Is there anything we can do about DD being so loud?

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When DD is upset/cross she cries soooooo loudly.

If she is in a different room and we can't see why she is crying, we cannot tell the difference between when she has fallen off the bed onto the hard floors or when she is cross with DS for not sharing well. All we hear is raging sounds, we can't understand what the problem is.

She is not a loud child otherwise, in fact her teachers would like to hear more of her in the classroom.

She is nearly 5.

When she has calmed down, if we think that whatever upset her did not justify such loud crying, we tell her that it would have been easier if she had been a little calmer as we could have understood what was wrong and helped her sort it out more quickly.

We have also explained about 'crying wolf'.

Is there anything else we can do at this stage?

Occasionally when i can't understand what the problem is and whether it's important of not I just stand in front of the dc's with a blank look on my face and say in a normal voice ' I can't do anything till you tell me what the problem is' then if they don't stop I tell them they can come and find me when they stop crying or I sit them on the bottom of the stairs until they tell me what the problem is.
This normally sorts out the crocodile tears from real tears pretty quickly.

Have you read any of the 'Crying Wolf' type books or shown cartoons? Perhaps the next time she does it and you know she's not hurt just ignore her and see what happens a few times.

I do ignore unless I've heard a bump or her brother comes running to say that she's hurt.

Other people are always giving me funny looks for ignoring her because she sounds like she is in so much pain. It's not the 'crocodile tears' that bother me, it's the volume of it. We had to take her to A+E once and the crying was any louder, just went on for longer.

Oh, and we've read a Ladybird version of Aesop's fables.

the crying wasn't any louder for her A+E injury

DD did this for a while, it passes. We taught her to say 'I've fallen on my dignity waaaaah' which differentiated 'I'm cross because I've fallen over' and 'I'm frustrated, come help me' cries. But it took a while.

She still wails really loud if she can't do something at the first attempt

How old is she now WMMC?

DD has always been like this. When she first learnt to walk she would scream when someone closed a door that she wanted to go through. The first few times I thought she'd trapped her fingers. Once I realised what was going on, I thought it would pass once she learnt to speak properly.

She's 3 and has a full repertoire of language for complaining purposes . She just prefers to yell

Be thankful, dd3 is loud ALL THE TIME when she talks, when she is hurt, when she is cross, when she is mildly irritated.......

Came on the thread hopeful of some suggestions!

My son was always really loud. His hearing is on the lower end of normal and then recently he had a perforated eardrum so couldn't tell how loud he was being.

Is that a possibility with your DD?

How often does she cry OSOTC?

The reason why I ask is because we recently broke my dd (5) habit of frequent crying in 2 days! It was genius and pain free.

CarGirl, oh I am thankful for all the normal volume. She has always been loud when cross yet when she started to speak was quite shy and quiet so that I could hardly hear what she was saying.

Fab, her hearing was checked by an ENT specialist earlier this year. She isn't always loud.

RainRain, I'd be interested to hear what you did.

I don't think the crying is excessively frequent. (It's just excessively loud!) As she grows older and we can reason with her more and more, the crying has definitely got less frequent.

Leaving aside injuries and school nights when she is beyond herself with tiredness, I'd say she gets cross a couple of times a day when things don't go her way, but some days she doesn't flare up at all.

Oh and to all for thanks for all the ideas

My dd used to cry (for a short but irritating amount of time) about 5-10 times a day for rubbish reasons.

I showed her a mini pack of Haribo at the beginning of the day and every time she cried (for a crap reason - eg can't get tights on, didn't want an apple but an orange) one would go in the bin. She got whatever was left at the end of the day.

First day she lost 4 haribos, second day one, then after the next few days, none! It has been amazing and pain free. I think it got her out of the 'habit' of crying.

Some kids are just like this I think. DS(6) is loud in general (has a very high, shrill voice which could make my head explode at times).

He gets easily frustrated and seems to feel everything more intensely than others. Once the school called me to say a heavy lid had fallen on his finger and I should come to school. I was expecting broken finger, trip to hospital etc, but by the time I arrived he had gone back to class and there wasn't even a mark on his finger. I think the teacher was freaked out by the volume and intensity of his crying and assumed it was much worse than it actually was.

Not too helpful for you, sorry, although he has improved a bit I think since your dd's age. Now if I think he's crying for nothing I can tell him I will count to 5 and he needs to stop.