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The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer by Harvey Karp
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Harvey Karp Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 2003-05-27 ISBN: 0553381466 Number of pages: 288 Publisher: Bantam Product features:
Book Reviews of The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep LongerBook Review: some good info but with a lot of extra junk thrown in Summary: 3 StarsI have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, yes, the principles are good. Definitely information about swaddling, sshhhing, etc that every new parent should know.
On the other hand, the author presents the material in two incredibly annoying ways. He shares it as though it is brand-new information which no other doctors or parents know about, including ample quotes from parents who herald him as a sort of demi-god. He then simultaneously shares utterly ridiculous suggestions about why babies like these kinds of things. Here's a quote from page 130: " 'Tummy touching' might also turn on calming as a reflex left over from our ape ancestors. For millions of years it has been crucial for ape babies to stay still when they were tummy-to-tummy, clutching their mama's fur. It's possible that those animals who were soothed by the sensation of tummy touching thrashed less, and therefore survived and passed their genes along to their own babies."
Seriously? That's the best reason he could give as to why babies like to be skin-to-skin with their parent? His continual evolution-based, completely bizarre suggestions contradicted each other and were so annoying that I repeatedly had to stop reading altogether. Perhaps this was Dr. Karp's way of stretching the material to take up a whole book, but it was nearly bad enough to stop me from wanting to read the book at all.
The benefit to this book over the dozens that include exactly the same basic principles of baby-calming is that because it has no other real point to it, this book is more specific with details like making sure that your child is swaddled TIGHTLY, that the sshhhing is LOUD, that kind of thing. Instead of just mentioning the techniques in passing, he gives in-depth explanations of exactly how to do it, so that somebody who has never handled a baby before could probably use this book and figure out how to do a very good job of it. That's the biggest plus from my perspective, and the reason that I would - somewhat reluctantly - suggest that new parents skim through it.
Summary of The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep LongerIn perhaps the most important parenting book of the decade, Dr. Harvey Karp reveals an extraordinary treasure sought by parents for centuries-an automatic "off-switch" for their baby's crying.
No wonder pediatricians across the country are praising him and thousands of Los Angeles parents, from working moms to superstars like Madonna and Pierce Brosnan, have turned to him to learn the secrets for making babies happy.
Never again will parents have to stand by helpless and frazzled while their poor baby cries and cries. Dr. Karp has found there IS a remedy for colic. "I share with parents techniques known only to the most gifted baby soothers throughout history .and I explain exactly how they work."
In a innovative and thought-provoking reevaluation of early infancy, Dr. Karp blends modern science and ancient wisdom to prove that newborns are not fully ready for the world when they are born. Through his research and experience, he has developed four basic principles that are crucial for understanding babies as well as improving their sleep and soothing their senses:
The Missing Fourth Trimester: as odd as it may sound, one of the main reasons babies cry is because they are born three months too soon.
The Calming Reflex: the automatic reset switch to stop crying of any baby in the first few months of life.
The 5 "S's": the simple steps (swaddling, side/stomach position, shushing, swinging and sucking) that trigger the calming reflex. For centuries, parents have tried these methods only to fail because, as with a knee reflex, the calming reflex only works when it is triggered in precisely the right way. Unlike other books that merely list these techniques Dr. Karp teaches parents exactly how to do them, to guide cranky infants to calm and easy babies to serenity in minutes.and help them sleep longer too.
The Cuddle Cure: the perfect mix the 5 "S's" that can soothe even the most colicky of infants.
In the book, Dr. Karp also explains:
What is colic?
Why do most babies get much more upset in the evening?
How can a parent calm a baby-in mere minutes?
Can babies be spoiled?
When should a parent of a crying baby call the doctor?
How can a parent get their baby to sleep a few hours longer?
Even the most loving moms and dads sometimes feel pushed to the breaking point by their infant's persistent cries. Coming to the rescue, however, Dr. Karp places in the hands of parents, grandparents, and all childcare givers the tools they need to be able to calm their babies almost as easily as.turning off a light.
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