Thursday, October 08, 2009
How to Calm a Crying Baby
So Brennon has been doing good. He is a little calmed down from a week ago, however there are times when he is crying for like a half hour and we don't know why. As a result of all of this I came up with a solution, find someone who knows the answer. Now 15 years ago we would have to guess at how to calm our baby down. A couple of weeks ago I got on amazon.com and typed in crying baby. Up pops this dvd called "The Happiest Baby on the Block". It had rave reviews so I decided to get it. We watched it yesterday and already are amazed at the results. It gave us 5 techniques for calming a baby and it showed them working instantly. It's like, here's a crying baby, watch this, no more crying.
The concept is interesting and I think we kind of got ahead of ourselves in our parenting skills. The first concept is swaddling. We knew that at the NICU he would be swaddled like 24/7 but when we brought him home we thought he didn't like swaddling, that he was past that stage. It turns out babies can like swaddling for like 8 months. The key is to lay them on their side on your lap when tightly swaddled. It is a relax response. Tight swaddle with side laying with calm a baby. Another techinique is shushing the baby. Basically it is white noise that reminds them of the womb, so shushing works. The key with that is to be close to their ear and shush as loud as the baby is crying. Last night I opened up my iPhone app, Ambiance, which has white noise and put it up to his ear. He instantly calmed down.
The third technique is shaking the baby. No not that one, but just a little jiggling. Like rocking back and forth. The key with this one is it has to be small jerky movements. When I put Brennon swaddled on his side on my knee and moved my knees back and forth quickly it calmed him. The fourth technique is swinging. Once the baby is calm if you put him in an automatic swing on high speed it should relax him for quite a while. I saw this when I was helping out with the babies at Sunday school. They had swings galore and it really did work. The fifth technique is using a pacifier. The key with that one is to train them to keep it in. Apparently their muscles get a workout when you gently try to pull it out. Most people try to push it in. So this was something new. All in all a good DVD that taught us how to calm our baby quickly. That gives us time to admire how cute he really is ;-)
The concept is interesting and I think we kind of got ahead of ourselves in our parenting skills. The first concept is swaddling. We knew that at the NICU he would be swaddled like 24/7 but when we brought him home we thought he didn't like swaddling, that he was past that stage. It turns out babies can like swaddling for like 8 months. The key is to lay them on their side on your lap when tightly swaddled. It is a relax response. Tight swaddle with side laying with calm a baby. Another techinique is shushing the baby. Basically it is white noise that reminds them of the womb, so shushing works. The key with that is to be close to their ear and shush as loud as the baby is crying. Last night I opened up my iPhone app, Ambiance, which has white noise and put it up to his ear. He instantly calmed down.
The third technique is shaking the baby. No not that one, but just a little jiggling. Like rocking back and forth. The key with this one is it has to be small jerky movements. When I put Brennon swaddled on his side on my knee and moved my knees back and forth quickly it calmed him. The fourth technique is swinging. Once the baby is calm if you put him in an automatic swing on high speed it should relax him for quite a while. I saw this when I was helping out with the babies at Sunday school. They had swings galore and it really did work. The fifth technique is using a pacifier. The key with that one is to train them to keep it in. Apparently their muscles get a workout when you gently try to pull it out. Most people try to push it in. So this was something new. All in all a good DVD that taught us how to calm our baby quickly. That gives us time to admire how cute he really is ;-)
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