Halt Colic in 5 Easy Steps!

The Five S's: A Guide to Calming Your Newborn

In this episode of the Modern Nurture Podcast, host Jess explores Dr. Harvey Karp's approach to soothing crying infants, known as the 'calming reflex', through his recommended five steps, or the 'Five S's': Swaddling, Side/Stomach Position, Shushing, Swinging, and Sucking. Jess shares her personal experiences with these methods, detailing each step's effectiveness and her insights on recreating the womb's environment to calm a newborn. Despite some skepticism and challenges in instantly calming her baby, Jess finds value in these techniques for soothing infants and encourages parents to integrate them into their care routines.

00:00 Intro
00:27 The Newborn Calmining Reflex
01:27 The 5S's
04:00 What I Wish I'd Done Better
05:22 Update!

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Happiest Baby on the Block

https://www.amazon.com/Happiest-Block-Revised-Updated-Second/dp/B07S96K3WG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3F9F1UFXN878F&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.q53TYq19bQQ9XPswhGvs9Vjd_QuiurvsaOcTGV2agz5GK-xPZoCjkPADPYJ-JHTe8oMlRkkeXkpEi7c7dftDv1ncktgelP8VrjvMv76W_dCaD-21kuMhjHR3zT-aYMsmY5OKMe7SGgWW1fgzNZG5E0h_daQjeSqRgxP6sbdA4eHMV9VIMsS8hA4enXCTHnwMD0sAXBhTdjbK2FoDxnvANT4ZXWu1t3kUCQlK75VBvw8.2xX21q9G7zh6CRXa9A04fWjY3HtVr2RvG1XyFeiY2lo&dib_tag=se&keywords=happiest+baby+on+the+block&qid=1716499998&sprefix=happiest+baby+on+the+block%2Caps%2C110&sr=8-1

Noise Machines Mentioned:

• https://www.amazon.com/Yogasleep-Portable-Soothing-Rechargeable-Baby-Safe/dp/B01D50RYSC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1V3C11KMEPKSB&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.fxKKUIQlkSfUYYv0U8g_ftF0VRsG8Uv-IpUUPdBcmUzso4NRn-w1M92m67nSrnfLNNvPfHyk6HpdJgOCt3T62RBR2Co8lRZUxe7S9haFTt128lVu9yztR7zgDIIpfBrt9Kci_AOHEiE9831EIrhi6uSdOteZ3GdwDCNxW07zbntZM3e6rkGYpVKqyGqOlliWpCAxKYyUrQ-hqzNk_ZGKkg4yBfVgxUTNTVS8tWrvfdA.rWzEtdJKe_hB959l0aJCvrWxo94oiZI1WplGTj9YsPQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=yogi%2Bsleep%2Bsound%2Bmachine&qid=1716500020&s=audible&sprefix=yogi%2Bsleep%2Bsoundmachin%2Caudible%2C127&sr=1-1&th=1
• [https://www.amazon.com/Hatch-Baby-Rest-RIOT/dp/B08YS6S66Z/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.vlw-JBaBfPZ5-bvvTX_sOv

Transcript

0:00

Did you know that infants have a reflex to get them from crying into a relaxed state? Dr. Harvey Karp proposes five steps to get your baby from crying. To relaxed. And I'm going to cover that for you today, and I'll tell you about what I wish I would have known when I was the mom of a newborn about how to implement this advice. Okay. Hey, mama. Welcome to modern nurture. I'm Jess, the host of the modern nurture podcast, where mothers meet at the intersection of instincts and evidence. Now let's dig into this calming reflex. Shall we? To be clear. I haven't seen any evidence that this thing actually exists. But when Dr. Harvey Karp talks about this in his book, happiest baby on the block. He talks about it as if he assumes it exists. So I'm going to start with a quote from his book. Interestingly the count, the calming reflex. Isn't there to soothe the upset infants. It probably came about to calm, fussy, fetuses, fetuses who wiggle around too much can move into a breech position and get stuck as they start coming down. The birth canal. This can kill both the mother and the baby. How brilliant to make the natural sensations of the womb, put babies into a mini trance. The last two months of pregnancy to keep them from moving into risky positions. Like most newborn reflexes, the calming reflex fades around four months after birth. But thankfully, a little hint of it remains with us the rest of our lives, which is why we are soothed by womb. Like ocean sound. Rocking in a hammock and being cuddled. So to activate the calming reflex, he suggests he proposes five steps. These are swaddling or snug. Side stomach position. shushing. Swinging. And sucking. These are called the five S's. I'm going to break those down for you now. The first is snug and this one's kind of obvious, right? When you have a newborn, you can tell that they just love to be snuggled, and he suggests swaddling to mimic the snugness of the womb. The second one is side or stomach. And you might've heard of the Moro reflex. This is when babies are laid backwards and their arms flail about because they feel like they're falling. So when a baby is in an upset, in an upset. State. Avoid laying them down on their back because that will throw that Moro reflex, trialing them on their side or holding them on their side or stomach down instead. Remember that they shouldn't sleep on their stomachs, but holding them that way to calm them down is a great help. The next one is shush. And this basically means white noise. Your womb is actually very noisy. There's blood and fluids and all sorts of things rushing around them at all times. And so having that loud noise and it needs to be louder than you think white noise. Um, really helps to calm them. I bought a few white noise machines when my daughter was a newborn. And the thing that did the trick most often, if she was upset was a vacuum cleaner. So I ended up watching a vacuum video on YouTube. Many times to settle her. The next one is swinging. So that just mimics that rocking and swinging motion that the baby would experience in the womb. And we all do that naturally. Right. We bounce our babies and swing them around. Um, he does have a specific quote here that I wanted to read to you. Note to stop screams. The motion may need to be a bit vigorous at first fast, tiny jiggles, no more than one inch back and forth. As your baby settles, gently rocking will be enough to keep it. The calming reflects switched on in some traditional cultures. Moms bounced their babies all day long.. Many many were infants and slings to give them the soothing motion with every step in our culture, tired parents use bouncy seats and exercise balls, car rides, swings. And slings to help their babies find some peace. Unless you're like me and your baby hated the car. So the last one is sucking and sucking. Whether it's on your nipple or a bottle or a pacifier is incredibly soothing to your baby. So these are, these are the five S's and the proposed solution to colic and crying. And I think this is all great advice. But I do have a couple of issues. I do have an issue with it. And this is coming from someone who used this advice. And I think I missed the point while I was doing it. The point is to. Create. To the extent possible the environment of the room for your baby for those first three months. And this one is in and of itself will prevent those big bouts of crying that are every mother's nightmare. That are every parent's nightmare. I should say. And truth be told I never mastered the switching off crying. It was maybe he just missed her, but represented in the book. It was always. A slow process of, you know, holding the baby close nursing, going in a darker area, having the white noise, singing something. You know, moving around soothing things, the things we all do instinctively, honestly. It was a slow process because if your baby's in a really hyper. Upset state. It's going to take a while to walk that back and get them into a calm state. So I. Perhaps it was doing something wrong, but I never got this instant switch to flip. But. I think all of these things, the five S's are still super valuable. And. Are great ways to either design your life or soothe the crying baby. So I just had to pop in because after doing this video, I was holding my little one. She's three. And she just looked so tired. So I held her and I was thinking of the five SS. And I had her head in the crook of my arm. And I just started jiggling my arm a little bit, like. Trying to mimic how her head looks when she's in the car, falling asleep in the car. And, um, so I didn't jiggle her heart. I wasn't shaking her like crazy. It was just like a gentle little wiggle and she fell asleep. Guys. You got to try this and let me know how it works for you. Thanks for watching. Sorry for my disheveled appearance. I was just outside with my daughter. So, um, catch you next time.