Main Points:
As my office was about to close one evening, Alex’s mother called, in tears. Betsy said Alex had been having bouts of pain for more than two weeks. Here’s how Betsy described it.
“When Alex was six weeks old, she began having terrible gas pains. At night she would wake up screaming almost hourly. I watched my diet, in case something I was eating was giving her gas. But that didn’t alleviate her crying at all.”
Betsy asked me for some anti-gas medicine to help Alex with what she assumed were stomach cramps. She was surprised when I focused on how to calm her rather than curing the gas. I taught Betsy about the calming reflex and showed her how to swaddle, shhhh, and swing Alex to help her fall asleep. But, Betsy remained skeptical.
“I didn’t use Dr. Karp’s technique the first night. Swaddling Alex tight didn’t feel natural. I was afraid she would be uncomfortable or have difficulty breathing. And I still believed the main issue was gas. That night Alex’s ‘pain’ seemed severe, and I decided I would follow Dr. Karp’s advice in the morning.
“The next day I swaddled Alex from morning till night, and surprisingly she seemed much more comfortable. At bedtime, even before I had finished wrapping her, Alex fell asleep—and she slept for seven hours. I could hear her stomach rumbling and knew that she was still having gas, but it was no longer waking her up.
“Tight bundling helped Alex become a much better sleeper. By the time she was four months old she slept well without needing any swaddling.”
As Betsy discovered with Alex, soothing an irritable infant is one hundred times easier when her hands are snuggled straight at her sides. Why does this work so well? Here are three ways swaddling benefits fussy babies:
1. The Sweet Touch of Swaddling
Skin is the body’s largest organ, and touch is the most calming of our senses. Swaddling envelops your baby’s body with a continuous soft caress.
Every mother knows how delicious the touch of her baby’s soft skin feels against her own, but for your baby, touch is more than a nice sensation—it’s as lifesaving as milk! Babies given milk but never held or touched often wither and die. Of course, swaddling isn’t as rich an experience for your baby as being cuddled, but it’s a good substitute for those times she is not in your arms.
2. Swaddling Keeps Your Baby from Spiraling Out of Control
Not only does swaddling feel cozy, it also keeps your baby from whacking herself and inadvertently getting more upset. (You may have noticed how much calmer your baby is when she is “wrapped” in your arms.) Before birth, your uterus kept your baby’s arms from spinning like a windmill. After her “eviction,” this restriction disappears. Without the womb walls to prevent flailing, your baby’s small upsets can quickly switch on her Moro reflex (the falling reflex) and start her thrashing and crying.
3. Wrapping Helps Your Baby Pay Attention to What You’re Doing to Calm Her
When your baby is crying, she experiences a sensation similar to ten radios playing in her head—at the same time. Each jerk and startle shoots another alarm message to her brain, and together those signals make such a racket that your crying infant may hardly notice you’re there!
Your little screamer desperately needs you to tell her, “That’s it, I’m taking over now.” And that’s exactly what swaddling does. By restraining your baby’s movements, you turn off most of the distracting “radio stations” so she can tune in and focus on all the wonderful things you’re doing to soothe her. Wrapping also prevents new twitches from igniting the crying all over again.
The Great Surprise About Swaddling
The biggest myth parents have about wrapping is that it’s supposed to quiet their fussy baby. Wrong! Swaddling by itself doesn’t turn on the calming reflex.
This point often confuses inexperienced parents. In fact, many new moms and dads lose patience with bundling because initially it makes their babies scream louder not less!
So why is swaddling the first step of calming? Because it prepares your baby for the soothing steps you will do next that will trigger her calming reflex.
Think of it this way: What’s the first thing a mother does when her hungry toddler clamors for food? Set the table to serve the meal. Yet doing that often makes her scream louder, as if she’s yelling, “Hey, just dump the spaghetti on the table!” Of course, you know she needs utensils and a plate before she can enjoy her delicious meal, so you buzz through your preparations despite her protests.
In essence, swaddling “sets the table” for the feast of calming you’re about to serve. It’s the critical step of preparation before the actual shhhhing and jiggling begin. So don’t worry if your baby struggles more right after you’ve wrapped her snugly. Once you begin “feeding” her the other 4 “S’s,” you’ll satisfy her needs completely.
I banish from you all tears, birthmarks, flaws, and the troubles of bed-wetting. Love your paternal and maternal uncles. Do not betray your origins. Be intelligent, learned, and discreet. Respect yourself, be brave.
Ritual instructions spoken when
swaddling a baby by the Berber people of Algeria,
Béatrice Fontanel and Claire d’Harcourt, Babies Celebrated
After Elena emigrated from Russia to Los Angeles, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Olga. As I examined Olga, I described to her proud mother all of her daughter’s wonderful abilities. Elena concentrated intensely as I spoke, struggling to understand my words.
When I placed her precious infant on a blanket to demonstrate swaddling, she smiled. Gently touching my arm, she said with a Slavic accent, “Doctor, you don’t have to show me dat. In my willage we wrap dem and put BELT around. It holds dem wery good!”
For tens of thousands of years, mothers living in cool climates have swaddled their babies. While those in very hot climates hardly ever swaddle, they do hold their infants in their arms or in slings almost twenty-four hours a day. Parents all over the globe wrap their infants because:
Great Swaddling Moments in History
These parents envelop their babies in blankets and then usually secure the wrapping with strings and belts. And now, our nation has also rediscovered that babies like being wrapped as snug as a bug in a rug. In most U.S. hospitals, new moms are taught how to swaddle their babies, and I’ve even seen nurses use a little masking tape to keep the blanket from opening.
Even in the Middle Ages, the top fashion ideas originated in Paris. However, about three hundred years ago, these trendsetters goofed when they declared, “Le swaddling is passé.”
Before the 1700s, all Europeans wrapped their babies. Swaddling made babies easy to carry and kept them warm and quiet. Parents also believed wrapping prevented their infants from accidentally plucking out their own eyes or dislocating their arms.
Then two revolutionary trends became popular: science and democracy. As wonderful as these movements were, they led to two unfortunate misunderstandings that contributed to the abandonment of swaddling:
Science makes mistake #1: In the 1700s scientists proved that unwrapped infants never plucked out their eyes or dislocated their arms. From these observations they wrongly assumed that swaddling was a waste of time.
Democracy makes mistake #2: In the years leading up to the Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers (and mothers) wanted their children to live in freedom, but this attitude led them to reject swaddling as a form of “baby prison.”
Within one hundred years, the combined pressures of science and democracy convinced most parents in the Western world to stop swaddling. While these great thinkers were right that unwrapped babies didn’t hurt themselves and that adults would feel enslaved by such tight bindings, they were absolutely wrong to recommend parents stop bundling their infants. They didn’t realize that swaddling had continued throughout the centuries because it truly helped babies stay happier. As parents stopped wrapping their newborns, the unexpected happened: The number of babies suffering from uncontrollable crying dramatically increased!
In their eagerness to stop this tidal wave of colic, scientists made yet another colossal mistake. They concluded that babies were crying because of pain, and encouraged parents to give their shrieking infants the two most effective anesthetics of the time—gin and opium. Of course, as soon as the serious side effects of those colic treatments were realized, they fell out of favor.
In the U.S. today, many parents and grandparents still hesitate to swaddle their babies. They worry that tight wrapping may deprive their babies of some unwritten constitutional right. But I’m afraid they are confusing the right to bear arms with the right to flail arms.
Through the years, I have asked many parents to tell me their secret prejudices against swaddling. Here are their six most common concerns:
1. Swaddling seems primitive and old-fashioned.
Well, it is. But what’s wrong with primitive and old-fashioned? Eating and sex are both primitive and old-fashioned, and who wants to abandon them? Besides, swaddling may be a prehistoric practice, but it really works.
2. Babies might be uncomfortable with their arms tightly down at their sides.
Many new parents think their crying babies want their arms up. If that was why these infants cried, calming them would be a snap: Just never wrap them! Of course, as you’ve probably noticed, releasing your baby’s arms usually only makes her scream even more.
It is true that your baby’s arms have tightened into the bent-arm position by the end of your pregnancy. And, as a result, if you place them at her sides, they tend to boing right back up, like curly hair pulled straight then released. However, the arms-down position is not at all uncomfortable, which is why babies sleep extra-long when they’re bundled that way.
3. Wrapping may make a baby feel trapped.
Personally, I would hate to be swaddled. Without revealing too much about my married life, let me say that the first thing my wife and I do when we get into bed is untuck the blanket and give our feet some breathing room.
Of course, most of us would hate living in a womb. However, it’s a mistake to think our babies want the same things we do. She’s not struggling against the wrapping because she hates it. She looks like she wants her hands free, but the opposite is true. Newborns love being confined, and when they’re frantic and out of control they need your help to restrain their frantic arms and legs.
4. Babies will get spoiled or dependent on swaddling.
Fortunately, this worry is totally unfounded. Holding your baby twelve hours a day is not an overindulgence; it’s a fifty percent cutback from what she got in your womb! Once your baby is four months old she’ll be able to push up, roll over, and grab, and she no longer will need to be wrapped. Until then, swaddling can be a great comfort.
5. Wrapping frustrates an infant’s attempts to suck her fingers.
It was easy for your baby to suck her fingers before she was born: The walls of your uterus kept her hands right next to her face. After birth, however, it’s much harder for her to get her fingers in that position. Even though she tries, they often jerk away as if yanked on by some practical joker. (Pacifiers were invented exactly because babies have such a hard time keeping their hands in their mouths.)
Please, don’t misunderstand me, it’s fine to let your infant have her hands out so she can suck on her fingers—as long as she’s happy. Unfortunately, most babies aren’t able to keep their hands there, especially when upset. So rather than calming a baby, loose hands usually fly by their owner’s mouth, frustrating her and increasing her screams!
It will take three to four months for your baby to coordinate her lips, tongue, shoulder, and arm—all at the same time—to keep her fingers in her mouth. However, once your baby is able to manage all that, swaddling becomes unnecessary (although it may still help her sleep longer).
6. Tight bundling might interfere with a baby’s ability to learn about the world.
Of course, your baby does need her hands unwrapped sometimes so she can get some practice using them. However, when she’s crying your job isn’t teaching, it’s calming. In fact, even when your infant is calm, bundling may actually help her learn about the world, because she can pay attention better when her arms aren’t constantly in motion.
For centuries, parents have been hesitant about swaddling their babies. Critics have claimed swaddling was just a fad—and some continue to do so:
About ten years ago, I visited a nursery for newborns in northern Italy. I shared with the nursery director the concept of the missing fourth trimester and my belief that the time had come for a worldwide “renaissance of wrapping.”
The director listened politely, but his face wore an amazed and amused expression. After I finished my impassioned speech, he patted my shoulder in a grandfatherly way and said discreetly, “We haven’t done that in Italy for generations. We believe that babies must have their hands free to encourage their muscle development.”
At that moment, his secretary summoned him to take a phone call. No sooner had he left the room than a nurse shyly came up to me and whispered, “You know, Il Directore likes to keep the babies unwrapped, but as soon as he leaves for the day, we always bundle them all back up again!” She winked at me, adding, “They really are happier that way.”
You probably already know that the number-one way to calm your fussy baby is to pick her up and hold her tightly in your arms. That’s exactly what swaddling does, except it has the extra benefit of giving you a few minutes to cook a meal or go to the bathroom!
Swaddling is easy to do, but it does require precise technique and some practice. Many books recommend wrapping, but they rarely teach how to do it, which is problematic because incorrect swaddling can make your baby’s crying worse.
Here’s everything you need to know to become the happiest (and best) swaddler on the block. Don’t worry if it feels weird at first; after five to ten tries swaddling will become as automatic for you as changing a diaper.
There are as many ways to swaddle babies as there are to fold napkins for a dinner party. But one method that a wonderful midwife taught me many years ago is clearly the best. I call it the DUDU wrap (pronounced “doo doo,” standing for Down-Up-Down-Up).
Getting Started
You’ll need a large square blanket. These are easier to use than rectangular blankets because their symmetry allows for an even, balanced wrap. Blanket fabric is your choice. Some like flannel, while others prefer stretchy, waffle-type fabrics. (You may find it’s easiest to learn to wrap if you first practice it on a doll or when your baby is calm.)
1) Place the blanket on your bed and position it like a diamond, with a point at the top.
2) Fold the top corner down so the top point touches the center of the blanket.
3) Place your baby on the blanket so her neck lies on the top edge.
4) Hold your baby’s right arm down straight at her side. If she resists, be patient. The arm will straighten after a moment or two of gentle pressure.
You now have your baby in the starting position for the DUDU wrap. An easy way to remember what to do next is to sing this little song as you do it:
1) DOWN Just as swaddling is the cornerstone of calming, this first DOWN is the cornerstone of swaddling. This must be done well or the wrap will unravel.
As you hold your baby’s right arm straight against her side, grab the blanket three to four inches from her right shoulder and pull it very tightly down and across her body. (It should look like half of a V-neck sweater.)
Tuck—Keeping the blanket taut, finish pulling it all the way down and tuck it under her left buttock and lower back. This anchors the wrap.
Snug—Hold the blanket against her left hip (with your left hand), grab the blanket right next to her left shoulder and tug it very, very snug. This will remove any slack around your baby’s right arm and stretch the fabric tight.
After this first “DOWN … tuck … snug,” her right arm should be held so securely against her side that she can’t bend it up, even if you let go of the blanket. (More on the critical importance of straight arms on this page.)
Please don’t be surprised or lose confidence if your baby suddenly cries louder when you pull the blanket tight. You’re not hurting her! Her cry means she’s still out of control and unaware that she’s just seconds away from happiness.
2) UP Now straighten her left arm against her side and bring the bottom corner straight up to cover her arm. The bottom blanket corner should reach just over her left shoulder. It’s okay if her legs are bent (that’s how they were in the womb), but be sure her arms are straight. If her arms are bent, she’ll wiggle out of the wrap as fast as you can say, “Oops, she did it again!” And she’ll cry even more.
Tuck—Hold her covered left arm against her body, and tuck the blanket edge under it.
Snug—While your left hand holds her left arm down, use your right hand to grab the blanket three inches from her left shoulder and snug it (stretch it as much as possible). This again removes any slack from around her arms.
3) DOWN Still holding the blanket very taut, three inches from her left shoulder, pull the blanket down a smidge.
A smidge—This DOWN should bring only a tiny bit of fabric over her shoulder to her upper chest, like the second half of the V-neck sweater. (Don’t bring this fold all the way down to your baby’s feet. Remember, it’s just a smidge.)
Hold—Hold that tiny smidge of blanket against her breastbone with your left hand, like you are holding down a ribbon while making a bow.
4) UP Keeping that smidge in place, grab the last free blanket corner with your right hand and pull it straight out to your right. This will remove every last bit of stretch and slack from the wrap. Then, without releasing the tension, lift that corner in one smooth motion, up and across her body.
Across—Bring it tightly across her waist and then all around her body like a belt. The “belt” should go right over her forearms, holding them down against her sides.
Snug—Finish the DUDU wrap by snugging the “belt” tightly to remove any slack. If the wrap is tight (and your blanket is big enough), the end of the “belt” will reach around her body and back to the front, where you can tuck it into the beginning of the “belt.” This last snug must be tight to keep the whole swaddle from popping open. Loose blankets are a breathing hazard.
The ancient tradition of bundling babies isn’t a fad. It’s the end of a fad—an anti-swaddling fad! Televisions and computers may become forgotten novelties a thousand years from today, but swaddling is as old as the trees and it’s time for it to become part of our babies’ lives once again.
Swaddling is simple, but watch for these common mistakes:
• Wrapping too loosely
The key to wrapping is to keep it snug … snug … snug. Make sure you snug the blanket, removing slack with every step of the DUDU. Loose blankets can smother a baby.
Denise discovered the tightness of the wrap was the secret ingredient for her six-week-old son. “Our running joke was we swaddled Augie so tightly we were scared his eyes would pop out! But swaddling helped him enormously, and tight was exactly the way he needed it to be!”
• Swaddling a baby with bent arms
Even with tight swaddling, it’s easy for your crying baby to wiggle her hands out if she was wrapped with her arms bent. While it’s true that new babies are comforted by having their bodies flexed into the fetal position, and preemies do best with bent arms at least until they reach their due date, babies swaddled with their arms down still have lots of flexion in their legs, fingers, and neck to keep them happy.
Swaddling helped Ted and Shele’s two-month-old daughter, Dylan, sleep through the night. To keep her arms straight, Ted tucked Dylan’s hands under the waistband of her tiny sweatpants before wrapping her. He said, “I have to do this because every time she gets her arms bent, she pops them out and gets even madder.”
• Letting the blanket touch your baby’s cheek
If your baby is hungry and the blanket touches her cheek, it may fool her into thinking it’s your breast, accidentally setting off the powerful rooting reflex and making her cry out of confusion and frustration. To keep the blanket off the face, make it look more like a V-neck sweater.
• Allowing the finished swaddle to pop back open
You never want your baby to be in bed with loose blankets that may get wrapped around her face. So, always use a blanket that is big enough to wrap all the way around and tuck it in tightly to make sure it doesn’t pop open.
Ken and Kristie said, “Whenever Henry sneaks out of his blanket, he cries as if to say, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ We’ve found that securing the wrap with duct tape gives us an extra forty-five minutes of sleep between feedings!”
Dads—The Swaddlers Supreme
I was surprised! I thought my baby girl, Valerie, wouldn’t like to be wrapped, but once swaddled, she calmed within seconds. I even taught a guy in the barbershop how to do it.
Pedro, father of Valerie
If women are from Venus and men are from Mars, then mothers are from Cuddleland and fathers are from Jiggleland! That is to say, men usually handle children much more vigorously than women do. We throw our older kids on the bed, have pillow fights, and hoist them into the air above our heads—but what about tiny babies? How do men handle them?
At first, we are often more intimidated by infants than our wives are; babies seem so tiny and fragile. When we do carry our little ones around, we often hot-potato them back to our wives the moment they cry.
Swaddling, however, is a great way for dads to build confidence. Fathers often have a natural talent for doing the tight wrapping. In my experience, their strength, vigor, and dexterity make them swaddlers supreme!
Mark said, “I can wrap Eli pretty easily. But my wife, Fran, has a hard time swaddling him. I think she’s too timid to do it tightly enough.”
The Whys About the “S’s”: Questions Parents Ask About Swaddling
1. When should I start wrapping my baby?
Babies can be swaddled as soon as they’re born. It makes them feel cozy and warm, like they’re “back home.”
2. Are there babies who don’t need to be swaddled?
Many calm babies do well with no swaddling at all. But the fussier your baby is, the more she’ll need it. Tight bundling is so successful at soothing infants that some even have to be unswaddled in order to wake them up for their feedings.
3. Can swaddling help a baby sleep?
Yes! Even easy babies who don’t need wrapping to keep calm often sleep more when swaddled. Bundling keeps them from startling themselves awake. But make sure the wrapping is tight. It’s not safe to put babies in bed with loose blankets.
When Wendy and Brent swaddled Brandon, their two-month-old increased his night sleeping from a four-hour stretch to five to seven hours!
4. If a baby has never been swaddled, when is it too late to start?
You can start wrapping your baby at any time during her first three months. But be patient. You may have to practice a few times before she gets used to it. Try swaddling when she’s already sleepy and in her most receptive frame of mind.
5. When is a baby too old for swaddling?
The age for weaning off swaddling varies from baby to baby. Many parents think they should stop after a few weeks or when their baby resists wrapping. But that’s actually when bundling becomes the most valuable.
To decide if your infant no longer needs to be wrapped, try this: After she reaches two to three months of age, swaddle her with one arm out. If she gets fussier, she’s telling you to continue wrapping for a few more weeks. However, if she stays happy without the swaddling, she doesn’t need it anymore.
With few exceptions, babies are ready to be weaned off wrapping by three to four months of age, although some sleep better wrapped—even up to one year of age. (For more on using swaddling to prolong sleep, see Chapter 15.)
Twins Ari and Grace benefited from swaddling until they were eight months old. Unwrapped they would wake every three hours, but bundled they slept for a glorious ten hours.
6. How many hours a day should a baby be wrapped?
All babies need some time to stretch, be bathed, and get a massage. But you’ll probably notice your baby is calmer if she’s swaddled twelve to twenty hours a day to start with. (Remember, as a fetus, she was snuggled twenty-four hours a day.) After one to two months, you can reduce the wrap time according to how calm she is without it.
7. How can I tell if I’m swaddling my baby too tightly?
In traditional cultures, parents swaddle their babies tightly because loose wraps invariably pop back open. Although some Americans worry about snug swaddling, I’ve never heard of it being done too tightly. On the other hand, I’ve worked with hundreds of parents whose bundling failed because it was done too loosely. That’s because no matter how snugly you do it initially, your baby’s wiggling will loosen the blanket a little.
However, for your peace of mind, here’s an easy way for you to make sure your wrapping is not too tight: Slide your hand between the blanket and your baby’s chest. It should feel as snug as sneaking your hand between your pregnant belly and your pant’s elastic waistband—at the end of your ninth month.
8. How can I tell if my baby is overheated or overwrapped?
Hillary thought her new son, Rob, needed the room temperature to be the same tropical 98.6°F he loved inside her body! But, she was taking the idea of the fourth trimester a bit too far. In 1994, doctors at UCLA tested babies to see if they could get overheated by heavy bundling. They put thirty-six babies (two to fourteen weeks old) in a room heated to about 74°F and wrapped them in terry coveralls, a cap, a receiving blanket, and a thermal blanket. Unexpectedly, their study showed the babies’ skin got warmer but their rectal temperatures barely increased.
Preemies often need incubators to keep them toasty, but full-term babies just need a little clothing, a blanket, and a 65–70°F room. If the temperature in your home is warmer than that, just skip some clothing and wrap your baby in only her diaper in a light cotton blanket. (Parents living in warm climates often put cornstarch powder on their babies’ skin to absorb sweat and prevent rashes.)
It’s easy to check if your baby is overheated—feel her ears and fingers. If they’re hot, red, and sweaty, she’s overwrapped. However, if they’re only slightly warm and she’s not sweaty, her temperature is probably perfect.
9. How can I tell when my baby needs to be swaddled and when she needs to eat?
Your baby will give you several hints when she’s hungry:
Please don’t worry that swaddling might make your baby forget to eat. It may help calm a baby who’s mildly hungry, but it won’t satisfy one who’s famished.
10. My baby often seems jumpy and nervous. Will swaddling help this?
Some babies can sleep through a hurricane, yet others startle every time the phone rings. These babies aren’t nervous; they’re just sensitive. Swaddling helps by muffling their startle reactions and keeping them from upsetting themselves.
11. Is there any risk to putting my baby to sleep wrapped in a blanket?
As mentioned earlier, doctors recommend that babies not sleep with loose bedding, such as pillows, soft toys, etc. Only use a blanket that is securely wrapped around your baby.
12. Shouldn’t we be teaching our children to be free and not bound up?
Freedom is wonderful, but as we all know, with freedom comes responsibility. If a baby can calm herself, she has earned the right to be unwrapped. However, many newborns can’t handle the great big world. They still need a few more months of cozy swaddling to keep from thrashing about uncontrollably.
13. What happens if my baby gets an itch when her arms are swaddled?
Luckily, this is never a problem. Young babies don’t get clear messages from their bodies, so they don’t get an itchy feeling. Babies also have short attention spans. Unlike adults who go wild when they can’t reach an itch, infants never give it a second “thought.” (Besides, they couldn’t really control their bodies well enough to scratch themselves even if they did get an itch.)
Swaddling helps the little one know where she is. Without it she has no sense of where her body ends and the universe begins.
Al, father of Marie-Claire, Esmé, and Didier
The vast majority of new babies stay calmer and sleep longer when they are swaddled. Here are some of their stories:
The day after Marie-Claire was born, she was crying. Not one of those newborn squeals that makes you go, “Ahhhh,” but rather a really powerful bellow. I was shocked that a one-day-old could make such a sound!
Just then Dr. Karp came into our room. He casually walked over to the bassinet, picked our baby up, and wrapped her like a burrito. Then he put her on his lap with her feet toward his belly and her head at his knees and bending his face toward her ears, he made a loud “shhhh” noise. The swaddling and white noise worked together so well that she stopped crying almost instantly.
My husband and I were astonished. It was unlike anything we had ever witnessed. So we learned how to swaddle our baby tight, tight, tight in a receiving blanket, and she was the happiest, most content baby on the planet!
After she was three months old, people would often look askance when we wrapped her, as if we were resorting to barbaric measures. When curious onlookers asked, “Why have you wrapped your baby like that?” we’d proudly answer, “Because it makes her happy.” And, as if on cue, Marie-Claire would smile ear-to-ear, and even the most skeptical person would be won over!
Renée, Al, Marie-Claire, Esmé, and Didier
Sophia had problems nursing when she was born. Our nurse practitioner advised me to use a special device to supplement her feedings. So, I taped this tiny tube to my breast and inserted it into her mouth, along with my nipple.
About that time, when she was three weeks old, she started becoming very fussy. During feedings, she would scream and flail, often accidentally knocking out both my nipple and the tube.
Despite my frustration, I stuck it out until the night before her two-month checkup. That night she was worse than ever. Sophia was thrashing, yanking on the tube, and mangling my nipple. I swore I would never feed her that way again, even if it meant I could no longer breast-feed.
The next day I told Dr. Karp about my struggles feeding Sophia, and he said four words that changed everything: “Don’t forget the swaddling.” We had swaddled Sophia initially but stopped after a few weeks because she fought it so much. However, Dr. Karp encouraged us to give it another go.
That afternoon, I tightly swaddled her and tried her on the breast (without the feeding tube). The most extraordinary thing happened: She breast-fed calmly and with focus. It was as though she never had a problem.
Sophia is now three months old, and feeding has been a breeze for the past month. We swaddle her now only if she has a bad day when she can’t settle herself, and the cozy wrapping always works like a dream.
Colin, Beth, and Sophia
Starting at about one month of age, Jack began getting fussy each evening between six P.M. and midnight. I could comfort him but only by breast-feeding him nonstop.
Jack needed to be nursed to sleep and vehemently refused the pacifier, as if I were trying to swindle him out of his inheritance. Then I discovered the greatest thing (besides breast-feeding) for calming him down: swaddling. He’s not crazy about it while it’s being done, but it settles him down within minutes. At a baby class I showed my friend how tightly we wrap him, and she was shocked when he went from screaming to complete calm right in front of our eyes! I was so proud of myself and of my great little boy.
Kelly, Adam, and Jack
It’s the middle of the night and you want to calm your baby! Can’t remember exactly what to do? Here’s a summary for those times when you want all the “S’s” in one place to help you become the “Best Baby Calmer On The Block.”
As you do the 5 “S’s,” remember these important points:
1) Calming your baby is like dancing with her … but you have to follow her lead. Do the 5 “S’s” vigorously only lessening the intensity after she begins to settle.
2) The 5 “S’s” must be done exactly right for them to work.
The 1st “S” – Swaddling
Don’t worry if your baby’s first reaction to wrapping is to struggle against it. Swaddling may not instantly calm her fussies but it will restrain her uncontrolled flailing so she can pay attention to the next “S” that will turn-on her calming reflex and guide her into sweet serenity!
The 2nd “S” – Side/Stomach
The more upset your baby is, the unhappier she will be on her back. Rolling your infant onto her side or stomach will make her much more serene. Just this simple trick can sometimes activate a baby’s calming reflex … within seconds.
Shushing crying babies magically makes them feel at peace and back home, but you’ve got to do it about as loud as your baby’s crying and close to her ear … or she won’t even notice it. Use this super-effective “S” to keep her calm throughout her fussy period and when she sleeps by using a womb sound CD or a noise machine that can make rough, rumbling sounds.
The 4th “S” – Swinging
Like vigorous shushing, energetic jiggling can turn your baby from screams to sweet serenity in minutes … or less. As you support your baby’s head and neck, wiggle her head with fast, tiny movements, sort of like you’re shivering. Once she’s entranced you can move her swaddled into a swing for continual, hypnotic motion. (Make sure the strap is between your baby’s wrapped legs, the swing is fully reclined, and it’s set on the fastest speed.)
The 5th “S” – Sucking
This last “S” usually works best after you have already led your little one into calmness with the other “S’s.” Offering her your breast, finger, or a pacifier will be the icing on the cake of soothing. You can teach your baby to keep the pacifier in her mouth by using “reverse psychology”—the moment she begins to suck on the pacifier, gently tug on it as if you’re going to take it out. She’ll suck it in harder and soon she’ll learn to keep it in her mouth even when she’s cooing.