Terrible Trinity

Babies require three services from their parents, rooted in the biological functions of all human life: they need to be fed; they need to have their diapers changed; and they need to be swaddled to sleep.

When an infant needs one of these three services, and is not receiving it, she has a natural indicator for the parents. It is The Cry. It sounds like a congested police siren, turned up to full volume, and can run almost continuously, for one of the miracles of new life is the ability to produce sounds of long duration with only short intakes of breath.

For whatever reason, the Lord decided not to give babies different Cries for different needs. Therefore, The Cry applies to any of the above three needs; a baby's use of The Cry offers no hint as to which of the needs must be fulfilled.

In order to avoid The Cry, our Merciful God has allowed for a shot across the bow for parents. It is The Whimper, and sounds like a bunny grunting. It says, in effect, Give me what I need, or I'll unleash The Cry! During the day, parents may get fifteen or thirty seconds of The Whimper before the air raid siren of babyhood rends the peace of the home.

In the waking hours of the day, parents can fend off The Cry by attending to The Whimper and rotating through the baby's needs. When she wakes up, if the parents feed her right away, then upon the first Whimper her diaper may be changed and forestall The Cry. Having been fed and changed in turn, the next event will almost certainly be the Need for Sleep; so at the next Whimper the swaddling blanket may be put to effective use. By taking care of one need at a time, The Cry may be kept at bay and parental sanity preserved.

Not so at 3:00 am.

In the middle of the night, when all are asleep, a horrible constellation of events takes place: a terrible trinity of needs. And by the time The Whimper wakes the unhappy parents, all the stops are out on the Great Organ of Pediatric Suffering.

At 3:00 am, the diaper has been filled, the baby is hungry, and she's still sleepy because she hasn't had a full night of sleep. So what does the parent do first? If he feeds her, The Cry will announce a full diaper. If he changes her, The Cry will persist because of hunger. If by some miracle he grew two extra arms so as to feed her and change her at the same time, The Cry would announce her need to be swaddled.

So it is that in the Wee Hours of the morning, the Wailing Banshee of Infant Need pierces the quiet of sleep, a terrible nightmare of sound that brings parents, bleary and shuffling, from their bed. Enduring the coarse keen of The Cry, they deal with the terrible trinity one at a time, until at last--changed, fed, and swaddled--the baby slides back into that slumber which makes even the hardest man weep with adoration.

And in that blessed amnesia that comes of all who view a sleeping baby, The Cry is forgotten. At least until tomorrow night.

~emrys