# Do some Mothers just not hear the babies cry? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 12, 2005, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512 "2005-05-12T04:22:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SnakesCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@SnakesCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakesCatLady)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/1 "2005-05-12T04:22:44Z")
I am sure I have put this in the wrong section, but here goes: Do some mothers not hear their babies crying? I saw an example in the grocery store today that reminded me of this. The woman had a very young baby in a carrier in her grocery cart. I don’t know anything about babies, so I have no idea how old the child was, but I don’t think it was old enough to walk yet. This child was not just crying, it (I don’t know if it was a boy or a girl, so that’s why I’m using it - not to be insulting) was **howling** - red, scrunched up face, clenched fists, the whole deal. I could hear the child when I entered the store and happened to cross paths with them a little while later. This woman was paying **no** attention at all to this child, not trying to soothe it, nothing. Just calmly comparing boxes of Hamburger Helper. She had a calm expression on her face. I’m really not sure that it even entered her mind that her child was screaming loud enough to be heard all over the store. I was only in the store about 10 minutes, and the screaming never stopped. This can’t be good for a baby , can it? Was she just a bad mother, or is that what you are supposed to do? I really felt sorry for the child, which is unusual for me. I usually just want to put as much distance between me a a screaming baby as possible. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/2 "2005-05-12T04:58:45Z")
Last summer, I spent a 3-hour car ride in the company of an infant who screamed at the top of his lungs for the duration of the trip. The mother (who was driving) told me it was quite normal, offered a few suggestions as to how to calm the baby, then proceeded to carry various conversations with the other car passengers. As soon as we arrived at our destination and got the baby out of the car seat, he was fine - a bit tired and hungry, but not screaming anymore. In this case, the baby hated the car seat; maybe the baby you saw hates grocery carts? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/3 "2005-05-12T10:15:33Z")
Such a display of infant outrage is alarming, yes, but there are reasons for not immediately comforting a baby. Sometimes a child develops a disciplinary problem where tantrums are thrown for minor reasons, or as an attention-getting device. A long-term solution involves ignoring the “crying wolf” screams until the child learns that such outbursts achieve nothing. It’s quite a effective, but until the lesson is learned there is considerable wear and tear on the ears of those around the child. Sometimes a child hates a necessary evil, such as in the car seat example. In such circumstances there is not a negotiable issue, the child is going to be unhappy for awhile, and so will bystanders’ hearing And a child that is ill, teething, or in some other discomfort may be inconsolable for hours - but if the mother has no sitter she may have to take the child with her on her errands and simply endure the din. Actual parents (I don’t happen to be one) may have other examples. The upshot is that, without knowing more details, it’s impossible to know if this is an example of being cold and heartless or the loving actions of a careful, concerned parent. ---
**Author:** ![belladonna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9fc29f/32.png) [@belladonna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/belladonna)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/4 "2005-05-12T10:23:12Z")
I’ve found that as a mother I can absolutely differentiate between my kids’ different levels of crying. The cry because the kid’s pissed off he’s not getting his way is very easy to tune out, but the “I just really hurt myself and ow, ow, help!” cry is so strikingly different it’s impossible to ignore. You say the baby was “very young”, but was it only a couple weeks, or more like 6 months? That would make a big difference in the way being ignored would affect it. ---
**Author:** ![SnakesCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@SnakesCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakesCatLady)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/5 "2005-05-12T13:29:08Z")
It was old enough to hold up its head, but a long way away from being able to walk. In addition to my ears hurting, I felt sorry for it! ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/6 "2005-05-12T14:26:25Z")
> [@Snakescatlady](#): > > It was old enough to hold up its head, but a long way away from being able to walk. In addition to my ears hurting, I felt sorry for it! Prob’ly between 6 and 9 months then. Yes, there’s definitely reasons for letting a kid cry it out, as already mentioned. There’s also some kids who just like to scream, and do it for several hours a day, no matter what you do for them. Mom may have been aware that this was simply “cry time” and only time would see it out. Lousy time to go shopping, though. I’ll also vouch for the “different cries” theory. There’s a really shrill, high-pitched cry broken up by the child holding his breath - that’s an acute pain cry, and is really impossible to ignore. That’s the shocked cry you’ll hear when a kid has cracked his head on a toy, pinched a finger in the doorhinge or otherwise hurt himself. The hungry cry is more like a steady siren. There’s usually other cries for wet/dirty, too cold/hot and too tired. Too tired is a hard one to deal with - sometimes they just really resist going to sleep, and there’s not much that can be done for them once they get overstimulated and tired all at once. (Leaving a stimulating environment like a store is a good first step, though.) One way to see if it’s a “real” cry vs. a stubborn or faked cry is to look for tears. Littles can’t fake tears, so if there are tears streaming, the child truly is upset. You can’t always soothe them, but you know they’re not “faking.” On the other hand, it might have been a lousy babysitter ignoring her charge, not even Mom at all. Or she might actually have been deaf (although in that case, I’d hope she’d visually check on the baby). Or she might have been so overwhelmed, she could no longer attend to her child without harming it (shaking, slapping, etc.) in which case the thing to do is precisely to ignore it until you’ve calmed down (but if that were the case, I wouldn’t expect her to be able to go on shopping, either.) So yeah, I really can’t tell you what the case was here. I can say that if I was the mom, I would have been so embarrassed by my baby screaming like that - I would have left the store. Better to let her scream it out in the car and go back to shopping when she’s calmed down. I don’t want to subject strangers to the stress of hearing a baby cry. ---
**Author:** ![trupa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aeb1de/32.png) [@trupa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trupa)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/7 "2005-05-12T17:25:17Z")
> [@Jeep's Phoenix](#): > > Last summer, I spent a 3-hour car ride in the company of an infant who screamed at the top of his lungs for the duration of the trip. 4 hour plane ride. trusquirt cried 3 hours 40 minutes. LA to Sidney was shorter… :o He was about 18 months then. Thank God he’s older now, and Thank God for portable DVD players… ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/8 "2005-05-12T17:50:51Z")
I must say, I think these mothers must not be breast feeding. If I had to listen to my daughter cry for over a full minute, I was in pain from the let down! Young enough to be in a pumpkin seat is too young to ignore cries, in my opinion, but then I was not one to ignore my daughter in a store whether she is happy or sad. It is also too early to be worried about spoiling with too much attention. ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/9 "2005-05-12T18:04:45Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > So yeah, I really can’t tell you what the case was here. I can say that if I was the mom, I would have been so embarrassed by my baby screaming like that - I would have left the store. Better to let her scream it out in the car and go back to shopping when she’s calmed down. I don’t want to subject strangers to the stress of hearing a baby cry. It might also have been the only time the mother was going to be able to get the shopping done… if she’d gone back to the car because of a screaming baby, maybe the family wouldn’t be able to eat? (many scenarios there, again, not enough information). As for the OP, where I’m from, there are women who pop a new baby out every couple of years. I’ve seen ladies shopping calmly with screaming babies in front of them before: this wasn’t their first child, and they pretty much knew what screaming baby sounded like, got used to it, and got over it. They knew when it was an emergency or just an uncomfortable/attention cry. Sometimes babies are little howlers… not always pleasant, but you can’t stop the world for them, either. ---
**Author:** ![Caricci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Caricci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caricci)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/10 "2005-05-12T18:04:55Z")
The mother may well have tried reasonable comforting methods and was just trying to get through her shopping once she determined the baby was in no danger and was not wet or hungry. Ugh! Babies! ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/11 "2005-05-12T18:06:59Z")
> [@](#): > > I must say, I think these mothers must not be breast feeding. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/12 "2005-05-12T18:11:48Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > :rolleyes: Roll you eyes all you like. It **HURT** when my daughter cried and I did not feed her or pumped. I did not say they were making a poor choice by not breastfeeding, I was making an observation about their reported reactions. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/13 "2005-05-12T18:13:44Z")
Which has nothing _at all_ to do with feeding habits. So why bring it up? Except as a troll, that is… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/14 "2005-05-12T18:20:33Z")
Psst– **JohnT**? Bottle-feeding mothers won’t experiance “let down,” which is the milk scooting up the breast toward the nipples to get ready to be sucked out. Bottle-feeding mothers don’t have milk in their boobies and so won’t get the pain. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/15 "2005-05-12T18:27:52Z")
> [@Little Bird](#): > > Psst– **JohnT**? Bottle-feeding mothers won’t experiance “let down,” which is the milk scooting up the breast toward the nipples to get ready to be sucked out. Bottle-feeding mothers don’t have milk in their boobies and so won’t get the pain. 🙂 I understand, but read further in **Lee** ’s post. The implication is clearly there that breast-feeding mothers are more in tune and more concerned with the kids cries than non-BF mothers. Perhaps I read it wrong - it wouldn’t be the first time: if so, my apologies **Lee**. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/16 "2005-05-12T18:31:07Z")
Maybe because my breasts have started to hurt just thinking about listening to a baby cry for that long. When Loren was about six months old, She was crying after **KellyM** put her in the car seat. **KellyM** just ignored it at first, after checking her briefly, not seeing a problem, but when Loren did not stop when we started the car, We got out and I checker her. The seat was buckled in some truly bizarre way, like she had tried to make Loren into a baby pretzel. I don’t know how we missed this at first. Holding Loren for a few minutes and buckling her back up correctly worked. Some babies are howlers, but Loren is not. If she cries for over a minute something is wrong. Even howlers can have something sharp poking them that you missed at first, or may even have managed to hurt themselves. I would check every few minutes. I am also fortunate enough to be in a position that I can leave a store if my daughter is howling for five minutes straight, I have other parents to rely on to help with the shopping and child care… ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/17 "2005-05-12T18:34:14Z")
Just to be clear, there are many valid reasons not to breast feed. “I don’t want to” is a good enough reason, other want to and can’t for a myriad of reasons. Still, mothers who breastfeed are not likely to calmy listen to their baby cry. It is hard to be calm when you are in pain from them crying. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/18 "2005-05-12T18:35:10Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I understand, but read further in **Lee** ’s post. The implication is clearly there that breast-feeding mothers are more in tune and more concerned with the kids cries than non-BF mothers. I don’t see anything that implies that; which part are you referring to? She is just describing the physiological reaction that nursing mothers have to the sound of a baby’s cry. It’s biological and has no bearing on the mother’s competence or caring. Mother’s brain registers baby crying (and maybe not even her baby) = breasts produce milk. Non-lactating women do not have this reaction. **lee** wasn’t trolling, just stating a fact. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/19 "2005-05-12T18:37:05Z")
I’m bowing out as there’s no need to turn this into anything other than what was intended by the OP. Again **Lee** , my apologies if I misread your post. ---
**Author:** ![SnakesCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@SnakesCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakesCatLady)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512/20 "2005-05-12T18:40:21Z")
I learned something unexpected from this thread! I didn’ t know a lactating mother would let down milk when she heard the baby cry. Of course since I’ve never lactated I’m totally ignorant on the subject… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-some-mothers-just-not-hear-the-babies-cry/303512.md?page=2)