Does anyone know their baby’s cries?

I know I still don’t after 9 months.

Before you have a baby, everything you read seems to suggest that you’ll get to know what the different cries are from your baby, but it’s all still a mystery to me.

We’re quite lucky as on the whole N’s never really been that much of a crier, even when he was really little.  Basically a cry meant he wanted milk.  As he’s got older and is happier to wait 3 hours between food/milk, crying or whingeing usually means he’s tired.  Plus of course, by this stage even though we’re baby led naptimes during the day, there’s a vague routine so I can work out that he’s getting tired from the various other cues.

I know a painful cry – it’s just much more intense, and I’ve usually heard or seen a topple or bang, and that’s an important cry to know.

But any other time?  No idea.  Could be teeth (if there’s lots of chewing of hands going on, that’s usually it), could be cold, could be nappy, could be boredom.  I have no idea.  And the last couple of nights (after sleeping through since about 10 weeks old) he’s been having a whinge about 1am.  Two nights ago it was fine, he just went back to sleep after 10 minutes of moaning, but last night…crikey, I had to get up to him as the whinging escalated to crying.  He had a really wet nappy so changed that, I’d put an extra blanket over him once he was settled on his front so he shouldn’t have been cold, then got him some water (yep, he was thirsty as drank quite a lot), he had some cuddles (but not too many as started pushing away), teething get, even dad came in to check he was ok.  But no, he was still crying.  So had to leave him.

Well, an hour after he first woke up he finally went back to sleep.  He then woke up again screaming at 6.30.  He seemed perfectly happy and normal once he was up so I still have no idea what was wrong.  I’m just hoping that this evening he’s back to sleeping normally.

On an aside, I don’t know whether he’s waking as he’s getting cold in the night.  His room is cold though as the heating’s not yet gone on, so think we’ll have to put a heater in his room before he goes to bed and turn it on when my OH gets up for work in the morning so it warms the room a bit.  When he was born he was going to bed in vest, sleepsuit, 2 blankets and then later a sleepbag & blanket.  But even in the summer (apart from the really hot weather) he’d be in sleep bag, pjs and vest.  So now it’s cold again, I’m not sure how we’re going to manage to keep blankets on as he moves around too much.  May have to put him into his handmedown fleecy sleepsuits that his cousin’s passed on to him.  They’re too big at the moment, but if they keep him warmer without resorting to blankets, it’s worth a try.

Do you know your baby’s cries?  Or is it a myth to try and give new mums confidence?