Dunstan Baby

For the first weeks at home

Hear what your baby is telling you, before the cry.

Newborns often make one of five small sounds just before they cry. Hold your phone near your baby, press listen, and we will tell you which one we hear.

Free. Nothing is saved. Tested across 1,551 labelled audio clips.

Listen for 4 seconds

When your baby makes a little sound, hold your phone about 30 cm away and press.

Or drop a recording here, or

No baby handy? Try a sample:

Your audio is sent to our server to be checked, then deleted. We do not keep it.

We think we heard

Neh

Hungry

Very sure (93%)

Try this:

  • NehHungry0%
  • OwhTired0%
  • HehUncomfortable0%
  • EairhLower wind0%
  • EhBurp0%
What do these mean?

A hint, not a diagnosis. Trust what you can see too.

That was very quiet

The five sounds

Five small sounds, before the cry.

Each one starts as a reflex. With a little practice, many parents start to hear them too.

  1. Last heard

    Neh

    Hungry

    The sucking reflex. The tongue presses up to the roof of the mouth.

  2. Last heard

    Owh

    Tired

    A yawn turning into a sound. The mouth goes oval.

  3. Last heard

    Heh

    Uncomfortable

    A stress reflex with a breathy start. Wet, hot, cold or awkward.

  4. Last heard

    Eairh

    Lower wind

    Trapped wind low in the tummy. Legs often pull up.

  5. Last heard

    Eh

    Burp

    Air in the chest trying to come up. Short and repeated.

How it works

Three steps, in plain words.

  1. You record a few seconds.

    On your phone, or a recording you already have.

  2. Our model has a listen.

    It learned from 1,551 short clips from Dunstan videos and additional labelled audio sources.

  3. You get its best guess.

    And how sure it is. If it is not sure, it says so.

Your recording goes to our server, gets checked, then is deleted. We do not keep it or train on it.

How well it works

Good, not perfect. Here are the real numbers.

83.3%

balanced accuracy across five test rounds, using 1,214 additional labelled clips (Tier 2)

82.5%

balanced accuracy across five test rounds, using 337 Dunstan video clips (Tier 1)

1,551

labelled clips in the training dataset

How it did, round by round

  • Round 185.4%
  • Round 286.4%
  • Round 379.4%
  • Round 480.5%
  • Round 584.7%

Balanced accuracy on Tier 2 clips. Each round tested a different held-out part of the dataset.

When it says Not sure

If the top sound is under 60%, it says Not sure instead of guessing. Even a confident answer can be wrong.

What the numbers tell us

Some rounds were harder than others. We show all five, not just the best. Each of the five sounds gets equal weight in the score.

See the full table

Balanced accuracy in each test round. Tier 1 is Dunstan video clips; Tier 2 is additional labelled audio.

Five held-out test rounds, with balanced accuracy for each dataset
Test roundTier 1Tier 2

These are development tests against recording labels, not a measure of how well it works on new babies or detects the sound before a cry. The headline scores are averages of the five rounds.

For the long nights, and the short naps in between.

What it cannot do.

  • It is a hint, not a diagnosis. It cannot tell if your baby is unwell.
  • It works best in the first three months. Older babies often stop making these sounds.
  • It listens for the sound before a cry, not the cry itself.
  • TV, other children and background noise make it less sure.
  • It can get sounds wrong, even when it seems confident.

If your baby seems unwell, has a fever, is hard to wake, or you are worried, call your doctor or Healthdirect on 1800 022 222. In an emergency, call 000.