More thoughts on calming a crying or fussy baby

Well, our daughter has had a bit of evening fussiness lately, so I have been spending a few of my past evenings helping to calm her to sleep. So, since this is the freshest topic on my mind, I thought I would dedicate this post to a few more thoughts on calming a crying or fussy baby.

1) Using swaddling and white noise techniques, combined with placing the baby along your arm on its side (holding his/her head in your hand) to trigger the calming reflex, works really well. These techniques are described really well and in detail on the "Happiest Baby on the Block" DVD by Dr. Karp. See my post on this DVD for further details.
2) Swaddling and white noise combined with carrying the baby upright with his/her head close to your chest/heart also works really well. This works especially well for me if I use techniques to keep myself calm and relaxed at the same time. See my post on my "Aha" moment.
3) Carrying our baby around in our sling works really well, and it is similar to point 2 above, because when she is wrapped in the sling, it is similar to being swaddled. She is nice and cosy and often falls asleep after we walk around with her in the sling for awhile. I did this earlier today when I went out with her and my son again, and I was pleasantly pleased because she fell asleep quite quickly and slept the entire time (about two hours). Gave me a chance to pick up and enjoy a chocolate blended creme frappucino, while my boy enjoyed a donut (chocolate of course... think he takes after me)!
4) We have an elliptical trainer, and my wife has found that carrying our daughter in the sling while riding the elliptical trainer works really well. The sound of the trainer, combined with the flowing, rhythmic motion, had a very calming effect. My wife was happy because she gets to exercise at the same time! (compare this to me, who takes the opportunity to go get chocolate)!
5) Choosing the right colours can have a calming effect - it has been found that blues and greens are the most calming colours, while yellows tend to cause fussiness. So if you are trying to calm a fussy baby, move out of a yellow room and into a blue or green one! Notice that our sling is also blue!
6) Making sure the baby has burped or trying to help the baby to burp can help to relieve the fussiness. Always burp the baby after feeding him/her. This can be done by holding the baby upright to your chest or over your shoulder and gently patting his/her back.
7) Checking the diaper is a good idea too, of course... sometimes a clean diaper can make the difference between a fussy baby and a calm baby.
Hope you found something you can use! Take care for now, time for some rest for me!
TBD

Just had an "aha" moment!

Hey all,
Didn't think I was going to get to this blog entry tonight... it is getting late and our newborn daughter has had some difficulty getting settled and to sleep tonight. So I have spent the past two hours on and off using our calming techniques.
In a previous post I mentioned "The Happiest Baby on the Block" and the calming techniques used on the DVD of the same name. One of the techniques, combined with swaddling, is "Shushing" or creating "white noise" by making a gentle shushing sound. The theory behind this is that it creates a noise similar to what the baby is used to hearing from being in the womb, so it has a soothing effect.
So tonight I spent a lot of time holding her up to my chest and walking and rocking and gently shushing. I felt all shushed out at one point to say the least, and felt like I had shushed more than the ocean on a very breezy day.
That is when I had my "aha" moment! I was so focused on making my daughter calm and making shushing sounds for her, that I was completely wearing myself out and making myself more stressed in the process. She could also probably sense that I was stressed, so it was more difficult for her to relax.
So I thought, why not make the calming techniques work for me, rather than against me? I shifted the focus of the calming to myself (sorry if that sounds selfish). While rocking and shushing my daughter, I closed my eyes and imagined that I was in a hammock by the ocean and the shushing sound was the ocean breeze. This immediately calmed me and kept me calm and relaxed, and at the same time it kept my daughter calm and relaxed. As I became more relaxed, she could also sense that I was more relaxed, which further relaxed her. I had a virtuous cycle going, rather than a vicious one!
I really feel good about this discovery, so had to share it with you all right away! Try it out, it definitely helps!
Now off to bed,
TBD

The Happiest Baby on the Block

Okay, my newborn daughter is over one week old now, and I haven't really mentioned her on this blogg/blog yet, because so much has been happening with my son and my main duty right now is to keep him busy while mama nurses the baby and looks after her.
This in itself poses a bit of a dilemma that I think many parents of two or more face when the new baby is born... how to divide your time between the two, so that you can bond with both in the way that you would like to?
We have been doing our best with this. One approach we have taken is for my wife to put our son to bed after feeding our daughter, and I spend that time with our daughter. This allows a nice one-on-one bonding time for each of us with the kids.
But that was not what I wanted to write about in this post. In this post I wanted to mention a video that my wife and I watched before our daughter was born, called "The Happiest Baby on the Block" by Dr. Harvey Karp.
You may have heard of this video/method before, because he has been featured on Dr. Phil and many other programs and talk shows. I am mentioning it here in case you haven't yet heard of it, because before our friends told us about it, we hadn't heard of it either.
Dr. Karp outlines methods for calming your crying newborn baby, and these methods really work miraculously. We have used them on our newborn daughter and I can truly say the methods really do work! We are very happy, and so is our baby. She may be crying one second... and then we work our magic, and she is calm the next... literally. I wish we knew these techniques with our first child.
You can find more information at http://www.thehappiestbaby.com/ ... we actually borrowed the video from our local library, so it is worthwhile checking your local library for a copy. It doesn't cost you anything, and it really works wonders! Definitely recommended viewing for any parent with a newborn... you will be amazed!
Hope you are getting enough sleep, cheers,
TBD