“Babies have sensitive startle responses, so in the moment, yelling around a baby will likely lead to a response such as tensing, widening eyes or crying,” explains Ariel Horvitz, a clinical psychologist with The Family Institute at Northwestern.
The infant's brain is very vulnerable to stress. High stress can impact the development of the emotional parts of the brain. A baby can detect anger in a voice as early as 5 months. Parental arguing causes stress in the baby, elevating their heart rate and increasing their blood pressure.
Increased noise levels can cause stress. This can cause changes in a the body that can affect your developing baby. Sound can travel through your body and reach your baby. Very loud noises may be able to damage your baby's hearing.
Yelling at a child is abusive when it is repeated, sustained, and intended to be harmful. Yelling at a child to say they're dumb, slow, lazy, or other things like “a mistake”, is abusive.
Studies have shown that infants as young as one month-old sense when a parent is depressed or angry and are affected by the parent's mood. Understanding that even infants are affected by adult emotions can help parents do their best in supporting their child's healthy development.
Research suggests that babies are indeed affected by parental squabbles, and exposure to chronic conflict may affect brain development. Experimental studies confirm that babies can sense when their mothers are distressed, and the stress is contagious.
At around 18 weeks of pregnancy, your unborn baby will start being able to hear sounds in your body like your heartbeat. At 27 to 29 weeks (6 to 7 months), they can hear some sounds outside your body too, like your voice. By the time they are full term, they will be able to hear at about the same level as an adult.
A 2014 study in The Journal of Child Development demonstrated that yelling produces results similar to physical punishment in children: increased levels of anxiety, stress and depression along with an increase in behavioral problems.
Take a minute
It's ok to give up for a minute, put the baby down, and recollect yourself. Sure the crying will continue, but the quick break can prevent you from going over the edge. Take that step back from the ledge. Try to at least get enough space to not have the screaming bore into your brain.
Babies are born innately seeking safety and building trust that their needs will be met, she continues. “Yelling or aggression is felt by the baby as being unsafe, which releases stress hormones, leaving them with a general feeling of unease.”
Noisy toys and games can cause hearing damage. If a toy sounds loud to an adult, it is much louder to a baby or child. Toys should not exceed 80 to 85 decibels (e.g., alarm clock).
In a follow-up across pregnancy, the fetuses of the high-anger women were noted to be more active and to experience growth delays. The high-anger mothers' high prenatal cortisol and adrenaline and low dopamine and serotonin levels were mimicked by their neonates' high cortisol and low dopamine levels.
Alarmingly, sounds over 80 dB for an extended period of time are damaging and anything greater than 100 dB for even a few minutes can cause permanent noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL).
Parents can set limits for babies by preventing them from grabbing the wrong things (babyproofing an area), distracting them (using a silly voice), and redirecting (engaging them with a toy).
It's been shown to have long-term effects, like anxiety, low self-esteem, and increased aggression. It also makes children more susceptible to bullying since their understanding of healthy boundaries and self-respect are skewed.
8 to 12 Months
Experts say this is the best way to help your child stay out of trouble and makes it a lot easier to follow the rules. Of course, many of us merely say no when we catch our little ones getting into mischief.
Recent studies published claim that speaking to young children using baby talk actually slows down their language development. The study also suggests that speaking to young children using more complex sentences may set a better example and improve their language skills.
When our baby is crying we often feel helpless, like something is wrong and we don't know what to do to help them feel better. Or we feel angry, like we have done everything they need and still they are unhappy with us. It can directly impact our self worth as a parent, and can make us doubt our parenting abilities.
Taking a break
If you start to feel you can't handle the situation, set the baby down in a safe location and get help from a family member or friend. This will give you needed relief, and a new face can sometimes calm your baby. No matter how impatient or angry you feel, do not shake or hit the baby.
Hearing a baby cry activates a physiological response that cannot be controlled. MRIs taken of a mother's brain when she hears her baby's cries show that the brain lights up in response within a second. Those areas that light up are associated with empathy, compassion, and notably alarm.
Babies not only pick up on their mother's stress, but they also show corresponding physiological changes, according to a UC San Francisco-led study.
And not surprisingly, research shows that parental stress is one of the key factors that affects a baby's developing brain. In fact, these affects can begin in utero. Babies whose mothers were depressed during pregnancy show heightened levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, when observed three months after birth.
The myth: We used to think that babies and toddlers are too young to understand when adults are fighting and that they don't remember fights even when they are loud and stressful. The facts: We now know that parental fighting has an impact on babies, toddlers, and even babies still in utero.
Hearing milestones in the first year of life include: Most newborns startle or "jump" to sudden loud noises. By 3 months, a baby recognizes and calms to a parent's voice. By 6 months, babies turn their eyes or head toward a new sound and repeat sounds.