16 Month old screaming every time we talk

[Anetheron]

Hello, my husband and I are desperate for any advice/help anyone can offer in regards to this, we are at our wits end.

Our 16 month old dd screams every time me and my husband talk to each other, every time without fail. She also screams whenever my husband talks on the phone to anyone, which, due to his work, is quite often. And when I say scream, I mean really loudly and awfully, it hurts my ears- if anyone else heard it, I think they would think we are hurting her. It's really wearing us down, and causing so much stress. It's to the point where I cringe every time my husband starts to talk to me because I know what's about to come. This has been going on for about 3 months now.

Has anyone else experienced this? I did try googling it but couldn't find anything

Is she doing ok in terms of her development? Starting to say the odd word?

Does she scream when you talk to her?

Yes, she does say some words, things like bag, bubble, bye bye. No 'yes' or 'no' at the moment.

When I speak to her, she doesn't scream, nor when my husband speaks to her. I'll just add this now, as I didn't think about it when I first posted and perhaps it has some relevancy, but my husband is not English so he speaks to her in another language. I speak to her in English, as we are trying to raise her as bilingual. However, my husband and I speak to each other in English only. Not sure if this means anything, but just adding in case. Thank you.

Oh I wonder if she's protesting at the switching languages...not that you should stop of course. It sounds like she's very bright and having a little hissy fit about things not being as she'd like them!

What do you both do when she screams?

Haha, I never thought of it like that!! She does chuck herself on the floor alot of the time too when she does it!
We used to stop talking and 'shhh' her and try and calm her down, though I must admit, on the odd occasion, one of us has got really annoyed and shouted at her to be quiet (which of course doesn't work). The last few days we have just carried on talking, trying to ignore her outbursts. I thought maybe if we don't pay her any attention whilst she does it...but I really am clueless as to what is the right approach. She is our only child so everything is new to me as it comes along.

Thanks for the advice so far (I'm the father of the screaming angel)!

The last couple of days, I tried paying particular attention to whether it's the language that upsets her. I came to the conclusion that it probably isn't a factor. I was thinking that it might be to do with the tone of my voice - so I started baby-talking to mum (as awkward as that made me feel). It went very well at first, the ambiguity of who I was talking to seemed to do the trick... Until this afternoon I quietly snickered at something funny.

It's like a bomb had exploded - worst we've ever seen it! Couldn't calm her down for a good few minutes, tears running down her cheeks, loud enough to break glass. Now, I must stress it was a quiet, short snicker - no more.

If anyone has seen similar behaviour in the past, we'd love to get some advice!

I would suggest you have her hearing checked. There are certain issues which some children can suffer from which may cause discomfort when some sounds are heard.