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To soothe the baby the author forgot: 1) pacifier. Holy hell those things are life savers. As my kid got older he would sometimes lose the pacifier in his slee

To soothe the baby the author forgot: 1) pacifier. Holy hell those things are life savers. As my kid got older he would sometimes lose the pacifier in his sleep and start crying. We just bought 10 of them and sprinkled them theoughout his crib at night 2) driving. Driving your kid around will often soothe them. I had a particular route I would take down the highway that would guarantee put him to sleep.

stakkur 5y ago
Pacifiers not good, not necessary, many downsides. We never used them for these reasons. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/infant-and-toddler-health/in-depth/pacifiers/art-20048140 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/infant-and-todd...
- sgerenser 5y ago
  Pacifiers worked great for us. Kids had no dental issues and no issue giving them up when the time came.
542458 5y ago
In the category of “no universal truths for babies”… my partner and I were hesitant to use pacifiers due to some of the negatives around jaw and mouth development (zero judgement for people who do use them). We agonized over whether we were overthinking it, whether it would help him sleep… but eventually we broke down and gave our kid one. To our surprise, he hated it. Wouldn’t keep it in his mouth at all, and all our thinking was for nothing.
- greenonions 5y ago
  We had no such qualms about a pacifier, have given it freely, and our baby doesn't care for it at all either.
rocmcd 5y ago
To echo the other commenters on this article, all babies are different and there are fairly few universal truths to soothing newborns. For example neither a pacifier nor driving worked for mine. My only advice is to try everything until you find something that sticks.
TacticalCoder 5y ago
> driving. Driving your kid around will often soothe them. Same here. Doing a walk with the stroller and I'd be looking at 45 minutes before the kid would fall asleep. Taking the car and driving once around the block and my kid was sleeping. I don't know if it's the movement, the fact that it's faster than walking, the vibrations, the engine noise (I wonder if parents with electric cars use that trick too) or something else: but for me and for many others the car trick simply works. Not the most ecological thing to do but, well, I was lucky in that mine would fall asleep in the car nearly instantly.
- ghostpepper 5y ago
  When people say this I am completely baffled - as far as I can tell there is nothing a baby hates more than being strapped into a car seat
- bin_bash 5y ago
  Same for my 2.5 year old. She still won't nap at home. FYI we have a Tesla and it works just as well as our gas SUV. Trouble I'm having now is she wakes up the second I pull into the driveway. Somehow she knows we're home even if she's fast asleep. I back into a parking spot? Doesn't wake up. I back into our driveway? Wakes up if she's been asleep for 10 minutes or 50 minutes.
sacrosancty 5y ago
A lot of the techniques, such as these, really seem to be just imitating what a fully attentive mother without modern parenting aids would be doing. ie. carrying the baby on her body all day, and allowing it to breastfeed at will. Pacifier = artificial nipple, isn't it?
MandieD 5y ago
The only pacifiers my baby liked were the Tommee Tippie Featherlights. Unfortunately this is also the only pacifier he could CRAM COMPLETELY INTO HIS MOUTH by ten months. Fortunately he took confiscation pretty well, and didn’t revert to wanting one when he started daycare and saw all the other little kids running around with them

stakkur 5y ago

Pacifiers not good, not necessary, many downsides. We never used them for these reasons. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/infant-and-toddler-health/in-depth/pacifiers/art-20048140 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/infant-and-todd...

sgerenser 5y ago
Pacifiers worked great for us. Kids had no dental issues and no issue giving them up when the time came.

542458 5y ago

In the category of “no universal truths for babies”… my partner and I were hesitant to use pacifiers due to some of the negatives around jaw and mouth development (zero judgement for people who do use them). We agonized over whether we were overthinking it, whether it would help him sleep… but eventually we broke down and gave our kid one. To our surprise, he hated it. Wouldn’t keep it in his mouth at all, and all our thinking was for nothing.

greenonions 5y ago
We had no such qualms about a pacifier, have given it freely, and our baby doesn't care for it at all either.

rocmcd 5y ago

To echo the other commenters on this article, all babies are different and there are fairly few universal truths to soothing newborns. For example neither a pacifier nor driving worked for mine. My only advice is to try everything until you find something that sticks.

TacticalCoder 5y ago

> driving. Driving your kid around will often soothe them. Same here. Doing a walk with the stroller and I'd be looking at 45 minutes before the kid would fall asleep. Taking the car and driving once around the block and my kid was sleeping. I don't know if it's the movement, the fact that it's faster than walking, the vibrations, the engine noise (I wonder if parents with electric cars use that trick too) or something else: but for me and for many others the car trick simply works. Not the most ecological thing to do but, well, I was lucky in that mine would fall asleep in the car nearly instantly.

ghostpepper 5y ago
When people say this I am completely baffled - as far as I can tell there is nothing a baby hates more than being strapped into a car seat
bin_bash 5y ago
Same for my 2.5 year old. She still won't nap at home. FYI we have a Tesla and it works just as well as our gas SUV. Trouble I'm having now is she wakes up the second I pull into the driveway. Somehow she knows we're home even if she's fast asleep. I back into a parking spot? Doesn't wake up. I back into our driveway? Wakes up if she's been asleep for 10 minutes or 50 minutes.

sacrosancty 5y ago

A lot of the techniques, such as these, really seem to be just imitating what a fully attentive mother without modern parenting aids would be doing. ie. carrying the baby on her body all day, and allowing it to breastfeed at will. Pacifier = artificial nipple, isn't it?

MandieD 5y ago

The only pacifiers my baby liked were the Tommee Tippie Featherlights. Unfortunately this is also the only pacifier he could CRAM COMPLETELY INTO HIS MOUTH by ten months. Fortunately he took confiscation pretty well, and didn’t revert to wanting one when he started daycare and saw all the other little kids running around with them