Life is Just Too Noisy for Z

For the past year, Z has had an issue with loud noises. If there is a loud noise that startles him, he melts into a ball of tears. This is always very embarrassing because there is no reasoning with him until you remove him from the situation and he feels safe once again. The worst part...it is getting worse with time, not better!

Typical noises that scare Z into fits of tears are: his cousin G when she squawks, other loud children, dogs barking, my mother coughing and something he will hear a lot of very soon....babies crying! If Z is prepared for a noise, it doesn't seem to bother him. For example, if we hear a fire engine coming and then it zooms by our house blaring it's siren...no tears. If we tell Z that the public toilet is going to make a loud sound and he should cover his ears...no tears. But if he is caught off guard, it is all over!

Last weekend at the beach, Z was startled by the lifeguard's whistles (we never thought to prep him for that) and our beach trip was almost ruined. It took me 20 minutes to get him to recover and I had to force him back on the beach to show him all he was missing. He then went on to have the best time and you would have never known that he was the child who was clinging to me for dear life in fear of the loud whistles.

Now we have tried many different things to break him of this horrible trait. We have taught him some strategies to deal with loud noises such as; covering his ears when he hears a loud sound, walking away from loud sounds or asking his friends and cousin to "please be quiet". Every time a baby cries we brainstorm with him reasons the baby might be crying (tired, hungry etc.). We have tried to reason with him during his fits, we have talked about situations later on after he is calm and have even ignored the behavior many times (this is difficult to do in public)......nothing seems to work!

Come October, Z is going to be in for a rude awakening :) He is going to be the big brother to a huge source of noise. It would be nice to nip this in the bud now but I know that will not happen. So what do you think is going on here??? Is Z just an odd little ducking? Is it a phase (lasting over a year)? Or do you think there might be a medical reason??? We are so baffled by this behavior and any advice would be most welcome!