13 ms·

How to Calm a Crying Baby Like a Mesopotamian

175 points by diodorus 7y ago

UnFleshedOne 7y ago
"Along with songs, the text suggests parents rub dust from a significant street, doorway, or even a grave—perhaps representing an ominous, ultimate silence—on a wailing baby."
- ToshioSaeki 7y ago
  Ah! Nice from you to mention dust from a grave.... As some other commenter in this thread mentioned "swinging back and forth" And this is about children.... We have all the ingredients for a spooking horrifying japanese horror movie, the best of his kind When Toshio swings the guy.... The name of this movie is Ju-On, The Grudge But Toshio first apparition is in the movie 4444444444 https://ju-on-the-grudge.fandom.com/wiki/Toshio_Saeki https://ju-on-the-grudge.fandom.com/wiki/Toshio_Saeki
DoreenMichele 7y ago
If you have a crying baby, check the diaper and check if they are hungry. Then calm yourself. You want your heartbeat and breathing to be slow, steady, calming and reassuring while you hold them and walk the floor with them. Have a routine. Always hold them the same way so it becomes part of the signal. Etc. Never spend more than 15 minutes trying to get them to sleep. If they won't go to sleep in that time, go play with them. They probably aren't mentally tired yet. Try again to feed them, check the diaper, see if they are too warm, too cold, etc. Then try again to get them to sleep. If it's a chronic issue, start a journal and see if you can find a pattern. They may be allergic to a particular juice they are getting. They may need a different formula because the one they are on is causing tummy aches. Etc.
- philshem 7y ago
  Self-promotion[0], but as a physicist dad, I never found the pattern: > Unfortunately, while physics problems have solutions that are constant, baby-related problems have solutions that are random and change from day to day. What had worked yesterday will not work today. Maybe it will work tomorrow. This is the gist of the Baby Universe. [0] https://medium.com/@philshem/life-in-the-baby-universe-f52561c4a8ae https://medium.com/@philshem/life-in-the-baby-universe-f5256...
  - girzel 7y ago
    I'm finding this to be the case as well. You're trying to detect complex patterns that can take a good week to suss out and influence, and yet which are changing on approximately that same timeframe. You're continually behind the bus.
    - stevekemp 7y ago
      And you'll find that the same "thing" will succeed/fail depending on the parent. The way our child behaves/reacts with me is very different to how he is with his mother. For example when our child won't sleep at nap-time, or in the evening, I put him in a pram and take him for a walk around the block. It's a horrid solution, but it works about 90% of the time. When my wife has tried this it has never. once. worked. (He plays differently with the pair of us, and tries different behaviour. It is kinda fascinating to see the difference - part of that is our relative strictness, but part of it is him I think.)
      - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
        Re the pram not working for your wife, the speed can make the frequency of bumps different. Some people can think "trying to be calm and make no noise" and really that doesn't matter so much for babies IME. So perhaps one of you was too gentle? My wife always had problems with nap time when they're a bit older 1½-2. But for me it was a process, starting at lunch, moving through story time, then I'd maybe sing or hum snuggled next to them on the bed. She'd do lunch, then play, then read a story in a really animated way, then try and put them down for a nap and wonder why it wasn't working. A sling is good, ambulatory frequency, close to heart, they feel your breathing, are warm but heat is regulated by the parents body too.
        stevekemp 7y ago
        For walking I'd say we're both average, but who knows it could be a minor difference like that. As for slings I ruled them out early on - Finnish winters mean that babies, children and parents all need to be pretty warmly wrapped up. That made slings way, way too bulky and impractical.
- deleted 7y ago
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- semi-extrinsic 7y ago
  > They may be allergic to a particular juice they are getting. I'll just say it: don't give your baby juice. It's bad for just about everything, and good for basically nothing. Babies should be breastfed, or given formula, and then gradually introduced to solid foods like oatmeal, mashed bananas/apples as they grow older. Once they're toddlers and done with breastfeeding/formula, give them water to drink. Anything else is just a net negative.
  - dpark 7y ago
    Agreed. The only times juice is appropriate for a baby is if they are at risk of dehydration (at which point give them anything they’ll drink) or if they’re constipated (the sugar in juice can stimulate the digestive system). In general juice isn’t particularly healthy for anyone. It’s sugar water.
- gscott 7y ago
  Plus sometimes if you have checked all of the essentials then let your baby cry for a bit.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I think I did that exactly once to let him know he wasn't actually emperor of the universe (cuz: Reasons). In my extended family, "just let the baby cry" is simply not standard policy. When one relative was told the baby had colic and "just let the baby cry," the parents changed the baby's formula. The so-called colic went away. The baby stopped crying all the time.
    - azeotropic 7y ago
      Colic is a symptom, not a disease. It just means the baby is crying a lot and nobody knows why. Food allergies are one potential cause of colic. So is an immature digestive system (in particular, it takes a little while for the gut to get colonized by the normal flora that aid in digestion). The colic might have resolved because the baby was allergic to the old formula, or because after a while new gut flora finally allowed them to digest things properly, or they grew and gas pains were no longer as big a deal (babies grow really fast!).
      - DoreenMichele 7y ago
        The baby was born early. The mom did some research and found a more easily digested formula specifically designed for babies with digestive issues. (Colic...) just means the baby is crying a lot and nobody knows why. I would add that it means "and we don't care and we feel like doing nothing for a crying baby is fine once we've labeled it." It's a practice I wish would go die in a fire somewhere because babies labeled as "colicky" are routinely allowed to wail for an hour or more while no one makes any effort whatsoever to comfort them.
        azeotropic 7y ago
        I'm glad they were able to sort it out so quickly. I don't think it's so much that doctors don't care as that most cases spontaneously resolve faster than any person can systematically figure them out. There's a psychological benefit to the parents -- they're often pretty stressed out and feeling like they're the problem. Putting on a white coat and a serious face while diagnosing the problem as intrinsic to the infant relieves the parents of the burden of thinking they're bad at their new permanent job, and probably helps bolster their waning ability to handle trying to comfort a crying infant without snapping and harming the baby or themselves. I don't think the idea is to leave the baby to wail as much as it is to get the parents to stop taking the wailing personally. Like most of the paternalistic little white lies doctors deploy, it's not usually the appropriate treatment for patients who know better. Sadly some doctors never learn to distinguish these little psychological tricks (which are an important part of the medical art) from real knowledge about human biology. If they frustrate rather than comfort you, and your doctor can't or won't be straight with you, it's time to find a new one.
- munificent 7y ago
  > Then calm yourself. Easier said than done when an infant is wailing into your face! Advice like this is good, and well-intentioned. But I know that when I had babies, the last thing I wanted was advice that made it seem like there was a simple process to make any baby happy and that if I couldn't make it work I must be doing something wrong. Your diagnostic is pretty good. With mine, the main three things I checked where diaper?, hungry?, tired?, in that order. Eventually, I could usually tell which it was by the sound of the crying. But sometimes babies just cry. That's OK too and doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. Kids are little entropy generators — they will bring chaos into your life and no amount of advice will neutralize all of it.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Easier said than done when an infant is wailing into your face! Once I saw with my own eyes what a powerful positive effect this had on my baby, it got lots easier to just take a minute to calm myself down as the first step of the process. It only failed in cases where I was breastfeeding and had eaten a thing that was bothering my baby, baby had been fed juice they were allergic to because we were out and about and ran out of formula and I bought what seemed like the least worst thing for them or similar circumstances. The adult heart is so much larger than the baby's heart that it literally helps set the tempo for the baby, like a drum beat coordinating a group effort. And I have health problems, I'm anxiety prone, etc etc etc. This was an empowering experience. I don't need to manipulate my baby or sing a lullaby, etc. I just need to be calm myself and, if there aren't hidden problems, this will help baby calm down and go to sleep. My sister's baby had serious sleep issues. I visited for a month to serve as the nanny. This had such a big positive impact, they rearranged furniture to support the routine I established for the baby. The baby still had sleep issues, but it was a vast improvement over things before the month I spent caring for the infant. I was just really good with babies in my youth.
  - amluto 7y ago
    Sometimes, a good pair of earplugs is helpful.
  - js2 7y ago
    Easier said than done when an infant is wailing into your face Our daughter's crying never bothered me and I could always calm her. Our son's crying shattered my brain and I'd often have to hand him off to his mom.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  Checking a diaper and figuring out if they are hungry is a good first step (and I would add burping the baby a bit, and making sure their nose isn’t stuffed up), but the rest of this advice is a bit misdirected in my opinion, and ignores the most effective actionable things parents can do to shush a crying baby. Namely, what pediatrician Harvey Karp calls the “5 S’s” of (1) swaddling the baby, (2) holding the baby on their side/stomach, (3) loudly shushing in the baby’s ear, (4) swinging the baby back and forth, (5) giving the baby something to suck on. Go find Dr. Karp’s “happiest baby” video or other videos of people performing these steps, as text posts don’t really convey the idea fully. These techniques are extremely effective on the vast majority of babies (usually just shushing and swinging is enough for my current newborn), but many new parents don’t know about them or do them improperly. In particular, shushing needs to be a very loud constant white noise, and the rocking/jiggling/swinging of the baby should be a bit more vigorous than new parents might naturally do.
  - opless 7y ago
    #4, and #5 for sure. My niece was upset due to just being fed and her stomach having the usual baby issues, a bit of jiggling on my lap with my little finger to suck on calmed her right down as mum was having a bit of a meltdown due to lack of sleep, and baby being super demanding. Niece was asleep in no time due to being handled confidently and noticing what was working and what wasn't. One size most certainly doesn't fit all.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - ZumbidoPalmares 7y ago
      What would you recommend as number 5?
      - opless 7y ago
        Some babies like their pacifiers/dummies, some like a clean little finger for #5 Sorry for the late response ... Notifications don't seem to be a thing on this site.
- mncharity 7y ago
  When breast feeding, maternal diet can strongly influence digestive distress. Mom eats the wrong thing, and the baby becomes unhappy. Years back, a friend was very disciplined about starting small, incrementally expanding her diet, and using backtracking and search to fix regressions. Now amidst the flood of new parent mail, was a brochure of easy recipes for new moms. She was bemused that she couldn't use a single recipe in it, as they all had ingredients she'd recorded as distressing her infant. The brochure was from Nestle. (EDIT: maker of baby formula, variously amoral)
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Thank you. That was one of the biggest epiphanies for me as a new parent. It had never occurred to me that what I ate would impact the baby that way. I had physics and chemistry and advanced math in high school, but was completely shocked as a new parent in my early twenties to learn that I would bleed for up to six weeks post partum and a zillion other things. I still think better parenting info is desperately needed in this world. It's shocking what we don't cover that has such tremendous long term impact on human life.
    - mncharity 7y ago
      > high school [...] shocking what we don't cover Financial planning is suggested as another one. But even with subjects "covered"... Chemistry education research describes pre-college chemistry education content using adjectives like "incoherent". First-tier med school grad students with no idea how big cells are. First-tier astronomy grad students getting the color of the Sun wrong. I don't think we fully appreciate quite how pervasively we're doing poorly. Or the magnitude of potential improvement we're neglecting to pursue. But AR is coming, providing yet another opportunity for disruption. Modulo patents. :/
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        > First-tier med school grad students with no idea how big cells are. First-tier astronomy grad students getting the color of the Sun wrong. Is this an actual thing?
- deleted 7y ago
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- ryannevius 7y ago
  > Then calm yourself. > Never spend more than 15 minutes trying to get them to sleep. This is a great opportunity to do some mindfulness meditation – which can help with the calmness issue. I wish I would have known that when I was raising a newborn.
- z3t4 7y ago
  Baby assembly language, instruction set: neh = hungry (give food) aww = tired (put to sleep) eii = unconformable (change diaper) aii = gripes (gases, need to burp)
  - kiliantics 7y ago
    There is apparently research which shows the crying has a different tone depending on the baby's issue and it is indeed hardwired and common across all infants
- Angostura 7y ago
  Unless it’s colic, in which case be prepared to hold your squirming, squealing infant for about 4 hours every evening for several weeks
- glaberficken 7y ago
  Also, babies get numb limbs from not being able to move in the bed/crib. Hence why holding them from a bit and changing their position might help.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Good advice. Although calming myself and slowing my heartbeat is difficult and impractical if I just drank coffee.
  - madez 7y ago
    Coffee also makes the milk taste bad. Caring for an infant is a stressful and unforgiving task that requires mental stability, so I'd recommend to avoid coffee completely while caring for a baby.
    - Fnoord 7y ago
      While good advice to a breastfeeding mother you're assuming a few things here: age of baby, that I'm breastfeeding, that I'm the mother. Perhaps the baby does not get breastfed (anymore). Perhaps I'm not the mother.
      - madez 7y ago
        Sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way. I didn't mean to specifically target any person with what I wrote. I was rather well aware that what I wrote is visible to the public, and I tried to word it to address any reader.
        Fnoord 7y ago
        No offense taken. You didn't rub me the wrong way, I just wanted to clarify that part, including for a reader.
- tootie 7y ago
  Keeping yourself calm is so huge. We realized with our second kid. We were so nervous with our first and did all the tricks and yelled at each other about doing them wrong or forgetting whatever accessories we needed. Babies sense the tension and amplify it. We were so chill with the second kid and he slept well very quickly without the bag of tricks because we were always calm even when he was screaming.
ConfusedDog 7y ago
I thought it's gonna be some cruel recommendation like threaten the baby... it turns out just threaten the parents to take care of babies. That's a relief.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
weinzierl 7y ago
> Along with songs, the text suggests parents rub dust from a significant street, doorway, or even a grave—perhaps representing an ominous, ultimate silence—on a wailing baby. [...] > Scholars believe these words likely originated in folk poetry that had been transmitted orally for years before being written down sometime between 500 and 300 B.C. So the sandman myth is not Northern European folklore after all but originated more than 2500 years ago in the Middle East.
- imgabe 7y ago
  If nothing else the baby might stop crying momentarily while it's confused about what you're rubbing on it.
  - autoexec 7y ago
    Rubbing street dirt on babies should also improve their immune system so they won't get sick as often.
    - azeotropic 7y ago
      I'd imagine you're merely trading sick now for sick later.
      - autoexec 7y ago
        Nah, dirt won't make them really sick, but it will expose them to all kinds of bacteria which studies have shown could help prevent asthma, allergies, and other problems down the road if you expose them while they are young. I wouldn't recommend exposing a kid to every cold and disease you can just trying to get them sick, but playing in dirt seems to have benefits that spare them from reoccurring problems later.
        azeotropic 7y ago
        If you're talking about first world street dirt I agree. If you're talking about ancient Mesopotamian city street dirt, I think you're asking for norovirus, dysentery, cholera, etc. Yes they had sewers and even pipes, but stormwater and sanitary sewers weren't separate and often relied on open ditches.
senorsmile 7y ago
As a wannabe Assyriologist, I was really hoping there'd be an actual line by line translation; or better yet, a link to one of the online cuneiform sites offered the cuneiform, transliteration and translation.
- microtherion 7y ago
  Probably something along the lines of: Hush, little baby, don't cry a storm Daddy's gonna read you a cuneiform And if that cuneiform should crack Daddy's gonna buy you a ziggurat…
- mcguire 7y ago
  May not be the same text, but ETCSL has "A lullaby for a son of Šulgi (Šulgi N)": http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.4.2.14&display=Crit&charenc=gcirc# http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.4.2.... http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.4.2.14# http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.4.2....
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hutzlibu 7y ago
Beeing a fresh new father myself ... so far beeing calm yourself worked amazing. And even though they are so tiny and breakable ... just hold them and relax and breath slowly, then the baby will relax along your heartbeat (so that the mother can have a shower). But who knows, in a few days we might also try the mesopotamian spell ...
karussell 7y ago
I was curious if monkey babies also cry (I really thought they don't due to deadly consequences) but found this: https://www.livescience.com/7778-crying-baby-monkeys-nerves.html https://www.livescience.com/7778-crying-baby-monkeys-nerves.... There is an interesting quote: > mothers appear to pay attention to who's around when their young cry. Semple's team observed that when dominant bystanders were nearby, mothers acquiesced to their babies' demands about twice as often as when they were alone or in the company of close relatives, which are more forgiving of tantrums. > The study shows for the first time that, much like people, monkeys are aware of the social consequences of not only their own actions, but those of their babies, too.
icxa 7y ago
Your baby's first ~3 months is basically the "4th trimester" but just outside the womb. It basically explains why things like swaddling work so well for their sleep at this age, and why shush sounds work (because it supposedly mimics how the baby hears the mother breathing inside the womb of the mother). Also counter-intuitively to a new parent, why perfect stillness didn't really matter for her sleep and actually a little movement ended up being better. Invest in a good rocking chair is probably the best advice I can give any parent! Don't cheap out here, you are going to be spending a lot of time in it!
- Roedou 7y ago
  The book "Happiest Baby on the Block" goes into a lot of detail about this. I've not read it, but watched the ~10 minute video that accompanied it. It was possibly the most useful 10 minutes of new-parent advice we could have gotten. Definitely try to find that book; highly recommended.

175 points by diodorus 7y ago

"Along with songs, the text suggests parents rub dust from a significant street, doorway, or even a grave—perhaps representing an ominous, ultimate silence—on a wailing baby."

ToshioSaeki 7y ago
Ah! Nice from you to mention dust from a grave.... As some other commenter in this thread mentioned "swinging back and forth" And this is about children.... We have all the ingredients for a spooking horrifying japanese horror movie, the best of his kind When Toshio swings the guy.... The name of this movie is Ju-On, The Grudge But Toshio first apparition is in the movie 4444444444 https://ju-on-the-grudge.fandom.com/wiki/Toshio_Saeki https://ju-on-the-grudge.fandom.com/wiki/Toshio_Saeki

DoreenMichele 7y ago

If you have a crying baby, check the diaper and check if they are hungry. Then calm yourself. You want your heartbeat and breathing to be slow, steady, calming and reassuring while you hold them and walk the floor with them. Have a routine. Always hold them the same way so it becomes part of the signal. Etc. Never spend more than 15 minutes trying to get them to sleep. If they won't go to sleep in that time, go play with them. They probably aren't mentally tired yet. Try again to feed them, check the diaper, see if they are too warm, too cold, etc. Then try again to get them to sleep. If it's a chronic issue, start a journal and see if you can find a pattern. They may be allergic to a particular juice they are getting. They may need a different formula because the one they are on is causing tummy aches. Etc.

philshem 7y ago
Self-promotion[0], but as a physicist dad, I never found the pattern: > Unfortunately, while physics problems have solutions that are constant, baby-related problems have solutions that are random and change from day to day. What had worked yesterday will not work today. Maybe it will work tomorrow. This is the gist of the Baby Universe. [0] https://medium.com/@philshem/life-in-the-baby-universe-f52561c4a8ae https://medium.com/@philshem/life-in-the-baby-universe-f5256...
- girzel 7y ago
  I'm finding this to be the case as well. You're trying to detect complex patterns that can take a good week to suss out and influence, and yet which are changing on approximately that same timeframe. You're continually behind the bus.
  - stevekemp 7y ago
    And you'll find that the same "thing" will succeed/fail depending on the parent. The way our child behaves/reacts with me is very different to how he is with his mother. For example when our child won't sleep at nap-time, or in the evening, I put him in a pram and take him for a walk around the block. It's a horrid solution, but it works about 90% of the time. When my wife has tried this it has never. once. worked. (He plays differently with the pair of us, and tries different behaviour. It is kinda fascinating to see the difference - part of that is our relative strictness, but part of it is him I think.)
    - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      Re the pram not working for your wife, the speed can make the frequency of bumps different. Some people can think "trying to be calm and make no noise" and really that doesn't matter so much for babies IME. So perhaps one of you was too gentle? My wife always had problems with nap time when they're a bit older 1½-2. But for me it was a process, starting at lunch, moving through story time, then I'd maybe sing or hum snuggled next to them on the bed. She'd do lunch, then play, then read a story in a really animated way, then try and put them down for a nap and wonder why it wasn't working. A sling is good, ambulatory frequency, close to heart, they feel your breathing, are warm but heat is regulated by the parents body too.
      - stevekemp 7y ago
        For walking I'd say we're both average, but who knows it could be a minor difference like that. As for slings I ruled them out early on - Finnish winters mean that babies, children and parents all need to be pretty warmly wrapped up. That made slings way, way too bulky and impractical.
deleted 7y ago
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semi-extrinsic 7y ago
> They may be allergic to a particular juice they are getting. I'll just say it: don't give your baby juice. It's bad for just about everything, and good for basically nothing. Babies should be breastfed, or given formula, and then gradually introduced to solid foods like oatmeal, mashed bananas/apples as they grow older. Once they're toddlers and done with breastfeeding/formula, give them water to drink. Anything else is just a net negative.
- dpark 7y ago
  Agreed. The only times juice is appropriate for a baby is if they are at risk of dehydration (at which point give them anything they’ll drink) or if they’re constipated (the sugar in juice can stimulate the digestive system). In general juice isn’t particularly healthy for anyone. It’s sugar water.
gscott 7y ago
Plus sometimes if you have checked all of the essentials then let your baby cry for a bit.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I think I did that exactly once to let him know he wasn't actually emperor of the universe (cuz: Reasons). In my extended family, "just let the baby cry" is simply not standard policy. When one relative was told the baby had colic and "just let the baby cry," the parents changed the baby's formula. The so-called colic went away. The baby stopped crying all the time.
  - azeotropic 7y ago
    Colic is a symptom, not a disease. It just means the baby is crying a lot and nobody knows why. Food allergies are one potential cause of colic. So is an immature digestive system (in particular, it takes a little while for the gut to get colonized by the normal flora that aid in digestion). The colic might have resolved because the baby was allergic to the old formula, or because after a while new gut flora finally allowed them to digest things properly, or they grew and gas pains were no longer as big a deal (babies grow really fast!).
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      The baby was born early. The mom did some research and found a more easily digested formula specifically designed for babies with digestive issues. (Colic...) just means the baby is crying a lot and nobody knows why. I would add that it means "and we don't care and we feel like doing nothing for a crying baby is fine once we've labeled it." It's a practice I wish would go die in a fire somewhere because babies labeled as "colicky" are routinely allowed to wail for an hour or more while no one makes any effort whatsoever to comfort them.
      - azeotropic 7y ago
        I'm glad they were able to sort it out so quickly. I don't think it's so much that doctors don't care as that most cases spontaneously resolve faster than any person can systematically figure them out. There's a psychological benefit to the parents -- they're often pretty stressed out and feeling like they're the problem. Putting on a white coat and a serious face while diagnosing the problem as intrinsic to the infant relieves the parents of the burden of thinking they're bad at their new permanent job, and probably helps bolster their waning ability to handle trying to comfort a crying infant without snapping and harming the baby or themselves. I don't think the idea is to leave the baby to wail as much as it is to get the parents to stop taking the wailing personally. Like most of the paternalistic little white lies doctors deploy, it's not usually the appropriate treatment for patients who know better. Sadly some doctors never learn to distinguish these little psychological tricks (which are an important part of the medical art) from real knowledge about human biology. If they frustrate rather than comfort you, and your doctor can't or won't be straight with you, it's time to find a new one.
munificent 7y ago
> Then calm yourself. Easier said than done when an infant is wailing into your face! Advice like this is good, and well-intentioned. But I know that when I had babies, the last thing I wanted was advice that made it seem like there was a simple process to make any baby happy and that if I couldn't make it work I must be doing something wrong. Your diagnostic is pretty good. With mine, the main three things I checked where diaper?, hungry?, tired?, in that order. Eventually, I could usually tell which it was by the sound of the crying. But sometimes babies just cry. That's OK too and doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. Kids are little entropy generators — they will bring chaos into your life and no amount of advice will neutralize all of it.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Easier said than done when an infant is wailing into your face! Once I saw with my own eyes what a powerful positive effect this had on my baby, it got lots easier to just take a minute to calm myself down as the first step of the process. It only failed in cases where I was breastfeeding and had eaten a thing that was bothering my baby, baby had been fed juice they were allergic to because we were out and about and ran out of formula and I bought what seemed like the least worst thing for them or similar circumstances. The adult heart is so much larger than the baby's heart that it literally helps set the tempo for the baby, like a drum beat coordinating a group effort. And I have health problems, I'm anxiety prone, etc etc etc. This was an empowering experience. I don't need to manipulate my baby or sing a lullaby, etc. I just need to be calm myself and, if there aren't hidden problems, this will help baby calm down and go to sleep. My sister's baby had serious sleep issues. I visited for a month to serve as the nanny. This had such a big positive impact, they rearranged furniture to support the routine I established for the baby. The baby still had sleep issues, but it was a vast improvement over things before the month I spent caring for the infant. I was just really good with babies in my youth.
- amluto 7y ago
  Sometimes, a good pair of earplugs is helpful.
- js2 7y ago
  Easier said than done when an infant is wailing into your face Our daughter's crying never bothered me and I could always calm her. Our son's crying shattered my brain and I'd often have to hand him off to his mom.
jacobolus 7y ago
Checking a diaper and figuring out if they are hungry is a good first step (and I would add burping the baby a bit, and making sure their nose isn’t stuffed up), but the rest of this advice is a bit misdirected in my opinion, and ignores the most effective actionable things parents can do to shush a crying baby. Namely, what pediatrician Harvey Karp calls the “5 S’s” of (1) swaddling the baby, (2) holding the baby on their side/stomach, (3) loudly shushing in the baby’s ear, (4) swinging the baby back and forth, (5) giving the baby something to suck on. Go find Dr. Karp’s “happiest baby” video or other videos of people performing these steps, as text posts don’t really convey the idea fully. These techniques are extremely effective on the vast majority of babies (usually just shushing and swinging is enough for my current newborn), but many new parents don’t know about them or do them improperly. In particular, shushing needs to be a very loud constant white noise, and the rocking/jiggling/swinging of the baby should be a bit more vigorous than new parents might naturally do.
- opless 7y ago
  #4, and #5 for sure. My niece was upset due to just being fed and her stomach having the usual baby issues, a bit of jiggling on my lap with my little finger to suck on calmed her right down as mum was having a bit of a meltdown due to lack of sleep, and baby being super demanding. Niece was asleep in no time due to being handled confidently and noticing what was working and what wasn't. One size most certainly doesn't fit all.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - ZumbidoPalmares 7y ago
    What would you recommend as number 5?
    - opless 7y ago
      Some babies like their pacifiers/dummies, some like a clean little finger for #5 Sorry for the late response ... Notifications don't seem to be a thing on this site.
mncharity 7y ago
When breast feeding, maternal diet can strongly influence digestive distress. Mom eats the wrong thing, and the baby becomes unhappy. Years back, a friend was very disciplined about starting small, incrementally expanding her diet, and using backtracking and search to fix regressions. Now amidst the flood of new parent mail, was a brochure of easy recipes for new moms. She was bemused that she couldn't use a single recipe in it, as they all had ingredients she'd recorded as distressing her infant. The brochure was from Nestle. (EDIT: maker of baby formula, variously amoral)
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Thank you. That was one of the biggest epiphanies for me as a new parent. It had never occurred to me that what I ate would impact the baby that way. I had physics and chemistry and advanced math in high school, but was completely shocked as a new parent in my early twenties to learn that I would bleed for up to six weeks post partum and a zillion other things. I still think better parenting info is desperately needed in this world. It's shocking what we don't cover that has such tremendous long term impact on human life.
  - mncharity 7y ago
    > high school [...] shocking what we don't cover Financial planning is suggested as another one. But even with subjects "covered"... Chemistry education research describes pre-college chemistry education content using adjectives like "incoherent". First-tier med school grad students with no idea how big cells are. First-tier astronomy grad students getting the color of the Sun wrong. I don't think we fully appreciate quite how pervasively we're doing poorly. Or the magnitude of potential improvement we're neglecting to pursue. But AR is coming, providing yet another opportunity for disruption. Modulo patents. :/
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > First-tier med school grad students with no idea how big cells are. First-tier astronomy grad students getting the color of the Sun wrong. Is this an actual thing?
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ryannevius 7y ago
> Then calm yourself. > Never spend more than 15 minutes trying to get them to sleep. This is a great opportunity to do some mindfulness meditation – which can help with the calmness issue. I wish I would have known that when I was raising a newborn.
z3t4 7y ago
Baby assembly language, instruction set: neh = hungry (give food) aww = tired (put to sleep) eii = unconformable (change diaper) aii = gripes (gases, need to burp)
- kiliantics 7y ago
  There is apparently research which shows the crying has a different tone depending on the baby's issue and it is indeed hardwired and common across all infants
Angostura 7y ago
Unless it’s colic, in which case be prepared to hold your squirming, squealing infant for about 4 hours every evening for several weeks
glaberficken 7y ago
Also, babies get numb limbs from not being able to move in the bed/crib. Hence why holding them from a bit and changing their position might help.
Fnoord 7y ago
Good advice. Although calming myself and slowing my heartbeat is difficult and impractical if I just drank coffee.
- madez 7y ago
  Coffee also makes the milk taste bad. Caring for an infant is a stressful and unforgiving task that requires mental stability, so I'd recommend to avoid coffee completely while caring for a baby.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    While good advice to a breastfeeding mother you're assuming a few things here: age of baby, that I'm breastfeeding, that I'm the mother. Perhaps the baby does not get breastfed (anymore). Perhaps I'm not the mother.
    - madez 7y ago
      Sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way. I didn't mean to specifically target any person with what I wrote. I was rather well aware that what I wrote is visible to the public, and I tried to word it to address any reader.
      - Fnoord 7y ago
        No offense taken. You didn't rub me the wrong way, I just wanted to clarify that part, including for a reader.
tootie 7y ago
Keeping yourself calm is so huge. We realized with our second kid. We were so nervous with our first and did all the tricks and yelled at each other about doing them wrong or forgetting whatever accessories we needed. Babies sense the tension and amplify it. We were so chill with the second kid and he slept well very quickly without the bag of tricks because we were always calm even when he was screaming.

ConfusedDog 7y ago

I thought it's gonna be some cruel recommendation like threaten the baby... it turns out just threaten the parents to take care of babies. That's a relief.

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weinzierl 7y ago

> Along with songs, the text suggests parents rub dust from a significant street, doorway, or even a grave—perhaps representing an ominous, ultimate silence—on a wailing baby. [...] > Scholars believe these words likely originated in folk poetry that had been transmitted orally for years before being written down sometime between 500 and 300 B.C. So the sandman myth is not Northern European folklore after all but originated more than 2500 years ago in the Middle East.

imgabe 7y ago
If nothing else the baby might stop crying momentarily while it's confused about what you're rubbing on it.
- autoexec 7y ago
  Rubbing street dirt on babies should also improve their immune system so they won't get sick as often.
  - azeotropic 7y ago
    I'd imagine you're merely trading sick now for sick later.
    - autoexec 7y ago
      Nah, dirt won't make them really sick, but it will expose them to all kinds of bacteria which studies have shown could help prevent asthma, allergies, and other problems down the road if you expose them while they are young. I wouldn't recommend exposing a kid to every cold and disease you can just trying to get them sick, but playing in dirt seems to have benefits that spare them from reoccurring problems later.
      - azeotropic 7y ago
        If you're talking about first world street dirt I agree. If you're talking about ancient Mesopotamian city street dirt, I think you're asking for norovirus, dysentery, cholera, etc. Yes they had sewers and even pipes, but stormwater and sanitary sewers weren't separate and often relied on open ditches.

senorsmile 7y ago

As a wannabe Assyriologist, I was really hoping there'd be an actual line by line translation; or better yet, a link to one of the online cuneiform sites offered the cuneiform, transliteration and translation.

microtherion 7y ago
Probably something along the lines of: Hush, little baby, don't cry a storm Daddy's gonna read you a cuneiform And if that cuneiform should crack Daddy's gonna buy you a ziggurat…
mcguire 7y ago
May not be the same text, but ETCSL has "A lullaby for a son of Šulgi (Šulgi N)": http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.4.2.14&display=Crit&charenc=gcirc# http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.4.2.... http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.4.2.14# http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.4.2....

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hutzlibu 7y ago

Beeing a fresh new father myself ... so far beeing calm yourself worked amazing. And even though they are so tiny and breakable ... just hold them and relax and breath slowly, then the baby will relax along your heartbeat (so that the mother can have a shower). But who knows, in a few days we might also try the mesopotamian spell ...

karussell 7y ago

I was curious if monkey babies also cry (I really thought they don't due to deadly consequences) but found this: https://www.livescience.com/7778-crying-baby-monkeys-nerves.html https://www.livescience.com/7778-crying-baby-monkeys-nerves.... There is an interesting quote: > mothers appear to pay attention to who's around when their young cry. Semple's team observed that when dominant bystanders were nearby, mothers acquiesced to their babies' demands about twice as often as when they were alone or in the company of close relatives, which are more forgiving of tantrums. > The study shows for the first time that, much like people, monkeys are aware of the social consequences of not only their own actions, but those of their babies, too.

icxa 7y ago

Your baby's first ~3 months is basically the "4th trimester" but just outside the womb. It basically explains why things like swaddling work so well for their sleep at this age, and why shush sounds work (because it supposedly mimics how the baby hears the mother breathing inside the womb of the mother). Also counter-intuitively to a new parent, why perfect stillness didn't really matter for her sleep and actually a little movement ended up being better. Invest in a good rocking chair is probably the best advice I can give any parent! Don't cheap out here, you are going to be spending a lot of time in it!

Roedou 7y ago
The book "Happiest Baby on the Block" goes into a lot of detail about this. I've not read it, but watched the ~10 minute video that accompanied it. It was possibly the most useful 10 minutes of new-parent advice we could have gotten. Definitely try to find that book; highly recommended.