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Do You Speak Baby? The Dunstan Baby Language Teaches You How

A few weeks after Catherine McNiel's son was born, the Chicago-area mom was invited to test an innovative product for new parents.

"They called and asked me, 'Are you interested in learning about a new technique for soothing your baby?'," McNiel recalls. "I had a five-week-old baby. Of course I was. That's what I wanted most in the world!"

She wasn't disappointed. "It was extremely easy," says McNiel of the Dunstan Baby Language, a simple technique for understanding your baby's cries. "The first time I put in the DVD, I don't think I had great expectations. It seemed way too easy, but I started hearing the sounds in my baby's cries immediately, within an hour of listening to the DVD. It made a huge difference for me. I've recommended it to everybody."

What Is Dunstan Baby?
Australian mom Priscilla Dunstan developed the Dunstan Baby Langauge after noticing distinct patterns in the cries of her infant son. As a child, Dunstan had demonstrated what she calls "a photographic memory for sounds," but it was only after becoming a mom that she recognized the immense value of her gift. Able to decode and respond to her baby's cries with remarkable accuracy, Dunstan was determined to share her gift with the world.

Through hundreds of hours of research with over 1,000 babies, Dunstan classified the common sounds of newborns' cries and confirmed those sounds' meanings. Introduced on The Oprah Winfrey Show in November 2006, the Dunstan Baby Language quickly gained popularity with new parents around the globe, regardless of geographic boundaries or language differences. The language of babies, it seems, is universal.

How Does It Work?
With her unique talent for sound recognition, Priscilla Dunstan realized that newborn babies use specific sounds to express basic needs such as hunger, sleepiness, gas and discomfort. Each sound is based on a reflex related to the specific need a sucking reflex for hunger creates a certain sound, for example, while a yawn-like reflex for sleepiness creates another.

"In the video she goes into the science of it and how it's really just reflexes," says McNiel. "When I first watched the DVD I thought, sure it does, but I heard the sounds immediately. I went from being skeptical to being a total believer."

Independent studies like the one in which McNiel participated confirmed the system's effectiveness. Consider these findings:

90 percent of the mothers involved in the study said the system was valuable and they would recommend it to other parents.
70 percent said their child settled down faster after using the system.
70 percent felt more confident in their parenting abilities.
2 out of 3 fathers reported reduced stress, greater involvement in their babies' care, and a more positive relationship with their wives.

A New Parent's Dream
While all parents long to understand the needs behind their babies' cries, McNiel was even more motivated to learn the system because her infant son had begun to lose weight. "When your five- or six-week-old starts losing weight," she says, "that's a really serious problem. He was crying all the time and it was very important that he get the nutrition he needed, so the fact that I could very easily differentiate his cry for hunger from his (other cries) was so valuable to me."

"Those first few weeks can be really difficult when you're trying to work out what's happening with your newborn baby," agrees Megan Connell, another satisfied Dunstan mom, "but the Dunstan System allowed me to understand what it was that she needed. It also really helped us get a better night sleep so that dramatically reduced the stress in our lives."

"We all joke around and say we wish our baby came with a manual, that we spoke baby," adds McNiel. "This is getting us one step closer to having that."

At BabyClassroom.com, we're convinced that every new mom and dad should have the Dunstan Baby Set, which includes 2 DVDs, a 24-page booklet and a reference wall chart. It's the ideal gift for new and expectant parents, or for yourself!