Saturday, March 2, 2013

Soothing in the Fourth Trimester

Malcolm showing some serious fussiness at 2.5 weeks old
Harvey Karp, the man who brought us The Happiest Baby on the Block, refers to the first three months of life as "the fourth trimester". The idea is that babies shouldn't really be born at 40 weeks. They're not ready to be in the world, and therefore you have to artificial simulate some elements of the uterus as soothing methods for them, for example constriction and white noise. I found this concept to be true, and it guided a lot of the ways that we soothed the boys.

That being said, a lot of soothing is just trial and error. Different babies respond to different things, what works today may not work tomorrow, and what works for one type of upset-ness is just not going to work for a different kind. That's why I think it's important to have a long list of strategies in your pocket. While it will only further confuse and upset a baby to switch super quickly between different soothing methods with the speed of an AK-47, there's also something to be said for abandoning a strategy that isn't working after a few minutes in exchange for something else.

While they might not work for you or your baby, here are some of the soothing methods my husband and I kind of accidentally stumbled into during the first trimester. Some of them we got from books/online, but a lot of them were just kind of "I wonder if this would work".

    Malcolm with his paci at 3.5 weeks
  • Using the Pacifier: I always wanted to avoid the pacifier, but it was so helpful in the first two months. Now, a 3.5 months, we hardly use them at all because the boys have found their hands, but prior to them making this developmental step, the pacifier was an excellent soothing technique. To add more tension to the paci, we put our fingers inside of the nipple part, which the boys seemed to like.
  • Shushing: Sometimes the boys get in a crying circle from which they seemingly cannot remove themselves. In cases like this, shushing at a rather high volume usually helped to remind them that they weren't really that upset. You have to shush rather loudly though or else their own crying drowns your shushing out.
  • Baby Wearing: Putting the boys in the baby carrier on our chest was often useful for soothing their nighttime fussiness. It gives them the warmth, constriction, and sound of your heartbeat that they miss from the uterus. Also, it gives you the chance to get something done because it's a hands-free way to soothe.
  • Running Water: Sitting in the bathroom with the shower running or standing in the kitchen with the sink running helps to soothe because of the white noise, and since they were usually pretty congested, I imagine the steam helped them, too.
  • Putting the Baby Down: For some reason, our boys would sometimes stop crying when we put them on their changing table. In the third month, it was clear that sometimes they were tired of being held and wanted to be in their swing/bouncer/gym, but that probably wasn't true in those early weeks. They just wanted people warmth at that point.
  • Using the Car Seats: My boys loved their carseats, the car, and their snap n go stroller. Going for a walk while in their car seats in the snap n go, just going for a soothing drive, or even just getting strapped into their seats and then being kind of swung back and forth in the middle of the living room was like baby Ambien.
  • Patting Their Backs: I imagine this works because babies are gassy, but in the second and third month, putting the babies in my lap on their tummies and then patting their backs was helpful in soothing them. I'd sometimes do this for half an hour with their arms draped over my thigh. Of course, you can't do this at first because they just don't have the neck control, but once they did it was nice.
  • Bouncing them on my Knee/Thigh: I was one of those ADHD kids who rapidly bounced their leg up and down during class to the point where other students would firmly grab me knee, halting my neurotic shaking and say concretely, "stop". Little did I know that this nervous tick would help with parenting. Once the boys had decent neck control (after 2 months), bouncing them on our legs was a good way of keeping them calm.
  • Turn Off the Lights: I read somewhere that night time fussiness is sometimes the product of over-stimulation during the day. When they'd get super fussy at night, we'd combine the running water with low light as a calming tool.
  • Walking/Dancing Them: For who knows what reason, our boys tended to want to be higher up. You could do the exact same shushing and bouncing while standing that you were doing on the couch, and it was twice as effective when you were standing up.
Good luck! And if all else fails, remember that catch phrase that got me through: "They can't cry themselves to death". Also, it won't last forever.

No comments:

Post a Comment