Time-Tested Baby Calmers Checklist
A majority of parents can agree that calming a baby can be quite a task. You’ve tried everything you can think of to get them to take an afternoon nap, go to bed for the evening, or just make them feel more comfortable when they might be sick. If you feel you’ve run out of ideas in your own playbook, here are some more time-tested baby calmers to help you and your baby.
Getting out of the house:
- Car rides
- Pushing baby in a carriage
- Taking a walk
Using sound techniques:
- Metronome
- Music, tapes of womb sounds, heartbeats
- Tape recordings of baby’s own cries
- Tape of environmental sounds
- Echo baby’s cries
- Tick-tock of clock or pendulum swing of grandfather clock
- Singing lullabies
- Vibrating, humming gadgets wrapped in diaper or blanket
- Running water
- Ceiling fan; bathroom fan
- Sounds of vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, washer-dryer, air conditioner
Keep moving:
- Dancing with baby
- Swinging baby
- Bouncing on a trampoline
- Nursing while walking with baby
- Watching parent on exercise machine
- Draping baby over a beach ball
Keeping close contact:
- Wearing baby in a sling
- Infant massage
- Warm fuzzy
- Neck nestle
- Nestle nursing
- A warm bath together
- Colic carries (Read more on colic)
- Comfort sucking: nursing, pacifiers, sucking on the move
Creating the most peaceful home environment:
- Fire in fireplace
- Eliminating bothersome foods from mother’s diet if breastfeeding, or changing formula
- Slowing down mother’s lifestyle and changing her expectations
Concentration and distraction techniques:
- Show baby your “silly face”
- Magic mirror
- Gazing at traffic
Here is some additional reading material on ways to sooth a fussy baby and ways to get your baby to sleep and stay asleep.
Dr. Sears, or Dr. Bill as his “little patients” call him, has been advising busy parents on how to raise healthier families for over 40 years. He received his medical training at Harvard Medical School’s Children’s Hospital in Boston and The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, the world’s largest children’s hospital, where he was associate ward chief of the newborn intensive care unit before serving as the chief of pediatrics at Toronto Western Hospital, a teaching hospital of the University of Toronto. He has served as a professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto, University of South Carolina, University of Southern California School of Medicine, and University of California: Irvine. As a father of 8 children, he coached Little League sports for 20 years, and together with his wife Martha has written more than 40 best-selling books and countless articles on nutrition, parenting, and healthy aging. He serves as a health consultant for magazines, TV, radio and other media, and his AskDrSears.com website is one of the most popular health and parenting sites. Dr. Sears has appeared on over 100 television programs, including 20/20, Good Morning America, Oprah, Today, The View, and Dr. Phil, and was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine in May 2012. He is noted for his science-made-simple-and-fun approach to family health.