Harvey Karp- You're a Genius

Since we brought Stella home, she has been a really easy baby. She falls asleep easy and doesn't wake up when you lay her down. She sleeps for good stretches of time at night. She doesn't really cry a lot. We wondered if maybe some of her easiness was due to the fact that she was a preemie. Now that she has reached the one month mark, and is closer to her actual due date, we are seeing more "typical" newborn behaviors including the fact that she has become a little more difficult to soothe.

When we took our childbirth class we watched a video that featured a pediatrician who talked about soothing fussy babies- Dr. Harvey Karp. He wrote a book called "The Happiest Baby On The Block" and in the video, Jim and I thought he was the funniest, craziest guy ever. We were the only couple in our childbirth class who could not stop ourselves from cracking up when he was shushing the babies. It was hilarious! We left the class thinking that he was insane, and that we would never be using his methods because our baby was going to be perfect. Most of Stella's first month was easy, so we didn't ever really think much about Harvey Karp, but then in the last week, she has become a little more difficult to soothe, and so we had to YouTube Harvey Karp to remind us what his method was. Stella was grouchy on Saturday evening, so we gave it a shot. Jim swaddled her and laid her on her side, she shushed her and eventually put her in her swing- genius! She was out! Peace has returned to our house thanks to Harvey Karp. I only wish that I had known about Dr. Karp when Cole was a baby.

Here is Stella happily napping