My son Lincoln Boyd is a month old and he rules. Well most of the time. He often rules much less during what those that know about babies call the witching hour, or the arsenic hour, colic, etc, basically when your kid would rather cry than not. It normally occurs from early evening into the night. For Lincoln it starts about 6ish and can last until 11ish. Basically he wants to flail around, turn red, grimace and cry. It’s awesome.
Now it probably won’t last (God I hope it does), but I’ve found a solution that so far has worked every time to console the seemingly inconsolable little guy. It’s a combo move, so I’ll break down each part below. Sometimes one or two together will work, but often we need to bust out the big guns and put them all together. We like to call it the Death to the Witch move. We don’t really call it that. OK, the 5 steps.
1) Swaddle – This is key. Tighten that sucker up. There’s a million different ways to do these, but it should be tight enough to secure movement. Apparently when there mobility is limited they feel like they are back in the womb.
2) Sling – We use the Hot Sling. It’s not super girly. Don’t think I’d wear it to an arm wrestling comp, but it’s not too bad. Saves your back too.
3) Pacifier – We use the Soothies, which are apparently good if you are breast feeding, but he’ll use any pacifier. I was anti pacifier for about 3 seconds until I saw that they worked. And our lactation consultant told us that when they are sucking it releases hormones that help with digestion.