Family Forum / Parenting / Parenting / September 2006

Why should he stop?  You give him attention every time he does
it.  If he's not hurt, wet, or whatever, ignore the screaming.

Laura

    Two things come to mind:

1)  Kids are very smart.  In all likelihood, if he's doing
    more screaming, he's doing it because it is paying off
    for him in some way.  I suspect he's very successful at
    getting attention when he does this--even if it's just
    negative attention.

2)  It's not uncommon for them to go through a lot of
    separation anxiety at this age.  He may be quite
    legitimately distressed if left alone.  This will
    generally pass with time.

Some of it might just be him enjoying his voice, too.
Still, while I understand that it's frustrating, it's
just noise.  It won't kill you ;-)  Try to take a step
back from the initial overwhelming impression and try
to figure out where it's coming from.  What is he
trying to say?  If he's looking for attention, ask
yourself if he's been getting the attention he needs.
When kids go through these clingy stages, it's very
common (and understandable) to get into a pattern of
constantly brushing the kid off and hoping you'll get
a moment's peace.  You *feel* like you're paying
attention to them all the time, but maybe you really
aren't giving them all that much *real* attention.
Sometimes you can improve things by really focusing
on them at certain times so that they really feel
like they're getting attention, and then seeing if
you can distract them with something else for a little
while.  If it's just one of those clingy phases where
they need you all the time, you just try to find a
way to survive the phase and know that they'll become
more independent soon.

Look very carefully into the possibility that
he's got you trained to respond very promptly to
his screaming.  If that's the case, you'll need to
retrain *him*.  Not only do you have to make
screaming ineffective at getting your attention
(positive *or* negative attention), but you also
have to make some other behavior of his *successful*
at getting your attention.

Best wishes,
Ericka

well, for one thing he's a baby, not a dog, so knock off the
pinching & nose bopping (unless you *want* a toddler that
pinches & hits...)
next, learn to ignore. earplugs are helpful at this stage.
when he screams, ignore him. completely. put him down or stop
interacting with him. say "no screaming" firmly. then ignore
him.
the reason he is screaming is because it gets attention. at
first you rewarded him by thinking it was "cute", & probably
smiling & laughing. so he screams more & louder because he
likes the attention. pinching his cheek & bopping his nose are
attention. might be negative to your mind, but it's a reaction
& that's what he wants.
expect things to escalate when you start ignoring the
behavior. but don't give up! it may take a week or two, but if
you are completely consistant about ignoring him when he
screams, he should stop.

lee

Attend to his needs, then turn the stereo on and drown out the
screaming. Also keep in mind that I don't know what I'm talking about.
My baby is still quietly on the inside.

We had one of those around the same age. It is really grating isn't it.
At first I thought he would understand when I told him 'no William' but
he just looked at me like 'ah, I've got your attention, good, I'll do
it some more' and did. It was usually when he couldn't reach a toy
under a table or was just getting a bit tired and grumpy. Pretty quick
we realised this wasn't going to work (my sister laughed loudly when I
told her our approach) and so we just checked he was ok (ie not hurt or
anything) and ignored him. He kept it up for a week or so and then
finally gave up. Haven't had a scream since. His seperation anxiety is
different because he just starts crying, so we have found 'find the
cat' in his book works well when we are trying to get his lunch ready
in the mornings. He loves his books so we keep two or three by the gate
between the hall and the kitchen. He can see we are the there and he
can interact with us by talking and pointing about pictures in his
books. Our kitchen as it is currently isn't safe as it has hard tiles
on the floor and a lot of open shelving. When it's redone we will be
happier with him in there but at the moment it's not safe so we have
developed ways to keep him occupied. A small book works well in the car
too.

Jeni

I'm guessing he doesn't have any/many words yet? He's probably just
experimenting with his voice and yes, it can be quite irritating if not
downright uncomfortable. He is probably enjoying the side effect of the
reaction he gets. I posted something similar back when my dd was 11 months.
She still can be quite a shrieker at times. The best thing to do is to
ignore it. Once he stops getting a reaction it will become quite boring. And
no, the Teletubbies are not going to solve this "problem".

JennP.

Thanks, all, for your thoughts and suggestions. We will do our best to
ignore those ear piercing shrieks. We live in a large house that has 8
other suites, so we are especially concerned with what the rest of the
place has to hear from within our walls. Hopefully it will pass soon...

Marcus

I kinda fell behind on this one and don't have the time to read what
everyone else has said or suggested, but I have friends with a little boy
that's 12.5 months old.  He has a MAJOR screeching problem, and it too seems
to come out of nowhere.
IIRC, this started for him around 11ish months of age.  It drives his
parents insane, and others as well!

First, don't encourage it.  If he screams, don't give him much for a
reaction.  He's definitely at the age now where he enjoys reaction from Mom
and Dad.  If he falls down, and he's not actually hurt, he probably looks to
you to see if you saw it, and if he thinks you saw it, he might start crying
to get a running reaction from you.  If he's touching something he
shouldn't, he might be watching you to see if you're watching, and if you
say no, there's a good chance he's going to still go ahead and touch
whatever it is that he shouldn't.  If he screams, it's the same thing - to
get any type of reaction from you.
With my friend's DS, what I know they do is encourage something else and
ignore the screaming.  Normally, they just let him scream his short, shrill
scream.  When it does get too much for a person's eardrums to handle, that's
when it's the time that they toss his big beach ball at him and distract him
with something he likes - the beach ball, a toy car, whatever.
Rather than pinching him or flicking him, or anything like that, maybe
'teach' him something else.  With my DD (who is just about 14 months) I had
her "shhh-ing" back at me by about 10 months.  If she got too loud, I'd put
my finger to my mouth and do a shhh!  It turned into kind of a fun game
thing - shhh! for nap or bed time, shhh! for the odd time she'd scream
(which wasn't often, so normally it slid) shhh! if we were trying to sneak
up on big brother and scare him or whatever.

He's 11 months old.  Still far from being past a baby, so just let him.  If
he's doing his screaming so much that you just can't handle it, and
redirecting him with a toy or activity doesn't help, just walk out of the
room he's in.  He will grow out of it, as he will grow out of diapers, his
clothes, his afternoon nap, whatever.  Just don't let him have that
satisfaction of a reaction from you when he does something like that!