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Home › Articles › Discipline › Screaming Babies and Toddlers

Screaming Babies and Toddlers

When Baby Shrills and Screeches

By Teri Brown

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This period can be hard for parents, as well as joyful, Gilkerson says. "Babies begin to really laugh (around 4 months) but soon after they also start to turn up the volume and intensity and make direct bids for attention. It can feel like your baby is more demanding," she says.

Todders: A Whole Different Story
Though the basic reason for toddler screaming, shrieking or screeching is the same as for babies – discomfort, inability to communicate, etc. – the range of emotions for the noise is far greater. Toddlers sometimes screech just because they can.

Gilkerson says that loud babies don't necessarily turn into loud toddlers. It depends on the child's temperament. "We think of temperament in part as reactivity or the intensity in which emotions are typically expressed," she says. "The more intense babies are louder, may show emotions more dramatically and may get upset more easily (or laugh more easily). For parents, the challenge is how to stay calm and to respond to the source of distress (or elation) that your baby is communicating. Will your intense baby be an intense toddler? Possibly. If so, the same strategies will help: Stay calm and try to read and respond to the underlying message that your child is giving."

Between 18 and 30 months, toddlers' main developmental agenda is the establishment of a sense of autonomy and a sense of self. Gilkerson says that in addition, toddlers' increased mobility and curiosity about the world fuels their drive to explore, practice and try out new things. At the same time, their ability to express themselves with words is still limited.

"While the toddlers' agenda, thus, is one of increased self-assertion and independent activity, the parents' primary agenda is to keep the toddler safe and protected during their love affair with the world," Gilkerson says. "Needless to say, this frequently leads to a battle of wills. However, because of the toddler's immature language abilities he or she may frequently express his point-of-view through tantrums and possibly shrieking, crying and the ever-present 'No!' With increased language development and parental ability to negotiate while setting firm but empathic limits, this behavior typically disappears around age 3."


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Screaming Babies and Toddlers by Anonymous on 02/18/2010 08:45AM

This article is pointless. No one cares why my 20 month old is screeching. We want to know good tips or techniques to stop it.

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