Audio recording of infant crying: Comparison with maternal cry logs

This study investigated the accuracy of mothers' reports of their babies' c rying. The crying of babies, 5-16 weeks old, was recorded by means of a wir e-less, miniature microphone contained within a terry cloth belt worn by th e baby. Crying was transmitted to a voice-activated recorder with a range o f 500 feet. Thirteen 24-hour recordings were obtained from seven infants wh ile, at the same time, the mothers kept a Cry Log of their baby's crying. T he number of minutes of crying and the number of bouts of crying obtained f rom the two procedures were highly correlated, although the amount of cryin g reported by the mothers was less than that obtained from the recorder. Th e mothers reported fewer bouts of crying. The results suggest that maternal cry reports are valuable for obtaining relative amounts of crying of infan ts within a group, as well as information on mothers' perceptions of their infants' crying, whereas audio recordings offer a more precise method for o btaining the amount and temporal patterning of infant crying.