How to quieten a crying baby.

If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll notice that I’ve been pretty lax this month. This is because I’ve literally had my hands full – of babies that is. Both my girls have come home with their newborns and while they are doing most of the work themselves, I do help in the afternoons by keeping both the infants quiet while the mothers nap.

Now anyone who has looked after babies knows that when they cry you should check for three things

• Is the baby wet?
• Is the baby hungry?
• Does the baby need to burp?

Pediatricians, child psychologists, grandmothers, other mothers and well wishers will tell you that when a baby cries you should try and keep him quiet with soothing words, rocking, singing, cooing or just simply walking him up and down till he calms down. This is of course after checking out any of the three above reasons for why babies cry.

In our house, however, we have our own unique, sure fire method of keeping a child quiet – just outshout the kid.

When baby begins to cry, first of all start asking everyone ” why is the baby crying?” When five people ask this question, there is enough noise generated for the baby to get distracted and take a break from the wails. But of course this is temporary and baby soon realises that he is losing the attention he has garnered so he begins the second wail in a higher pitch.

At this point, one of the grown ups begins clapping just two inches away from the baby’s face while the other begins singing loudly – silly words just strung to a tune that is dangerously like ‘Jingle Bells’ in the middle of summer. When this doesn’t work, yet another adult begins to distract the child with silly gestures that look silly even to a child.

By this time, the attempts to calm down the child begin to resemble some kind of circus with each adult trying his best and loudest to out shout the wails. Finally, the baby does quieten out of sheer exhaustion while each of the performing adults takes the credit for keeping the baby quiet.