How do deaf parents know when their babies are crying?
“I got you,” says deaf mom, influencer and Netflix series Deaf U cast member, Cheyenna Clearbrook.
She’s taken to TikTok to spread awareness about common misconceptions about parenting a newborn as a deaf person.
In her latest clip to go viral, she demonstrates exactly how she knows her baby is crying.
A special device notifies her
She’s signing in the video and has captions overlayed for people to understand what she’s saying.
“These are what we use every night and overnight,” she signs while holding up the hearing device.
“This is the receiver. It connects with vibrations and another device.
“When the baby cries, it sends a signal to the sensor first then it sends it to the receiver.”
Cheyenna then demonstrates how it works.
It triggers three loud beeps, then heavy vibrations and a flashing light to grab her attention.
“This is how we wake up when our baby is crying,” she writes.
In the daytime, she and her partner rely on a different device – a baby monitor. But it’s not just any old one, it’s called the Vtech Baby Monitor and it has specific features to recognize when the baby is moving or making noise.
When these changes happen, different colored lights show up on the screen to notify her. Different lights mean different things, such as the varying intensities of her baby’s cries.
“I LOVE THIS ONE. I use it at all times,” she signs.
“This has never crossed my mind…but now I’m glad I know”
People were fascinated by her video, with one person admitting, “I actually never thought of how you would know your baby is crying when you are deaf. Thank you for this! Super interesting and awesome.”
Another wrote: “Sometimes I think the world we live in isn’t great. And then I see this and I’m so happy with this place.”
“The fact that this has never crossed my mind… but now I’m glad I know,” a third commented.
Another joked, “Wish I would have had these for my husband when ours was little. He’s not deaf, but you’d certainly think so at night.”
Then this person shared their own experience: “Technology is so cool! My deaf parents didn’t use anything in the 90s, my mum always said intuition told her!”
And this woman suggested: “Apple Watch needs to optimize for the deaf community!! Because an alert right to your wrist that your baby is crying would be so convenient!”
Someone else pointed out that “IPhones already have a feature that’ll make your phone vibrate when your babies are crying.”
But Cheyenna said she had “tried it but it’s the worst! It’s not accurate and it would warn me like 100+ when my daughter is not crying.”