The Happiest Baby on the Block

Quite a few people, including my brother and sister-in-law and the parenting coach at the hospital, recommended a book called The Happiest Baby on the Block by Dr. Harvey Karp. The core of the book focuses on a very simple premise: that the first three months a baby is born is like the "fourth trimester", i.e. that babies still long for the womb environment even though they are "on the outside". When a baby fusses, there are "five S's" that you can use to simulate the environment your baby knew in the womb, and used together, these can calm a fussy baby. The five "S's" are:

• Swaddling: Although we as adults think restricting a baby's motion seems barbaric, they actually are easily startled by their reflexes that jerk their limbs all over. Keeping their arms and legs from jerking everywhere actually soothes them, since they also had restricted movement in utero.


• Shhh-ing: When the baby was in the womb, he or she heard their mother's heart all the time, which was actually about as loud as a vacuum cleaner to us. White noise reminds them of this kind of noise. Interestingly enough, most cultures have some sort of "shh" sound to quite their babies.


• Swinging: If you think about, while moms are pregnant, they are walking around, bouncing up and down. That's why jiggling babies (not shaking them!) and using swings can calm cranky babies.


• Side or Stomach: Babies generally hate being on their back, but that's how we often place them, especially since we've been told this reduces the chances of SIDS. Although it's not good to let babies sleep on their bellies, holding a baby on their side or stomach helps calm them, moreso than having them on their back.


• Suckling: Why do you think passifiers work so wonderfully? Many babies sucked their thumbs even before they were born.

The author is quick to point out that it's not that any one of these tricks alone calms a fussy baby, but that doing these in combination with one another is what works. Ryan has a a way of calming Lilly, and it amazes me how, although he hasn't read that book, he seems to intrinsically know how to use these methods to calm her down. I'll see her carrying around the house, holding her like a football over one arm so she's on her side. When she tries to kick and flail, he'll wrap her up even more tightly in a receiving blanket so she's tightly swaddled. It really calms her down. I think these "S's" also explain why putting a baby in a car seat calms them down. They are swaddled by the car seat (in the sense that it's tightly wrapped around them), there's the white noise of the car, and there's the jiggling and vibrations of the car. It's uncanny how it will put a baby right to sleep.

The only thing that really frustrated me about the book was how the author repeatedly based his assumptions about why babies are the way they are on evolution, explaining why "babies had to be born three months early because the babies with the biggest heads had to come out early", as if babies had a choice about when they were born. Or about why babies extend their hands in the startle reflex because monkeys and apes have to hold on to their mom's back when swinging through trees. As long as you can skip that malarky, I think he's on to something.