snorrason

There’s this guy, Harvey Karp, he’s developed a theory he calls the 5″S’s” to calm newborns, and it works, we use it all the time.

His most poignant point is, that a newborn baby is unadjusted to life outside the womb and that he doesn’t know how to deal with it, therefore he cries a lot as a reflex to these new circumstances. He calls the first 3 months of our lives the 4th Tri-mester and his theory, in short, is to recreate the familiarities of the womb to babies when they’re upset. That’s the 5 “S’s” I wont go int the details but I have to say that this really works (of course if Andri needs to eat, have his diaper changed or is in pain for some reason, that has to be taken care of first, no 5″S” technique is going to fix that.)

But this also made a lot of sense for me as it remindes me of what people in Iceland have been doing for generations to calm newborns down, they swaddle them, put them in a stroller and take the stroller outdoors, either to go for a walk, or just have it stand outdoors. This takes care of at least 3 of the 5″S’s”: Swaddle, Shush and Swing, the other “S’s”, Sideways and Sucking, are often taken care of as well in that process.

But I can highly recommend the book, at Amazon, here:
The Happiest Baby on the Block