101 Ways to Soothe Isabel

Isabel may look angelic in most of her photos, but this picture tells a different story. When she gets mad, she has some serious lungs and we are slowly learning how to sooth her.

Ok, so maybe we don't have 101 ways yet to sooth Isabel, but we have at least 10 to 20 ways.

There is usually five reasons Isabel cry
1. She is hungry / thirsty (this happens a lot)
2. She has a dirty diaper (this happens a lot as well)
3. She wants attention (this is happening more and more as we and the grandparents all want to hold her - she is getting used to it and can cry as soon as we put her in the crib sometime)
4. She has gas (this is hard to tell, but when the other 3 above is not the reason, we think is gas)
5. She is hurt (thank goodness, this has not happened yet, knock on wood)

So what do we do when Isabel is like this? Here are the obvious ways
1. BreastFeed her
2. Change her diaper (8-12 tiems a day)
3. Burp her (sometime take 5 minutes and she may still not burp)
4. cradle /rock her
5. Dance with her in my arms
6. car ride
7. walk with the stroller

Here are some less obvious ways
1. Swaddle her (even though she struggles once she settles, she likes it)
2. Jiggle her with a pillow on the knee (a nervous tick habit now comes in very handy)
3. turn on the hairdryer (see the other post)
4. Loudly shush her in her ear (invokes her calming reflex)
5. Manually bounce the bouncer she sits in
6. Rub chamomile oil on her to help with gas
7. Gave her a bath (she may cry loudly during it - but she passes out afterwards)
8. sleeping pill (just kidding!!! - just checking if you are still reading closely :-))
9. Turning on music loudly (sometime this works on its own)
10. Musical soother at her crib (it only works when she is not crying yet. It captures her attention for awhile)
11. Vacuuming (work similarly to the hairdryer - she loves white noise)

That's it for now. We will keep you posted as we learn more :-)

-Lei