A New Secret Weapon

In the beginning, it was easy: shoosh, swaddle, suck, swing. It soon became apparent that Riley wasn’t all that into being tightly swaddled, though, and although sucking on your finger is apparently pretty great, she’s is a little fickle when it comes to the pacifier. Lucky for us, we had a secret weapon: the up-and-down bouncey free-fall maneuver.

Alas, in these trying times (3-6 weeks is a difficult time for babies), on occasion even the bouncey-bouncey doesn’t quite do the trick. I suppose we’ve been lucky that her most difficult period is typically in the evening (and not, say, the wee hours of the morning), but even so consoling a fussy Riley is a tiring process. Fortunately, we’ve discovered a new secret weapon!

It began with a recommendation from the baby book: using a hair dryer can help prevent diaper rash by getting her bottom dry before going back into a new daiper. It didn’t take long to notice that it did a great job of calming her down, too. These days, we don’t even have to blow the warm air on her (although sometimes that helps)—the noise alone works wonders when she’s just too hungry and worked up to start feeding.