Crash, Boom, Bang

When Your Toddler Is Afraid of Loud Noises

By Keath Castelloe Low

Patti Wigington from Pickerington, Ohio, recalls her son's extreme reactions to loud sounds. "He was a very twitchy toddler," Wigington says. "The slightest noise would set him off. Once a fire truck went past our house and he screamed for 45 minutes. Another time a car next to us back fired and he cried for a good hour."

Sound familiar? Some little ones are simply more sensitive to sounds than others. Interestingly, Wigington's daughter (her son's twin) never had this startled reaction to sounds. Wigington describes her as mellow and happy and able to just go with the flow.

Claire Lerner, director of Parenting Resources at ZERO TO THREE, a nonprofit multidisciplinary organization based in Washington, D.C., whose mission is to support the health and development of infants, toddlers and their families, provides some answers. "Babies are born with their own unique sensory processing system," says Lerner, who explains that a child's neurological wiring influences how they react to the outside world. Those children who are more sensitive do not have the same kind of filtering system.

Lerner gives an example:

An ambulance with its siren on passes by. One baby is totally engaged and interested. He is looking outside and delighted at the excitement. A second baby, however, may have a totally different reaction. The lights and sounds are more than his system can handle. He becomes overloaded and over-stimulated and reacts with screams and cries. A third baby may not pay much attention to the ambulance at all. His system requires high intensity input in order to move him to a reaction.

The point is that each child is unique, so responses may vary widely.

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