I can’t say that I’m an authority on babies – but I can that I really liked Harvey Karp’s book “The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying And Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer.”
Why?
Mainly because of the approach Karp takes in looking at colicky babies (i.e. babies who cry more then 3 hours for 3 days straight). Instead of just looking at ‘modern’ medical research, Karp goes out side of the USA and Western culture to see if other cultures have the same problems – to his surprise, most cultures outside the West do NOT have colicky babies.
From there, Karp start’s asking why: What is so different about the cultures in South America or Africa that keep babies from developing colic?
His answer: The fourth Trimester.
In other cultures, a newborn baby is wrapped up – or swaddled – and held pretty much 24-7 for the next three months. This constant interaction between the baby and their mother (and aunts – as usually the baby is passed from one tribe member to another to help relieve the tension of trying to everything solo) helps to re-create a womb-like atmosphere – which in turn helps the baby relax while it adapts to the new world around them. It’s actually pretty easy to get your hands on products like slings if you want to take the same approach with your own baby, just look at Shoppok for example, which has plenty of baby products that are second hand, so you even save a bit of money.
Rest assure that Karp doesn’t just relive on research about other cultures – he also looks at modern, Western research – like the fact that colicky babies start at two week of age and end after they turn three months old. Even preemies follow this trend, developing colic two weeks after their due date (noting, of course, that not all babies develop colic…).
Currently most Western doctors like colic is caused by gas or other internal problems – however, none of their theories explain why it starts at two week and ends at three months – nor why non-Western culture babies don’t develop coli. Whether right or wrong, at least Dr. Karp theory provides a solid answer to all the factors…
The book also features a section that mentions sleep regression ages. In case you were not already aware, sleep regression is a period of time, usually about two to four weeks, when a baby who has otherwise been sleeping well suddenly has trouble settling down for sleep or wakes up in the middle of the night. You can learn more about this phenomenon by doing some research into sleep regression ages online.
Another cool thing about the book “The Happiest Baby on the Block” is that it teaches you how to calm your baby in five easy steps – which, while they are not new steps, Karp shows how they all work together in unison to calm the child – leave a step out, or do it wrong and the solution will not work. 😛
- Swaddling – Wrap that baby up tight so that their arms won’t flail around like a cloth in the wind.
- Side or Stomach – Babies like to have pressure on their stomach as it helps them feel secure.
- Shhhhh – White noise. Your baby is used to the loud beat of their mother’s heart, so hearing some white noise helps calm them. Trick: increase the level of sound to match the babies cries
- Swinging – No secret here… movement helps to re-create the womb as the baby is used movement. Notice the rise of baby slings in the West?
- Sucking – Babies like to suck. This is the icing on the cake after all the other items have been done in order.
Oh – one last item before I end this review.
There was one thing that I didn’t not like about Harvey Karp’s book – his content talk about the evolution of humans and babies. For him, each of the five S’s had an evolutionary reason dating back to the days when humans where nothing more then apes.
As such, just remember to skim past those parts and focus on the good parts of book – which, I’m happy to say, is most of the book. 🙂