Last night some friends came over with BBQ for dinner and their one year old son. We all rocked out with our babies out and had a great time. If someone you know has a young baby, I highly recommend you go hang out at their house– they’re probably dying for some grown up time, but getting out to a restaurant can feel like waiting for a ticking time bomb of tears to go off, and going to someone else’s house is daunting, because you’d have to lug so. much. crap. with you, like places for baby to sit, etc. It turns out a 4-3 ratio works out great for adults to children, and I think the key is to always have one more grownup than baby around– not that that’s possible when I’ve got two twins tag-teaming me all day!
Anyway, over dinner, we were talking about a terrible night we had with a screaming baby earlier this week (spoiler alert: that baby was Etta), and how we tried “all the 5 S’s” and nothing worked to soothe her. Our friend asked what the 5 S’s are. They’re from the book The Happiest Baby on the Block, and are swaddling, shushing, sucking, swinging/swaying, and side-lying, and can be used in combo to soothe fussy babies. We’ve found them very useful, and a recent study published in Pediatrics even found them to work very well at relieving infants’ pain related to vaccines.
After this explanation, our friend quipped, “So, is the sixth S nobody talks about ‘swearing’?”
Yes. Yes it is. When all the other S’s fail, all that’s left is swearing. Which could make us a little worried about baby’s first word…
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