I find that when the baby is around 2-3 months old you can start working a baby bedtime routine into your evenings, depending on the baby.  Earlier than that is difficult, as the baby is still establishing its circadian rhythms and adjusting to the world in general.  You can try, but don’t be surprised if you do your bedtime routine, put your baby to bed, and an hour later he is wide awake again.  Even in these cases, it is still good to try and keep a nighttime atmosphere, to keep the consistent nighttime message.

The other challenge is that the success of your bedtime routine will also depend on how much your baby slept during the day.  For example, Sweet Cheeks slept quite a lot yesterday afternoon, so when we put her to bed at her usual time, following her bedtime routine, she ended up falling asleep about a half-hour later than she usually does.

So what are some things you can do in your routine?  Here are some ideas.  You don’t have to do all of these things, and they don’t have to be in this order:

• Give her a bath (nice and relaxing)
• Give her a baby massage (also very relaxing)
• Feed her (see point five here for a good point about the effect a good feed can have on your baby’s sleep and demeanor)
• Rock her gently or walk with her to relax her (if you fed her, this is probably a necessary step, in order to burp her before falling asleep too)
• Create some white noise, perhaps using a blow dryer (you may or may not like this idea, but it works for me)
• Lie her in bed/crib/bassinet and play a nighttime lullaby (I am falling asleep just writing this)

Notice that all of these things are very relaxing and soothing and serve to help your baby feel sleepier and get a better, longer sleep.  So, in addition to signaling to your baby that it is bedtime, you are helping it to sleep better too.  This also translates into a better sleep for someone very very important – YOU!

We do all of these things before we put Sweet Cheeks to bed, and we find it is a very nice way to end the day with her, and she enjoys it.  She usually falls asleep shortly after we lie her down, and sleeps through for a good five hours or so.

So, if you are looking for ways to start a bedtime routine with your baby, definitely give some of these ideas a try.  We are happy with them!

Join the jam and share some of your bedtime routine ideas with us and let us know what has worked for you!

The plotline goes like this:

11pm.  A tired and desperate father is trying every trick in the book (and on this site) to relieve his seven week old baby daughter’s fussiness and crying.  Nothing seems to be working.  She has been fed and has a clean diaper.  Feeling desperate, the father eyes his wife’s 26 inch Zenzu Exercise Ball in the corner of the room.  In need of a moment of zen, he gets on the ball.  With his baby held upright and her head close to his left shoulder, he starts bouncing up and down on the ball gently.  Gently.  Not like Tigger.  More like a slow, gentle, TLC type of bounce.  It feels good.  Faster than he can say, “Supercalafragialisticexpialadocious,” his baby relaxes and so does he.  No more fussiness.  No more crying.  Just a calm, relaxed, sleeping baby.  The father has achieved zen.  The mystery of the bouncing ball, sleeping baby has been solved.  Wondering why he didn’t try this earlier, the father realizes he is too tired to wonder and heads to bed.  He sleeps.

Based on a true story.  Coming to a bedroom near you.  Give it a try!

Disclaimer:  be very gentle when bouncing and don’t bounce too strongly.  You don’t want to shake your baby.

Join the Jam and tell us your favourite baby calming story!

I know to many this may be common sense, and I don’t mean to treat you, my readers, like idiots, but based on what I have seen on various sites and comments, I need to explicitly state everything.  Otherwise some raging know-it-all (who is probably not even a parent) will come on here and post a comment like “well, this won’t work if the baby is hungry,” or “why don’t you get to the root of the problem rather than just turning on a mute button?” and so on and so on.

That is not to say you should not leave a comment if you disagree with me…I just want to be sure there are no misunderstandings with what I am writing.

So what is all this fuss about?  Well, a blow dryer.  Know also to some as, a hair dryer.  Known to Don King as, a wind tunnel (see here).

Let me explain.

After the birth or our first son, our midwife came over for a check-up.  We happened to have to change our boy’s diaper while she was there.  After we wiped and cleaned the his bum region, our midwife suggested we use a blow dryer to dry it up.  So we tried it out and were amazed at how relaxed and laid back we was while we had the blow dryer on and gently blew some air over him (do not attempt to use Don King’s blow dryer to do this).

I will pause here for some important points:

• Do not use hot air (use a warm setting if you have one).
• Hold the dryer at a distance from the baby so it only gets a gentle breeze.
• Do not blow the air in your baby’s face.
• If you are doing this while the baby is naked or sans diaper/pants, use your hand to create a barrier between the airflow and the baby’s privvies, as this is a sensitive area where a gust of air might be a bit shocking or unappreciated.

Please please please do not use hot air or put this too close to the baby. And please monitor the temperature of the baby to make sure you don’t burn it or overheat it.

I have seen some people writing that it is not the airflow that calms the baby but rather the white noise that the blow dryer creates when it is turned on.  So you can also try just having the blow dryer on without even pointing it at your baby.

With our daughter, we use this once in awhile, either when changing her diaper, or as a last resort when she is fussy.

When changing her diaper, we usually do it near the end of the diaper change, just before we put on the new diaper and sometimes also while we are putting the new diaper on.  We find she really enjoys it and this makes the whole diaper changing process run more smoothly for us all.

As a last resort, when she has been fed and we are sure she does not want to eat anymore, and we have changed her diaper, and we have tried other ways to calm her that haven’t worked, we lie her down on our bed and use the blow dryer.  This works, but we rarely need it with her.  With our son we needed it a lot more, because he had more difficulties with gas and colic than our daughter does.

So there you have it.  If you are looking for a last resort calming technique and nothing else is working, likely because your baby has an upset tummy or is just feeling fussy, give this a try.  If it works as well for you as it has for us, you will be glad you did.  Just be sure to follow all precautions I have given here and use good judgment.  A blow dryer is not a toy.  Do not let your baby stick the blow dryer in its mouth.  And by all means, do not let your baby plug it in or unplug it.  And keep the cord away from the baby too.

Please join the jam and share your comments on this wonderful, controversial, baby calming method.

Of course, we don’t have a kite, so our first stop was the Granville Island Kid’s Market, where there is a pretty cool store that sells all kinds of kites.  Bypassing the “beginner” $100 models, we settled on an “easy to fly” version with a pretty dolphin on top, with a price tag that was reasonable enough that we could let our boy fly it into a tree with minimal regret or guilt.  Our son chose the one with the dolphin… I had taken quite nicely to one with the skull and crossbones, but I was overruled.  Actually, we gave our boy a choice between the dolphin one and an octopus one.  “That one..” he said, with absolute certainty, pointing to the dolphin one.  And so the dolphin one it was.  We forked over the 22 bucks and headed on our way (not before stopping at Pedro’s for a coffee and a cookie, of course).

After a short walk (that seemed rather long) through a goose-poo-peppered path, we arrived at our destination.  Vanier Park.  The wind was blowing well, so we were set to go.

A few failed attempts at flying the kite later, we managed to get some decent elevation.  We were all stoked.  Except for our boy of course.  He held the string a few times, but was more concerned with the amount of goose-poo on the ground.  I pondered the mystery of the goose-poo for a bit.  “There is a $2000 dollar fine for dogs to poo here,” I thought, “yet these 10 or 20 geese here can poo all around to their heart’s content (and they do), without so much as having to drop a dime.”  Who’s fining the geese?  A mystery that may never be solved, but a real cash-cow that is not being capitalized on by our Parks Board.

So I held our boy in my arms (he refused to stand amons so much poo), sweet wife held our daughter in the sling, and we were having more fun flying the kite than the kids.  At least it let me get in touch with my inner child again… it had already been a few hours since I had done that.

“I want to go to the playground” exclaimed our boy, amid complaints of the abundance of goose-poo on the ground.  So we packed it in and started heading back.  Shortly after, he was asleep on my shoulder.  Now he’ll probably be up till 10pm tonight.

It was a fun time overall and we all really enjoyed it, despite the small hiccups along the way.  And what did our boy say when I pointed up at the kite earlier, asking him to take a look at the pretty kite?  …..  “I want the octopus.”  Argh.

Last night I was carrying my 1 month old daughter around and the usual techniques didn’t seem to be working.  I was on the verge of a collapse worse than Britney Spears after a wild night out when I had a sudden flashback from two and a half years ago (my god, has it been that long?).

I had totally forgotten about a hold I used to use with our son when he was just a wee little one.  The current techniques we have been using (see here) have worked so well that this one had totally slipped my mind.

The way it works is like in the photo.  Have your baby straddle your arms, with his head resting on your arm and your hands supporting his body.  Make sure your palms and fingers are open wide to spread the weight of his body across your whole hand and not just have it all concentrated in one particular location.

Walk around holding your baby like this for a few minutes, combined with some shushing and self relaxing techniques (see here), and you will know the meaning of baby bliss.  Give it a try!

Join the jam and let us know if you have tried this and if it worked for you!  Any other thoughts you would like to share are welcome!

So, I have pondered what we husbands and fathers can do to help out our wives in times of need. I have come up with a few of the following ideas or thoughts:
1) Change the diaper – see my post on projectile poo-poo before attempting this task. Changing the diaper is something my wife really appreciates me doing, for obvious reasons.
2) Bring her a drink – women tend to get thirsty while breastfeeding (need to compensate for the loss of fluids I guess), so while she is breastfeeding, bring her a drink. She will love you for it.
3) Be there to lend a hand – when you are trying to change a diaper, clean up projectile poo-poo and calm the baby simultaneously at 4am, two hands are just not enough. So be there to lend an extra hand or two to help out.
4) Bring her what she needs – sometimes a cloth or blanket is needed that was accidently left on the other side of the room or in another room, or a wet cloth is needed to wipe something up. Be ready to go get these things and haul them over.
5) Take the baby out for a walk – if the baby has been fed and diaper changed, you can easily take the baby out by yourself for a walk. If you are like me, you put the baby in a sling, go for a walk outside, and with the steady movement and fresh air, your baby is asleep in no time. You get some time to have a walk while your baby sleeps (and maybe go for a coffee or something) and your wife has a break during which she can do whatever she wants, without having to worry about the baby waking up (she will probably sleep).
6) Clean up around the house – if time permits, you can be a big help by cleaning up around the house a bit. Or just hire some cleaning staff.
If any of you out there have additional ideas (both moms and dads who are reading this), feel free to leave them here as comments! To the moms – what is the one thing that your husband can or could do to help?  To the dads – join the jam – what do you do to help out your wife?

**Flickr photo courtesy of Max Sullivan