8 month old squealing

[Marc's mum]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to dissuade a baby from squealing?  My 8 month old son started squealing when he was about 4 months old.  Initially I think it was out of excitement, but I never imitated or encouraged it.  Now it's hard to know what it is because he does it constantly - when he's happy, excited, tired, bored, cranky, hungry, at home, on the subway, in the stroller.  The sound is ear piercing and driving both my husband and I crazy.  We've tried saying "No" every time he does it, but it doesn't seem to make any difference and happens so frequently that we feel as if we're saying no to him all the time.   Any advice would be greatly appreciated as we are just feeling so helpless!

[Deb_in_oz]

i just think it is a normal stage they go through as they are learning to communicate and explore sounds / their "voice" etc

as annoying as it sounds i think it is just something you have to let happen and i woudl personally not say " no" to him regarding this because you don't really want to discourage this exploration - this will develop naturally into babbling andthen talking - some just squeal more than others (my 27 mo old who can speak still delights in ear piercing squealing quite regularly  :roll:  and it truly gives me a headache - at this age i do discourage it because she has other ways to communicate and i explain to her that it is too loud, etc but an 8 mo old really wont understand that)