The sound of a baby crying.

[Magnificentmug12]

I don’t want to ask my friends in real life as I’ll probably get funny looks so thought I’d ask here.

Does the sound of a baby crying make you feel a certain way? And I mean baby, who can’t walk or talk yet.
If it does make you feel a certain way, what are those feelings?

Also, do you respond the same to the sound of someone else’s baby crying? Either a neighbours baby or one in the supermarket?

The sound of a baby crying does something to me specifically and makes me feel a certain way and I’m just wondering if others are the same or feel something different.

Worse than bagpipes

Interestingly, domestic cats have adapted so that the pitch of their meowing is the same as that of a human baby's crying - it gets the attention of human beings.

^

Now that's interesting. I remember once hearing a cat crying

Oops, posted too soon. I remember hearing a cat crying and I was convinced it was a newborn baby. Absolutely heart wrenching

The sound of a baby crying/shrieking etc gives me a flight response. I need to get away as fast as possible. PND is responsible for that and I'm in my 50s now!

I'm currently BF'ing and I often feel my letdown activating (it feels like electricity, very random!) when I hear my baby crying. It has happened a couple of times when I've heard other babies crying.

Nothing really unless it’s an older than a newborn baby and it’s that incessant screaming that they sometimes do.

Usually it makes me feel relieved that it isn't my baby to deal with and happy that I no longer have any babies! But that's on the condition that I can tell the baby is with a caregiver who is at least trying to respond to its needs, which is almost always the case.

If I picture a baby crying alone, like an abandoned baby, it physically almost hurts - never actually experienced that in real life, though, thankfully. A baby crying whose caregiver seems to be ignoring it makes me feel quite desperate.

I don’t even notice. With older kids, I have an ‘is that mine?’ Moment if they sound similar, but no feelings if it’s not.

Then mine were tiny their crys used to really distress me. But not another baby.

Before I had kids I just found it annoying.

Now the sound of other people's babies crying is absolute torture. The sound of my own crying not so much though, maybe because they didn't really cry much and because I knew I would do anything I could to help them. I was in the park once and a couple and a small baby was in a pram absolutely hysterical, they were both getting a bottle ready, but really fannying around doing it with no sense of urgency, not picking the baby up or getting it ready. have never been more agitated in my life, the need to go over, pick the baby up and put my boob in its mouth was visceral, I tell you.

Funnily enough, with a lot of people saying they get the feeling of letdown, I have never had this, either with my own crying or other peoples and I bf my 2 for many years combined.

Reading that back saying 'the need' makes it sound like I actually did it... I didn't, I promise 😂

@Susannahmoody

Oops, posted too soon. I remember hearing a cat crying and I was convinced it was a newborn baby. Absolutely heart wrenching

I remember hearing cats crying in the early evening one night. Everyone thought I was bonkers.

(Next door had new born twins )

Like nails on a chalkboard... but I'm not a mum yet

Newborns often have a lovely little squeak of a cry, that doesn't bother me (and now I'm done breastfeeding the fear of leaking is gone!).
It's the toddler screamy cry that gets me, possibly worse while I still have a toddler who likes a good tantrum.

I did notice that while breastfeeding the sound of my dc crying didn't irritate me at all but almost as soon as he stopped breastfeeding it got annoying.

Distressed, short of breath, anxious and can makes me feel physically sick.

I was in the supermarket not long after I'd lost my second son (born at 21+4, alive, but too tiny to cry), a baby started crying nearby and I thought I was going to have a panic attack and vomit. The let down sensation and the level of anxiety was intense. I had to get away from it whereas usually my instinct is to go towards even if its not my baby.

It just irritates the shit out of me. If it goes on too long it gives me the tingles of wanting to hit/slap (which of course I would never, ever do).

Child free by choice and never in charge of anyone else's baby, as I'm sure you'll all be relieved to hear!

Don't worry, you're totally normal! We are hard wired to react like that. Have you ever read The Continuum Concept? I found that a fascinating idea - it's a study of various hunter gatherer tribes where babies are basically carried at all times and pretty much never ever cry. The idea is that crying is left over from ancient times where a baby who was left alone would have been in extreme danger from predators not to mention exposure etc. So they cry to alert us to that fact. Of course babies cry for other reasons too... but it's possible some of those are linked to modern life and wouldn't have existed back in those times.

Of course today a baby crying doesn't mean they are about to be eaten by a predator but it still invokes the same physiological response in us, just like lots of people are afraid of snakes, spiders, mice because they might present a danger to us, even though in the context most of us come across these things today they don't any more.

Makes me anxious, sweaty and my heart race especially when the baby is mine!

I want to pick them up and comfort them. Even if I don't have my baby with me, say at a supermarket, I start feeling panicked that it might be mine.

I had my toddler with me at a supermarket once, sitting in his pram and he'd had a little tantrum and cry. A lady came over with a tissue and said 'I'll just wipe his tears'. It obviously had bothered her

It tugs at me and makes me so sad and feel an urge to comfort the baby, even if not mine!

My DC crying (a toddler) still makes me want to cry. It's just heartbreaking.

I will never forget the first jabs DC got at 6 weeks and the look on his little face and his crying. And even though I knew I was doing the right thing getting him immunized, his cry was so heartbreaking to hear. I still feel guilt about it even now.

Sort of depends on the type of cry if you see what I mean. Whining doesn’t really bother me but hearing baby “proper crying” when they’re upset: it makes me want to cry and sometimes hurts my boobs (it’s been over 5 years since I last breast fed)

Makes me feel really worried and anxious

I get a knot in my stomach and my boobs ache. I tense up. I only relax when I can tell myself it isn't mine, or if it was mine when I picked them up!

Yes it makes my breasts tingle. Like pins and needles style

I never successfully breastfed for longer than 3 days but I still get that tingle and let down feeling

Even this thread is setting me off with the tingling. It's just the thought of it. As other posters have said it is visceral.

For the record, noisy cats have no effect on my bosoms.

The cry of a newborn is a beautiful sound that calms and relaxes me. Because it means they're breathing.