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Why Your Baby Wants (and Needs) a Fourth Trimester
The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and intestines
at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing
confusion.
William James, The Principles of Psychology, 1890
When you bring your soft, dimpled newborn home from the hospital,
you may think your peaceful nursery is perfectly suited for his cherubic
body and temperament, but that’s not how your baby sees it. To him, it’s
a disorienting world—part Las Vegas casino, part dark closet!
His senses are bombarded by new experiences. From outside, he’s
assaulted by a jumble of lights, colors, and textures. From inside, he’s
flooded with waves of powerful new feelings like gas, hunger, and thirst.
Yet, at the same time, the stillness of the room envelops him like a
closet, devoid of the rhythms that were his constant comfort and
companion for the past nine months. Imagine how strange the quiet of a
hospital room must be to your baby after the loud, quadraphonic shhhh
of the womb. No wonder babies look around as if they’re thinking, This
just can’t be real!
Most infants can deal with these changes without a hitch. However,
some babies can’t. They need to be held, rocked, and suckled for large
chunks of the day. These sensations duplicate the womb and form the
basis of every infant-soothing method ever invented. This fourth-
trimester experience calms babies not because they’re spoiled and not
because it tricks them into thinking they’re back home, but because it
triggers a powerful response inside our babies’ brains that turns off their
crying—the calming reflex.

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The fourth trimester is the birthday present babies really hope their
parents will give them.
A “Womb with a View”: A Parent’s Experience of the