A Language of Crying?

James is now just over 2 weeks old, and already we've had 2 nights of almost no sleep.  He started out a little angel, and seems to have gradually grown into his crying skills.  As a consequence of all this crying, we've by necessity spent much time listening to the various cries and trying to decipher them.  Hungry? Wet?  Just a complainer?  Is he feeling unloved?  Is he just tired? 

In the end, despite our best efforts, we really weren't able to figure out what he was trying to tell us - we just used simple trial and error to try and solve the problem.  Embarassingly, we would sometimes forget an obvious possibility in our sleep deprived states.  After trying for 30 minutes to comfort a steadily crying James, a friend came over and suggested that his diaper was dirty.  My husband and I looked accusingly at each other.  Surely we had already tried that?  But neither had, and indeed, the boy had been sitting in feces for an hour.  Parents of the month are we!

While at the charity shop this week on a rare outing, I came across the Duston system.  The set of 2 DVDs was on sale at a bargain price, so I picked it up.  Apparently, a mother in Australia with acute hearing developed a system of understanding the significance of babies' cries.  One sound means Hunger, one Fatigue, another Discomfort.  They deal mostly with the first consonant sound of each cry... "nyyyyyyah" is different to "yahhhhhhhhh," which is different to "einhhhhh."  Exhausting, all of it.  (and it doesn't take long to explain - the two DVDs had a total running time of about 15 minutes.)   At first, my husband and I thought we were picking up on sounds, but in the end, we just kept following our intuition.  I've learned that the boob seems to work almost all the time.  So much for my freedom!