The Happiest Baby on the Block and The Happiest Toddler on the Block 2-Book Bundle pdfdrive com

The Top Ten Ways You Can Imitate the Uterus
1. Holding
2. Dancing
3. Rocking
4. Wrapping
5. White noise or singing
6. Car rides
7. Walks outside
8. Feeding
9. Pacifiers
10. Swings
This list includes just a few of the dozens of ways clever parents have
invented to calm their infants. But what you know now is something that
no mom or dad throughout history realized, that these tricks relax
newborns by switching on the ancient reflex that kept them in a
protective, lifesaving trance when they were fetuses.
The most popular baby calming methods can be grouped into five
basic categories: Swaddling, Side/Stomach position, Shhhhing sounds,
Swinging, and Sucking. I call these the 5 “S’s”; they are the qualities of
the uterus that help activate the calming reflex. However, like all
reflexes, even these great techniques only switch on the calming reflex if
they’re done correctly.

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The 5 “S’s”: Five Steps to
Activate Your Baby’s Calming Reflex
There should be a law requiring that the 5 S’s be stamped
onto every infant ID band in the hospital. For our frantic
baby, they worked in seconds!
Nancy, mother of two-month-old Natalie
In the early 1900s, baby experts taught new parents to do the
following when their infant cried: 1) feed them, 2) burp them, 3) change
the diaper, and 4) check for an open safety pin. Authorities proclaimed
that when these didn’t work, babies had colic and there was nothing else
a parent could do. Today, most doctors give similar recommendations.
But for parents of a frantic newborn, the nothing-you-can-do-but-wait
advice is intolerable. Few impulses are as powerful as a mother’s desire to
calm her crying baby. This instinct is as ancient as parenting itself. Yet, the
frustrating reality is while parents instinctively want to calm their
babies, knowing how to do it is anything but instinctive. It’s a skill.
Luckily, it’s a skill that is fairly easy to learn.
Peter, a high-powered attorney, is the father of Emily and Ted. When
his kids were born, Pete and his wife, Judy, had very little baby
experience. So, after the birth of each child, I sat down and reviewed the
concepts of the fourth trimester and the 5 “S’s.” Several years later, Peter
wrote: