8 ms·

Team led by Japanese researchers reveals best way to put crying baby to sleep

118 points by tomohawk 4y ago

hopth 4y ago
As someone with a newborn, thank you for sharing this!
- ryanisnan 4y ago
  I've heard a lot of good things about the https://www.happiestbaby.com/products/snoo-smart-bassinet https://www.happiestbaby.com/products/snoo-smart-bassinet. It's expensive but my first child slept terribly; I'm not taking chances with my second.
  - ledauphin 4y ago
    we bought one of these and returned it - it was not magical enough for our child, apparently.
    - sacrosancty 4y ago
      human physical contact ftw. All these devices are just a substitute for a mother.
      - awb 4y ago
        Or any loving human. My kids fell sleep easily on me, their father.
        Markoff 4y ago
        yeah, but breastfeeding works the best/easiest, which obviously ain't very suitable for men, my kids never used pacifiers (and pretty much never milk bottles), they just refused them
  - mupuff1234 4y ago
    1700$ for a basket??
    - flappyeagle 4y ago
      1700 for a quiet baby. You buy the holes not the drill
      - ryanisnan 4y ago
        This is right. I am not interested in the basket at all. I'm interested in not being sleep deprived quite like I was the first time around.
  - based69 4y ago
    Was very effective for a couple i know, so much so that the baby had a very flat head from sleeping so much
  - mattlondon 4y ago
    Every baby is different. From our experience - and of course every baby is different - we found consistency is key. New borns need to nap like every hour and you as parents need to actively manage those naps to make sure they happen at the right time, and you do the same set of things each time so soon enough baby knows that when you do foo that sleep time is coming and they calm down. Foo could be singing or a special story or getting into a sleep sack or music or whatever. Then just into a normal cot and they slept soundly. The other thing we found that was essential is a £10 gym/yoga ball to slowly bounce/jiggle on while holding them. Worked really well for us (as part of the routine). Good luck. Perhaps as every baby is different you really need the 2k cot, good luck either way.
- lynguist 4y ago
  I found that the more you carry your child the less she cries. I was just carrying my child wherever I went with a strap around my front, which I found more practical than a buggy until she became too heavy. I read a study that children that are carried all the time cry a substantial amount less than children that are not, something like half an hour less per day.
  - Markoff 4y ago
    it's not about carrying, but proximity to mother/parents body with human warmth obviously baby which is held/touched by another human, ideally mother/father will cry less than baby alone from adults even if it means 0.5-1 m distance
liquidwax 4y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32845229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32845229
wiradikusuma 4y ago
"Even if the baby is asleep, they notice when they have been separated from their caregiver" It seems they're born with proximity sensor. They'll start crying again once you're moving a feet away. "most effective way to put a baby to sleep was to carry them and walk around for five minutes, sit and wait for five to eight minutes, then put them to bed" This advice doesn't mention crying, does it mean we have to make it stop crying first?
- ryannevius 4y ago
  > By sitting down to rest after the baby stops crying, they can apparently be put into a deep sleep. It seems stopping crying is a precondition for the "sit and wait" step.
- _trackno5 4y ago
  Isn't the walking around with the baby the thing that makes it stop crying though?
  - konart 4y ago
    Ideally - yes. In reality - I can walk my feet off and my 3 months y.o. daughter won't stop crying. Sometimes nothing but mommys tit helps (even if shes not hungry. A pacifier won't do either, no matter the model, if she needs her mom - she needs her mom)
    - hutzlibu 4y ago
      Try a baby carrier, like from manduca. Then you just walk with them, until they calm down. Do household things, ect. or actually take a short (or long) walk outside. And maybe be conscious about your breathing when caring them, if you are stressed out(why is she not calming down!), they notice it and it does not calm them.
    - Moru 4y ago
      Did you try completely getting rid of milk protein for the mother? We tried this from advice from the nurse but they said for a week. It wasn't enough, it can take 3-4 weeks. Ask your nurse for help, there are other food you can give your baby while you wait for the milk protein to disappear from the mother. Milk protein allergy can be tested with blood tests too but is pretty invasive for a baby.
drekipus 4y ago
I've found a little trick when my newborn cries or gets unsettled while sleeping.. whenever she makes a noise I just go over and pat her. it moves the gases around and she's settled instantly. in order to put her asleep I usually just wheel her back and forwards in the pram, taking her over the edge of the rug (for the bump) usually stops her from crying. When she was really little, I used to have to walk to get her asleep, or do squats while holding her to stop her from crying. Most of the time, from all of my experiences and from what everyone's told me, they cry for only a few reasons: gas, love, hungry, nappy.
- mattlondon 4y ago
  Yeah at the early stages the cries seem to just be gas, food, nappy, or attention. We found that "la pause" is quite effective - let them fuss for up to a minute or so rather than rushing to the cot to intervene. A lot of the time they can work it out themselves without any help.
Supermancho 4y ago
Comedy Bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF_nfazQaek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF_nfazQaek
oxff 4y ago
Its called a rocking chair
- mattlondon 4y ago
  FWIW, my kids hated a rocking chair, but loved being held while gently bouncing/wiggling on a gym/yoga ball thing
Markoff 4y ago
Meanigless study with only 21 babies, extremely small sample size to make some general statements. > Results showed that the most effective way to put a baby to sleep was to carry them and walk around for five minutes, sit and wait for five to eight minutes, then put them to bed. Also this is nice theory, we all know of course if you hold baby (and eventually walk) the baby can fall asleep, the problem is to put the baby down without waking it up, I would like to see this quantified over hundreds of children how many times will baby wake up after following these steps and then putting them in bed.
- superhuzza 4y ago
  1. It's an exploratory study which both confirms previous results and builds on them. Furthermore, a sample size of 21 is not too inherently small to draw conclusions - that would depend on the effect sizes between conditions... 2. The study is explicitly about whether or not the children stay asleep after the different proposed routines. This is one of the main points of the article and is directly addressed within: "When an infant falls asleep in one’s arms or in a stroller, parents would then want to put the infant to bed. However, this laydown procedure often makes the infant alert again. In this study, 9 of 26 (34.6%) sleeping infants awoke by 20 s after the laydown, while the remaining 17 infants stayed asleep. " https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(22)01363-X.pdf https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(22)01363... Why comment with a critique if you didn't even have a cursory look at the paper, or even understand what the dependant variables are?
  - Markoff 4y ago
    > Why comment with a critique if you didn't even have a cursory look at the paper, or even understand what the dependant variables are? Because I am commenting on article posted on HN. No such information provided in linked article, nor is the study linked there. > In this study, 9 of 26 (34.6%) sleeping infants awoke by 20 s after the laydown, while the remaining 17 infants stayed asleep. Thanks for link to the study and thanks for proving me right with the quote. More than 1/3 of children waking up almost instantly within 20 seconds just confirms this is hardly usable and "best" way to put crying baby to sleep even with such small sample size. And if we had more data I'd expect most of the babies woke up shortly after that 20 seconds limit. I tried to look at the charts but they are difficult to read, since they don't provide normal table with times for all babies. It's similar nonsense as road casualties, which are not comparable across countries since some countries count causalty as someone dying after car accident within 7 or 30 days and if you crash and lay in coma 31 days you are suddenly not road casualty anymore, same as here amusing 20 seconds threshold for success.
jmathai 4y ago
We found swaddles with velcro to be really helpful for our kids to fall and stay asleep. We tried a few but the SwaddleMe's [1] worked the best. The baby would manage to work their arm out of the others we tried...and once their arm is out it is game over...their startle reflex wakes them up. Once they outgrow the swaddle, the Merlin Magic Sleepsuits [2] were amazing. Bonus...you can't stop laughing at how silly they look while wearing them [3]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/SwaddleMe-Original-Swaddle-Confetti-Newborn/dp/B09T78FLCC?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER https://www.amazon.com/SwaddleMe-Original-Swaddle-Confetti-N... [2] https://www.magicsleepsuit.com/collections/baby-merlins-magic-sleepsuit https://www.magicsleepsuit.com/collections/baby-merlins-magi... [3] https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=merlin+magic+suits+pictures https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=merlin+magic+suits+...
- mattlondon 4y ago
  +1 to some sort of "engineered swaddle" that restrains the arms effectively. We found "traditional" swaddles to be unreliable - once the arm/arms were out then it is only a matter of time before they hit themselves in the face with their arms, but swaddles with specific features to prevent the escape of the arms to work really well. We used one called Miracle Swaddle for both our kids. Just make sure you stop using swaddles as soon as the kid can roll on their own.
  - jmathai 4y ago
    > Just make sure you stop using swaddles as soon as the kid can roll on their own. Good to call out for safety reasons. FYI - this is when we transitioned to the Merlin Sleepsuit which prevents them from turning over but does not fully restrain their arms.
  - domh 4y ago
    Also +1 to the Velcro swaddle. Swaddling with a regular piece of fabric is something I mastered in the hospital and then swiftly forgot as soon as we got home. The Velcro swaddle was a game changer. We transitioned to sleeping bags with arms out as soon as our baby could roll over, and he's still using those now at 14 months.
martingoodson 4y ago
Hold the baby while standing and bouncing. I read that the optimal bounce frequency is between 1 to 2 Hz. This worked for me!
skc 4y ago
So I'm from Zambia and like in most black African cultures we carry our babies in swaddles across the back of the caregiver (like a backpack). [1] I'm not exaggerating when I say that right this minute I can't think of a single occasion where I've ever seen a baby crying while being carried like this and most are fast asleep while the caregiver goes about their business. [1] https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54246ac0e4b0ab5dcb6c68f4/1492101988101-97XIWLFE7BP9KES5ZTY4/Africa-383.jpg?format=1000w https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54246ac0e4b0ab...
- imartin2k 4y ago
  Cool, interesting perspective. Love HN for being so international, despite the US origin.
  - was_a_dev 4y ago
    Most online platforms are. But the average US user doesn't realise or assumes otherwise
- Moru 4y ago
  When we had our kid we also carried her everywhere, it has been pretty popular in Sweden for a while. It helps a lot with being close but still the cause of the crying has to be investigated. After a long period of no proper sleep we finally figured out what the problem was. Baby was allergic to milk protein and was crying because of the pain it caused. Due to bad knowledge and advice we only tried ruling out milk allergy for a week but it takes many weeks for the milk protein to leave the mothers system. When we got baby formula without milk protein our baby could sleep without pain and the dry skin spots went away. I'm wondering if most problems with crying babies are from undiagnosed milk protein allergy. It usually disappears during the first seven years.
- jiehong 4y ago
  Also much better than the version we see in Europe where people carry the baby on the front side for reasons that I can’t fathom…
surge 4y ago
This is already known data, you simulate the conditions of the womb and a baby in the 4th trimester (we're born early because of our big heads), will sleep easily. So swaddling, swaying and shhhing all simulate being in the womb where you hear white noise, are tightly confined and gently rocked or swayed by the mother's natural movement as she walks around, etc. I read about it with my own children and it worked, and there was science behind it. https://www.happiestbaby.com/blogs/baby/the-5-s-s-for-soothing-babies?utm_source=google&utm_campaign= https://www.happiestbaby.com/blogs/baby/the-5-s-s-for-soothi...
- was_a_dev 4y ago
  At the extreme, do you think generating whitenoise from a phone would have the same effect?
  - egman_ekki 4y ago
    It's no extreme. It does work and there are also toys that generate white noise to help babies sleep. Also a lot of Spotify playlists dedicated to this.
  - lm2s 4y ago
    Not an extreme. Pink noise works really well and brown noise to some extent. White noise is a bit harsh for our human ears. The pink noise besides simulating the shushing also serves as sort of a noise blanket to make other sounds being made around the baby pop up less, sort of sound mantle.
  - surge 4y ago
    They sell white noise and whale noise baby products, many parents started using their phones or Echo/Home devices. So yes, anything with a speaker will work, and is likely closer to what you hear in the womb then what one's mouth can simulate. It also still works on adults. I regularly have a fan or white noise going when I sleep.
- jaclaz 4y ago
  Very tangentially related, an old trick that often works with small (dog) puppies crying at night when separated from their mother is to put them into their basket together with a (warm) hot water bottle and a mechanical alarm clock (those old ones that tick very loud) wrapped in a blanket. In that case it is the combination of (fake) body warmth + (fake) heartbeat that makes them sleep, since we are mammals/animals too, the mechanism for babies is likely similar.
thinkindie 4y ago
"In the experiment, when their babies cried loudly, moms randomly combined four actions -- carrying them on a walk, sitting while holding them, putting them to bed, and rocking them in a stroller -- about every 30 seconds." it's 2022 and they are still doing research with just moms as caregivers?
- VBprogrammer 4y ago
  Upvote from me. As a dad of a 5 day old (and a 3 1/2 year old) any hints on how I can help sooth baby for even relatively short periods of time would be super helpful. The problem is with a breastfed baby they are very focused on getting their milk supply where it needs to be and if that means feeding practically constantly for hours at a time, that's fine by them.
- throwaway847363 4y ago
  Oh god, stop. Can you just read about this research without making judgements about social justice please?! Look around you, do you see a lot of moms with babies?
  - mnsc 4y ago
    A throwaway troll account, great! But I'll bite. This has nothing to do with social justice but rather bad science due to the _fact_ that they eliminate 50% of the baby's caregivers in the research. What if the science showed that when the baby isn't hungry the baby stops crying sooner if being held close by the dad because the smell of tits leaking milk confuses them? edit: Also, the sample size of just 21 babies gives away that this is bad science so...
    - kleiba 4y ago
      I'm not sure it's a troll account, I could very well imagine that parent is afraid that in the current climate, their opinion could get downvoted to hell. But you could be right.
      - 4y ago
shultays 4y ago
A trick my mom and dad used on me was taking me for a short drive in car. For some reason moving in a car/bus makes me sleepy. Even today I have no problem sleeping in a bus or plane even if I am not tired
- was_a_dev 4y ago
  Same here. I feel like I tune into the low frequencies of either the engine or the motion of the vehicle itself and I fall asleep instantly. I was quite worried when I learnt to drive that it would be an issue. Fortunately not, having tasks to concentrate on foils the effect
  - ideamotor 4y ago
    OTOH this is how my parents handled it and now I’m deathly afraid of driving and falling asleep.
- npteljes 4y ago
  My guess is the combination of low frequency rumbling, and a rocking motion, and the feeling of getting somewhere (accomplishment).
SeanLuke 4y ago
I have identical twin sons. When they were newborns, to quiet them down I would carry one around the Trader Joe's directly across the street from our house, walking up and down the aisles (it was cold outside). Then I'd come back to do the same with the other one. It worked like a charm. The employees knew me well. It wasn't until a few months later that we showed up at Trader Joe's with both of them in a stroller. Some employees later confessed that they didn't believe I had two kids until then.
ekianjo 4y ago
> The team tested 21 pairs of babies aged 7 months or younger and their mothers. The subjects were drawn from a range of nationalities and races, including those from Japan and Italy. Very little sample size and lack of control? I'm afraid this is another bad study.
Avlin67 4y ago
> Results showed that the most effective way to put a baby to sleep was to carry them and walk around for five minutes, sit and wait for five to eight minutes, then put them to bed ok cool, as a father i did already figured it out…
- itronitron 4y ago
  The real challenge for parents is not falling asleep while sitting and holding a sleeping infant.
nokya 4y ago
And don't forget to wear earplugs. There's nothing wrong in taking care of yourself as long as you take care of your little ones. It's always been a mystery to me why so many parents endure crying and shouting at full volume and for months...

118 points by tomohawk 4y ago

hopth 4y ago

As someone with a newborn, thank you for sharing this!

ryanisnan 4y ago
I've heard a lot of good things about the https://www.happiestbaby.com/products/snoo-smart-bassinet https://www.happiestbaby.com/products/snoo-smart-bassinet. It's expensive but my first child slept terribly; I'm not taking chances with my second.
- ledauphin 4y ago
  we bought one of these and returned it - it was not magical enough for our child, apparently.
  - sacrosancty 4y ago
    human physical contact ftw. All these devices are just a substitute for a mother.
    - awb 4y ago
      Or any loving human. My kids fell sleep easily on me, their father.
      - Markoff 4y ago
        yeah, but breastfeeding works the best/easiest, which obviously ain't very suitable for men, my kids never used pacifiers (and pretty much never milk bottles), they just refused them
- mupuff1234 4y ago
  1700$ for a basket??
  - flappyeagle 4y ago
    1700 for a quiet baby. You buy the holes not the drill
    - ryanisnan 4y ago
      This is right. I am not interested in the basket at all. I'm interested in not being sleep deprived quite like I was the first time around.
- based69 4y ago
  Was very effective for a couple i know, so much so that the baby had a very flat head from sleeping so much
- mattlondon 4y ago
  Every baby is different. From our experience - and of course every baby is different - we found consistency is key. New borns need to nap like every hour and you as parents need to actively manage those naps to make sure they happen at the right time, and you do the same set of things each time so soon enough baby knows that when you do foo that sleep time is coming and they calm down. Foo could be singing or a special story or getting into a sleep sack or music or whatever. Then just into a normal cot and they slept soundly. The other thing we found that was essential is a £10 gym/yoga ball to slowly bounce/jiggle on while holding them. Worked really well for us (as part of the routine). Good luck. Perhaps as every baby is different you really need the 2k cot, good luck either way.
lynguist 4y ago
I found that the more you carry your child the less she cries. I was just carrying my child wherever I went with a strap around my front, which I found more practical than a buggy until she became too heavy. I read a study that children that are carried all the time cry a substantial amount less than children that are not, something like half an hour less per day.
- Markoff 4y ago
  it's not about carrying, but proximity to mother/parents body with human warmth obviously baby which is held/touched by another human, ideally mother/father will cry less than baby alone from adults even if it means 0.5-1 m distance

liquidwax 4y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32845229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32845229

wiradikusuma 4y ago

"Even if the baby is asleep, they notice when they have been separated from their caregiver" It seems they're born with proximity sensor. They'll start crying again once you're moving a feet away. "most effective way to put a baby to sleep was to carry them and walk around for five minutes, sit and wait for five to eight minutes, then put them to bed" This advice doesn't mention crying, does it mean we have to make it stop crying first?

ryannevius 4y ago
> By sitting down to rest after the baby stops crying, they can apparently be put into a deep sleep. It seems stopping crying is a precondition for the "sit and wait" step.
_trackno5 4y ago
Isn't the walking around with the baby the thing that makes it stop crying though?
- konart 4y ago
  Ideally - yes. In reality - I can walk my feet off and my 3 months y.o. daughter won't stop crying. Sometimes nothing but mommys tit helps (even if shes not hungry. A pacifier won't do either, no matter the model, if she needs her mom - she needs her mom)
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    Try a baby carrier, like from manduca. Then you just walk with them, until they calm down. Do household things, ect. or actually take a short (or long) walk outside. And maybe be conscious about your breathing when caring them, if you are stressed out(why is she not calming down!), they notice it and it does not calm them.
  - Moru 4y ago
    Did you try completely getting rid of milk protein for the mother? We tried this from advice from the nurse but they said for a week. It wasn't enough, it can take 3-4 weeks. Ask your nurse for help, there are other food you can give your baby while you wait for the milk protein to disappear from the mother. Milk protein allergy can be tested with blood tests too but is pretty invasive for a baby.

drekipus 4y ago

I've found a little trick when my newborn cries or gets unsettled while sleeping.. whenever she makes a noise I just go over and pat her. it moves the gases around and she's settled instantly. in order to put her asleep I usually just wheel her back and forwards in the pram, taking her over the edge of the rug (for the bump) usually stops her from crying. When she was really little, I used to have to walk to get her asleep, or do squats while holding her to stop her from crying. Most of the time, from all of my experiences and from what everyone's told me, they cry for only a few reasons: gas, love, hungry, nappy.

mattlondon 4y ago
Yeah at the early stages the cries seem to just be gas, food, nappy, or attention. We found that "la pause" is quite effective - let them fuss for up to a minute or so rather than rushing to the cot to intervene. A lot of the time they can work it out themselves without any help.

Supermancho 4y ago

Comedy Bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF_nfazQaek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF_nfazQaek

oxff 4y ago

Its called a rocking chair

mattlondon 4y ago
FWIW, my kids hated a rocking chair, but loved being held while gently bouncing/wiggling on a gym/yoga ball thing

Markoff 4y ago

Meanigless study with only 21 babies, extremely small sample size to make some general statements. > Results showed that the most effective way to put a baby to sleep was to carry them and walk around for five minutes, sit and wait for five to eight minutes, then put them to bed. Also this is nice theory, we all know of course if you hold baby (and eventually walk) the baby can fall asleep, the problem is to put the baby down without waking it up, I would like to see this quantified over hundreds of children how many times will baby wake up after following these steps and then putting them in bed.

superhuzza 4y ago
1. It's an exploratory study which both confirms previous results and builds on them. Furthermore, a sample size of 21 is not too inherently small to draw conclusions - that would depend on the effect sizes between conditions... 2. The study is explicitly about whether or not the children stay asleep after the different proposed routines. This is one of the main points of the article and is directly addressed within: "When an infant falls asleep in one’s arms or in a stroller, parents would then want to put the infant to bed. However, this laydown procedure often makes the infant alert again. In this study, 9 of 26 (34.6%) sleeping infants awoke by 20 s after the laydown, while the remaining 17 infants stayed asleep. " https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(22)01363-X.pdf https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(22)01363... Why comment with a critique if you didn't even have a cursory look at the paper, or even understand what the dependant variables are?
- Markoff 4y ago
  > Why comment with a critique if you didn't even have a cursory look at the paper, or even understand what the dependant variables are? Because I am commenting on article posted on HN. No such information provided in linked article, nor is the study linked there. > In this study, 9 of 26 (34.6%) sleeping infants awoke by 20 s after the laydown, while the remaining 17 infants stayed asleep. Thanks for link to the study and thanks for proving me right with the quote. More than 1/3 of children waking up almost instantly within 20 seconds just confirms this is hardly usable and "best" way to put crying baby to sleep even with such small sample size. And if we had more data I'd expect most of the babies woke up shortly after that 20 seconds limit. I tried to look at the charts but they are difficult to read, since they don't provide normal table with times for all babies. It's similar nonsense as road casualties, which are not comparable across countries since some countries count causalty as someone dying after car accident within 7 or 30 days and if you crash and lay in coma 31 days you are suddenly not road casualty anymore, same as here amusing 20 seconds threshold for success.

jmathai 4y ago

We found swaddles with velcro to be really helpful for our kids to fall and stay asleep. We tried a few but the SwaddleMe's [1] worked the best. The baby would manage to work their arm out of the others we tried...and once their arm is out it is game over...their startle reflex wakes them up. Once they outgrow the swaddle, the Merlin Magic Sleepsuits [2] were amazing. Bonus...you can't stop laughing at how silly they look while wearing them [3]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/SwaddleMe-Original-Swaddle-Confetti-Newborn/dp/B09T78FLCC?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER https://www.amazon.com/SwaddleMe-Original-Swaddle-Confetti-N... [2] https://www.magicsleepsuit.com/collections/baby-merlins-magic-sleepsuit https://www.magicsleepsuit.com/collections/baby-merlins-magi... [3] https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=merlin+magic+suits+pictures https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=merlin+magic+suits+...

mattlondon 4y ago
+1 to some sort of "engineered swaddle" that restrains the arms effectively. We found "traditional" swaddles to be unreliable - once the arm/arms were out then it is only a matter of time before they hit themselves in the face with their arms, but swaddles with specific features to prevent the escape of the arms to work really well. We used one called Miracle Swaddle for both our kids. Just make sure you stop using swaddles as soon as the kid can roll on their own.
- jmathai 4y ago
  > Just make sure you stop using swaddles as soon as the kid can roll on their own. Good to call out for safety reasons. FYI - this is when we transitioned to the Merlin Sleepsuit which prevents them from turning over but does not fully restrain their arms.
- domh 4y ago
  Also +1 to the Velcro swaddle. Swaddling with a regular piece of fabric is something I mastered in the hospital and then swiftly forgot as soon as we got home. The Velcro swaddle was a game changer. We transitioned to sleeping bags with arms out as soon as our baby could roll over, and he's still using those now at 14 months.

martingoodson 4y ago

Hold the baby while standing and bouncing. I read that the optimal bounce frequency is between 1 to 2 Hz. This worked for me!

skc 4y ago

So I'm from Zambia and like in most black African cultures we carry our babies in swaddles across the back of the caregiver (like a backpack). [1] I'm not exaggerating when I say that right this minute I can't think of a single occasion where I've ever seen a baby crying while being carried like this and most are fast asleep while the caregiver goes about their business. [1] https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54246ac0e4b0ab5dcb6c68f4/1492101988101-97XIWLFE7BP9KES5ZTY4/Africa-383.jpg?format=1000w https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54246ac0e4b0ab...

imartin2k 4y ago
Cool, interesting perspective. Love HN for being so international, despite the US origin.
- was_a_dev 4y ago
  Most online platforms are. But the average US user doesn't realise or assumes otherwise
Moru 4y ago
When we had our kid we also carried her everywhere, it has been pretty popular in Sweden for a while. It helps a lot with being close but still the cause of the crying has to be investigated. After a long period of no proper sleep we finally figured out what the problem was. Baby was allergic to milk protein and was crying because of the pain it caused. Due to bad knowledge and advice we only tried ruling out milk allergy for a week but it takes many weeks for the milk protein to leave the mothers system. When we got baby formula without milk protein our baby could sleep without pain and the dry skin spots went away. I'm wondering if most problems with crying babies are from undiagnosed milk protein allergy. It usually disappears during the first seven years.
jiehong 4y ago
Also much better than the version we see in Europe where people carry the baby on the front side for reasons that I can’t fathom…

surge 4y ago

This is already known data, you simulate the conditions of the womb and a baby in the 4th trimester (we're born early because of our big heads), will sleep easily. So swaddling, swaying and shhhing all simulate being in the womb where you hear white noise, are tightly confined and gently rocked or swayed by the mother's natural movement as she walks around, etc. I read about it with my own children and it worked, and there was science behind it. https://www.happiestbaby.com/blogs/baby/the-5-s-s-for-soothing-babies?utm_source=google&utm_campaign= https://www.happiestbaby.com/blogs/baby/the-5-s-s-for-soothi...

was_a_dev 4y ago
At the extreme, do you think generating whitenoise from a phone would have the same effect?
- egman_ekki 4y ago
  It's no extreme. It does work and there are also toys that generate white noise to help babies sleep. Also a lot of Spotify playlists dedicated to this.
- lm2s 4y ago
  Not an extreme. Pink noise works really well and brown noise to some extent. White noise is a bit harsh for our human ears. The pink noise besides simulating the shushing also serves as sort of a noise blanket to make other sounds being made around the baby pop up less, sort of sound mantle.
- surge 4y ago
  They sell white noise and whale noise baby products, many parents started using their phones or Echo/Home devices. So yes, anything with a speaker will work, and is likely closer to what you hear in the womb then what one's mouth can simulate. It also still works on adults. I regularly have a fan or white noise going when I sleep.
jaclaz 4y ago
Very tangentially related, an old trick that often works with small (dog) puppies crying at night when separated from their mother is to put them into their basket together with a (warm) hot water bottle and a mechanical alarm clock (those old ones that tick very loud) wrapped in a blanket. In that case it is the combination of (fake) body warmth + (fake) heartbeat that makes them sleep, since we are mammals/animals too, the mechanism for babies is likely similar.

thinkindie 4y ago

"In the experiment, when their babies cried loudly, moms randomly combined four actions -- carrying them on a walk, sitting while holding them, putting them to bed, and rocking them in a stroller -- about every 30 seconds." it's 2022 and they are still doing research with just moms as caregivers?

VBprogrammer 4y ago
Upvote from me. As a dad of a 5 day old (and a 3 1/2 year old) any hints on how I can help sooth baby for even relatively short periods of time would be super helpful. The problem is with a breastfed baby they are very focused on getting their milk supply where it needs to be and if that means feeding practically constantly for hours at a time, that's fine by them.
throwaway847363 4y ago
Oh god, stop. Can you just read about this research without making judgements about social justice please?! Look around you, do you see a lot of moms with babies?
- mnsc 4y ago
  A throwaway troll account, great! But I'll bite. This has nothing to do with social justice but rather bad science due to the _fact_ that they eliminate 50% of the baby's caregivers in the research. What if the science showed that when the baby isn't hungry the baby stops crying sooner if being held close by the dad because the smell of tits leaking milk confuses them? edit: Also, the sample size of just 21 babies gives away that this is bad science so...
  - kleiba 4y ago
    I'm not sure it's a troll account, I could very well imagine that parent is afraid that in the current climate, their opinion could get downvoted to hell. But you could be right.
    - 4y ago

shultays 4y ago

A trick my mom and dad used on me was taking me for a short drive in car. For some reason moving in a car/bus makes me sleepy. Even today I have no problem sleeping in a bus or plane even if I am not tired

was_a_dev 4y ago
Same here. I feel like I tune into the low frequencies of either the engine or the motion of the vehicle itself and I fall asleep instantly. I was quite worried when I learnt to drive that it would be an issue. Fortunately not, having tasks to concentrate on foils the effect
- ideamotor 4y ago
  OTOH this is how my parents handled it and now I’m deathly afraid of driving and falling asleep.
npteljes 4y ago
My guess is the combination of low frequency rumbling, and a rocking motion, and the feeling of getting somewhere (accomplishment).

SeanLuke 4y ago

I have identical twin sons. When they were newborns, to quiet them down I would carry one around the Trader Joe's directly across the street from our house, walking up and down the aisles (it was cold outside). Then I'd come back to do the same with the other one. It worked like a charm. The employees knew me well. It wasn't until a few months later that we showed up at Trader Joe's with both of them in a stroller. Some employees later confessed that they didn't believe I had two kids until then.

ekianjo 4y ago

> The team tested 21 pairs of babies aged 7 months or younger and their mothers. The subjects were drawn from a range of nationalities and races, including those from Japan and Italy. Very little sample size and lack of control? I'm afraid this is another bad study.

Avlin67 4y ago

> Results showed that the most effective way to put a baby to sleep was to carry them and walk around for five minutes, sit and wait for five to eight minutes, then put them to bed ok cool, as a father i did already figured it out…

itronitron 4y ago
The real challenge for parents is not falling asleep while sitting and holding a sleeping infant.

nokya 4y ago

And don't forget to wear earplugs. There's nothing wrong in taking care of yourself as long as you take care of your little ones. It's always been a mystery to me why so many parents endure crying and shouting at full volume and for months...