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Home › Articles › Crying Issues › Fussy Babies

Fussy Babies

Taking It from Commotion to Calm

By Jenn Director Knudsen

Pages:  1  2  3  4  

(AAP, 2005), co-authors Dr. Shu and Dr. Laura A. Jana offer an illustrated, four-page, detailed swaddling primer. The authors first highly recommend parents observe the professionals – "nurses in the newborn nursery" – swaddle an "uncomfortably free and exposed newborn," they write. They then offer a six-step process (paraphrased here) for their "burrito wrap":

  • Lay down a blanket in front of you in a diamond shape.
  • Fold top corner down a bit; the corner should nearly reach the blanket's center.
  • Lie newborn on his back in the middle of the blanket with arms at his sides and head just above folded edge; his shoulders should be just below this edge.
  • Take one side corner and fold it over Baby's shoulder and across the body; tuck that corner underneath Baby, on the opposite side.
  • Grasp the blanket's bottom corner and fold up, over the infant's lower half.
  • Hold remaining side corner and pull it over your baby's other shoulder and across his body, then tuck it tightly under his opposite side.

Done correctly, the swaddle is a baby-soothing mainstay.

"Without the swaddle, he would constantly wake himself up from swatting himself in the face with his hands," says Holly Klaassen of Vancouver, B.C., founder of www.fussybaby.ca, of her son. This is due to a baby's inherent startle, or Moro, reflex. "By swaddling him up really snug, he was able to fall asleep," she says.

2. Let's Move

Now that you have your baby resembling the pig-in-a-blanket buffet item, the best thing to do is introduce movement. "Babies love motion," Zalon says. "It's intuitive: They constantly were in motion while you were pregnant with him, her, or tem, so it's natural they'll seek it out once in the world."


Pages:  1  2  3  4  

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