Employing the Happiest Baby on the Block Technique
Over the course of the pregnancy we received lots of recommendations of good books and various other pregnancy/newborn-related gear to check out. (And also a fair amount of items to avoid.) One recommendation that came up time and again was The Happiest Baby on the Block DVD.
Basically the Happiest Baby on the Block DVD is by this guy Dr. Harvey Karp and it teaches his technique for calming fussy babies. When you watch the DVD, it almost looks fake – Harvey takes a crying baby, swaddles it, flips it on its side, shushes in its ear and rocks a bit … and the baby instantly calms down and falls into a stupor.
We first watched the DVD before Maile was born and Chris and I got a good chuckle out of it. If it wasn’t for some close friends that swore by it, we probably would have tossed it and moved on.
So does it work?
The answer, at least for us, is sometimes. I’d say 6 out of 10 times the techniques help us take Maile from nuclear meltdown/hyperventilating/how-in-the-world-does-this-little-thing-scream-so-loud to a general unhappiness. 2 of those 6 times, she calms down completely and it makes you feel like you’re the best parent in the world.
(We’ve added to the technique based on input from our friend, Jon B. – instead of jiggling her, we bounce on one of those big bouncy exercise ball things. Works great!)
Bottomline: the video makes it seem like it will work every time. It won’t, but its a good tool for the toolkit and we definitely use bits and pieces as we go along through the day.
(NOTE: There is both a book and DVD by Dr. Harvey Karp – you want the DVD – this is definitely a technique, you want to see vs. read about.)
