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

Hairdryer - our new best friend

Two days ago, we bought another hairdryer to put in the baby room. No, the baby doesn't have enough hair yet to really need another hair dryer. We are using it for something else.

For the past few weeks, every time I used the hairdryer in the bath room, my mom noticed that Isabel, who maybe crying loudly, would suddenly stop and be quiet. It's quite amazing.

I guess it has to do with the white noise it creates because now we bought a dedicated one for her, so whenever she is fussy, we turned it on. The wind is away from her, of course, but the sound miraculously soothes her for some reason. Some people say it's because the noise reminds her of the womb. Apparently it's very loud in there for the last 9 months, as loud as a vacuum cleaner.

The effect doesn't last forever of course and we don't want to affect her hearing too much by putting it on too long, but even 10 minutes of extra quietness is amazing. The fact it works every time makes it my new best friend. :-)

- Lei
p.s: we can also use it to warm her bottom after diaper change which she loves.