Hacker News Reader

Comment by muzani | Hacker News Reader

I always took off 3 months from work per baby. There's no point coding when you're always sleep deprived. Last year the company agreed to about half the salary, so I'd work from home on some things, or come in half the week or half a day as needed.

Then again I did notice I was very good at understanding baby talk.

Taking from some old notes of my 5 month old baby:

"eh eh eh", but no crying at 6 AM = "I need a diaper change" or "I'm hungry"

rapid kicking = excited

wide open arms while lying down = "pick me up"

"uh huh/mmm" with slight head inclining = yes.

when mother is saying something, baby laughs, turns head towards me, "uh huh/mmm" with inclined head = "mother is right" or "I told you so"

laughing and turning away = "I like that"

licking lips = "I want to eat whatever you're eating"

"aaaaaaaaaaa" = conversation or song

long, drawn out, angry crying = "I'm tired and I don't know how to sleep"

View on HN

You could extrapolate that into an app. :-)

But seriously, congratulations on getting to that level of bonding with child. It was also the same for me and it is magical!

It's quite different to the first kid so I don't think the same translations work with most other kids.

This reminds me so much of the Simpsons episode with Homer's long lost brother, Herb (he invents a machine to translate baby talk).

I think, from my own experience, babies learn to communicate in a two way fashion - they try noises and responses with their caregivers, and when the caregivers respond in an agreeable fashion, the baby stores that bit of communication away to try again later (and possibly reinforce).

So I think some of their communication is learned (signals for positive/negative), and quite specific to the baby-parent pair, while some will be instinctual (e.g. I imagine the excited kicking to be related to an adrenal surge or something, and early-infant crying is definitely an instinctual distress signal)

agree. We did some infant sign language (using what seemed to us like very exaggerated motions for “milk” “more” “diaper” and a few others I can’t recall now). I was amazed (and slightly relieved) when each child could express themself a bit.

> "I'm tired and I don't know how to sleep"

A surprisingly common problem with very young children. Maybe also some adults.

For me when my Daughter was born we did formula. And I took care of her for 4 weeks at night time.

Screaming at night = “my parents are bad they aren’t feeding me they should be locked up”

Kicking feet = “oh god I’m wet please change me it’s so gross”

> “my parents are bad they aren’t feeding me they should be locked up”

lol I remember this, we called it the 'worst parents in the world' cry. It continues forever, the form changes as they get older but the message is the same

Reply on news.ycombinator.com