{"id":2899,"date":"2008-09-03T09:49:08","date_gmt":"2008-09-03T09:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/09\/03\/baby-soothing-open-thread\/"},"modified":"2008-09-03T09:49:08","modified_gmt":"2008-09-03T09:49:08","slug":"baby-soothing-open-thread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/09\/03\/baby-soothing-open-thread\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Soothing Open Thread"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re taking SteelyKid on her first road trip today, down to Boston to visit Kate&#8217;s parents for a few days. This ought to be interesting, as the drive is approximately as long as her longest naps.<\/p>\n<p>The disruption in her normal routine may or may not lead to an increased need for baby-calming, so this seems like an opportune moment to invite readers to suggest their favorite baby-calming tricks:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>If you have a fussy infant to deal with, what do you do to quiet her down?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;ve got a small repertoire of tricks that usually work:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Gentle Agitation: I hold her against my chest, and bounce her up and down very slightly, at about 2Hz (amplitude of a centimeter or so). This works to calm her if she&#8217;s not too upset.<\/li>\n<li>The Magic Finger: She is not fooled at all by the pacifiers we have, and rejects the inanimate nipple substitute within a few minutes every time. If I stick my pinky finger in her mouth, though, she will happily latch onto that, and suck on it for half an hour or more. This calms her even when she&#8217;s already wailing.<\/li>\n<li>The Air Puff: If she&#8217;s just starting to work up to a cry, and I blow gently in her face, she jerks backward with a &#8220;What the hell was that?&#8221; expression. It stops her from crying, though, and I&#8217;ve used this to keep her quiet for a few minutes at a stretch, long enough to find a clean diaper or a new box of wipes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure there are other tricks that I haven&#8217;t stumbled across, though, so leave your favorites in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re taking SteelyKid on her first road trip today, down to Boston to visit Kate&#8217;s parents for a few days. This ought to be interesting, as the drive is approximately as long as her longest naps. The disruption in her normal routine may or may not lead to an increased need for baby-calming, so this&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/09\/03\/baby-soothing-open-thread\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Baby Soothing Open Thread<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-steelykid","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}