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Dugger’s eyes opened wide when he saw how I handled his baby girl, Bobbie. The moment Bobbie cried, I placed her cheek in my palm and rolled her small body onto my sleeve, resting her chest and stomach against my forearm—Bobbie calmed in mid-scream! Then I jiggled her up and down like I was the most nervous person on the planet and she was asleep within two minutes.
Dugger later told me, “Football was my favorite sport when I was a boy, and I carried the ball as if it were a treasure. But I never would have felt okay handling Bobbie like that if I hadn’t seen you do it first. Now I carry Bobbie like a football every day and I can usually make her fall right asleep.”
In real estate, the most important rule is: location, location, location. In baby calming it’s position, position, position!
There’s no question that fussy newborns are easier to calm when they’re lying on their side or stomach. Many babies are happy to lie on their backs when they’re in a good mood, but it’s a tough position to calm them in when they get cranky. Other babies feel insecure on their backs even when they’re not fussy. These irritable infants often quiet as soon as they’re put on their sides or have their tummies draped over their parent’s shoulder or forearm.
The side and stomach positions work so well because:
They trigger the calming reflex by imitating your baby’s position in the uterus. Before birth, your fetus was never flat on his back. He spent most of his time on his side in the fetal position—head down, spine rounded, knees pressed against his belly. Over millions of years this position became a potent trigger for the calming reflex, keeping fetuses serene so they didn’t accidentally move into a bad position or kink their umbilical cords.
Once out of the womb, bending your baby’s neck down a bit, touching his stomach, and laying him on his side activate position sensors inside his head that trigger the calming reflex. Specialists in the care of premature infants place them flexed and on their sides as soon as these tiny newborns are healthy enough to be handled. (Even many adults find coiling up into the fetal position comforting.)
“Tummy touching” might also turn on calming as a reflex left over from our ape ancestors. For millions of years it has been crucial for ape babies to stay still when they were tummy-to-tummy, clutching their mama’s fur. It’s possible that those animals who were soothed by the sensation of tummy touching thrashed less, fell less, and therefore survived and passed their genes along to their own babies.
The side and stomach positions keep your baby from accidentally setting off his Moro (falling) reflex. Cuddling a fussy baby on his back is a little like calming and pinching him at the same time! The holding part feels great, but lying on the back can make some young infants feel insecure. In that position, any twitch or cry can trigger the brain’s position sensors and unleash the Moro reflex, making your baby shriek and fling his arms out as if he’s being dropped out of a tree.
On the other hand, putting your baby on his side or stomach makes the position sensors in his head send out a message that says, “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine!” (Once your baby’s Moro has been turned on, it may take his brain a minute or two after he’s rolled onto his side or stomach for an all-clear message to be recognized and the calming reflex turned on.) Some infants are so sensitive to position that just rolling them from their sides slightly over toward their stomachs calms them, and rolling them a tiny bit from their sides toward their backs makes them panic.
The side and stomach are the best positions for calming unhappy babies. They’re as soothing as cookies and warm milk for them. However, all experts agree that after babies are calmed and they are put to bed, they should only sleep on their backs.
In 1992, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that babies never sleep on their stomachs. Research showed that infants who were put down in that position had an increased risk of dying from crib death, or what’s known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). In a giant victory for families, we were able to lower the death rate from SIDS from six thousand babies a year to three thousand five hundred, just by keeping sleeping babies off their stomachs.
In March 2000, the AAP issued its latest advice on protecting babies from SIDS. They stated that SIDS was rare under one month of age, peaking between two and four months. They also noted that babies with the highest risk of SIDS were those who slept on their stomachs, slept on a soft substance, had moms who smoked, were overheated, had no prenatal care, had teenage mothers, or were born prematurely. They went on to recommend that babies always be put to sleep on their backs and said that side-sleeping was not recommended because it was also associated with a higher risk of SIDS (probably due to babies accidentally rolling onto their stomachs during sleep).
Furthermore, to prevent SIDS, the AAP recommends that you don’t smoke during pregnancy and eliminate all smoking from your house; don’t take alcohol or sedative drugs, especially when you bed-share; never sleep with your baby on a sofa or waterbed; keep soft objects out of his bed (toys, pillows, sheepskins, loose blankets, comforters); and don’t let your baby get hot and sweaty to the touch.
Among the Inuit (Alaskan natives), a very deep hood is used as a baby bag and serves as an extension of the womb. The newborn lives in a heated climate, completely buried inside the mother’s clothing, and curled up like a half-moon.
Béatrice Fontanel and Claire d’Harcourt, Babies Celebrated
In most traditional cultures around the world, babies hang out—literally. Their mothers, sisters, aunts, and neighbors carry them in baskets and sheets on their fronts, backs, hips, and shoulders for up to twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Few parents across the globe place their infants on their backs, but when they do, they usually put them on a curved surface, not a flat one. The arc of a small blanket suspended from a tree or tripod puts a baby back into the familiar and reassuring rounded fetal position, which allows him to sleep more restfully.
Even when women in different cultures take their infants out of their arms, they hang them over their laps or chests, which allows their babies’ soft tummies to remain in constant contact with their mother’s warm, comforting skin.
Here’s how you can treat your baby to the calming pleasure of being on his side or stomach. First, wrap your baby in a cozy swaddle, then try one of these positions used by countless experienced parents:
This hold is my favorite for carrying a crying baby while I’m walking or bouncing him into tranquillity. It’s easy and comfortable to do, and it supports his head and neck perfectly.
1. Sit down and lay your baby on your lap; have him on his right side with his head on your knees and his feet on your left hip.
2. Slide your left hand between your knee and his cheek so you support his head (or head and neck) in your palm and outstretched fingers.
3. Roll him onto your left forearm so his stomach rests against your arm and bring him in to your body, lightly pressing his back against your chest.
In this position, your thumb will be right next to his face and you can even let him take it into his mouth for added pleasure. (Always wash your hands first.)
Fathers love the football hold. This stomach-down position requires a little extra arm strength, but it’s fun and effective. In fact, silencing babies, mid-squawk, with the football hold is one of the greatest baby “magic tricks” of all time.
1. Sit your swaddled baby on your lap, face him to your left, and place your left hand under his chin, supporting it like a chin strap.
2. Gently lean him forward and roll his hips over so his stomach is lying on your left forearm. His head rests in your palm, his chest and stomach are snugly cushioned against your forearm, and his legs are straddled over your arm, hanging limp.
Hoisting your fussy baby up onto your shoulder can have a powerful, soothing effect. Often, simply lifting your baby into an upright position gets him to open his eyes and perk up.
When your baby is upright you can also let the weight of his body press his stomach against your shoulder to provide him with some extra tummy touching, making this hold doubly comforting. Be sure to swaddle your baby before you put him over your shoulder. It will help him stay asleep when you move him off your shoulder to his bassinet.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of calming baby holds. You can also try the cannonball position, where your baby is curled in a ball, knee to chest, across your lap, or the hot-water-bottle position, with your baby draped over a warm hot-water bottle so the heat and pressure are against his stomach. (Remember, don’t let him sleep on his stomach.) Have fun discovering the position that makes your baby the happiest.
The Whys About the “S’s”: Questions Parents Ask About the Side/Stomach Position
1. Where should I put my baby’s hands when he’s on his side?
Your baby’s arms should be placed straight along his body. Even with the tightest wrap, there’s enough wiggle room to allow your baby to move his bottom arm a little bit forward to get into a comfortable position.
2. Can a baby’s arm ever go to sleep when he’s lying on his side?
No. Arms only fall asleep when there’s firm pressure on the part of the elbow called the funny bone. That’s why it happens when you snooze on a hard desk using your arm as a pillow. Since the arms of a swaddled baby move a little bit forward once wrapped, there’s never enough pressure on the arm to cause it to fall asleep.
3. If babies miss the womb sensations, wouldn’t it make sense to position them upside-down?
Well, that’s an interesting thought, but the answer is no. You might think babies who have spent months upside-down would like this position, but the womb is filled with fluid so the fetus actually floats almost weightlessly inside. Once outside of the uterus, the buoyancy is gone, and an upside-down baby would develop uncomfortable pressure as blood pools in his head.
These fussy babies were “be-side” themselves with joy when their parents put them in these feel-good positions:
Dina was confused. At the hospital, she was told to let Noah sleep on his back, but when her mom came to visit she told her the opposite. “We argued about the best position for my six-week-old baby to sleep in. He had a really hard time settling himself when he was flat on his back. I had to pat him for fifteen to twenty minutes until he finally drifted off, and even then he’d still wake up every three hours.
“My mom said I should let him sleep on his stomach. While he did sleep more soundly in that position, I was terrified of doing anything that might increase his risk of SIDS.
“I asked Dr. Karp his opinion. He showed me how to wrap Noah tightly and put him down to sleep on his back. I was thrilled because it worked as well as my mother’s stomach-down position, but was much safer.”
Alfre said that when she was growing up she learned an easy way to calm babies, which the women in her family had passed down from generation to generation. It was called the “Big Mama” technique.
The way it worked was to sit down with a pillow on your lap and place the screaming baby stomach-down on top of it. Then you start bouncing the heels of your feet up and down (hard), patting the baby on the bottom (hard), and singing a lullaby right in the baby’s ear.
Once the sun went down, two-month-old Ruby began her nightly twist-and-fuss routine. Her parents, Steve and Sarah, worried she was suffering from stomach pain, until they discovered that Ruby would promptly fall asleep if they placed her over their shoulder with her stomach pressing firmly against them as they marched around the backyard, jiggling her body with every step.