Absolute bliss for baby AND parents! (Baby Bliss: Your One-Stop Guide for the First Three Months and Beyond - Harvey Karp)

Member Name: k81979

Product:	Baby Bliss: Your One-Stop Guide for the First Three Months and Beyond - Harvey Karp
Date:	20/04/09 (39 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Friendly style, focusses on loving and cuddling your baby, and the methods I tried worked!

Disadvantages: None

I got this book out of the library as I was looking for ways to calm my 5 week old son when he became fretful. He isn't a big crier (luckily!), but can get a bit grumpy in the evenings.

Harvey Karp is an American paediatrician who has devised his own 'Cuddle Cure' for babies who are difficult to settle. The method is aimed at all parents, but in particular those who have colicy babies, who may cry for hours on end without an obvious reason.

Dr Karp theorises that there is a missing 'fourth trimester'. Basically, his idea is that babies are born about 3 months sooner than they would have been millions of years ago. Evolution has made them bigger, especially their heads, and so they need to be born sooner nowadays, otherwise they wouldn't get out! This means that they are missing the comforts of the womb for the first three months or so, and is why they may cry for no apparent reason.

Dr Karp bases much of his observations on women in other countries, such as tribal communities, where there is no colic, and babies rarely cry for long. He noticed that they kept their babies with them constantly for the first few months of life, in womb like environments.

The Cuddle Cure focusses on 5 steps that you can take to soothe your crying baby, ones that we probably use anyway, but described in exact detail and shown step-by-step. Dr Karp says that using the steps in a particular order will calm any baby eventually.

I tried some of the steps as I was reading the book, meaning to implement the whole 5 steps once I had read it in full. However, since my boy is not colicy, I found I didn't have to implement all the steps, one or two used together worked amazingly well for me. In fact, he is having a morning nap now after using one of the steps, which is unusual for him!

The methods used are nothing unusual in themselves - swaddling, white noise, rocking etc, but Dr Karp goes to great lengths to describe HOW to perform each step to achieve the end result - a happy calm baby. Sounds a bit too simple? It's exactly what first time parents sometimes need - the bits that everyone assumes you know because they ARE simple!

Now, I don't know from personal experience if it works with a baby who has harsher crying episodes than my little one, so I don't feel I can give a 100% endorsement of the method. My niece is a little grouchier than my son so I'm looking forward to trying this out with her and seeing if I can work any magic. I'll come back and update the review when I get to do that!

The book is written in a really lovely friendly style, and you can just picture Dr Karp as a friendly grandfather figure prone to making dodgy jokes (describes swaddling as 'wrap-ture' - bless! And several more similar comments - womb-with-a-view anyone?). It makes such a refreshing change to be told that, stuff the routines, it IS ok to simply cuddle, feed and love your baby as much as you like, when you like, for these important first few months.

I really couldn't put this down, and would recommend it to all new parents. I think it would also make a lovely gift for anyone expecting a baby - I wish I'd had this right from the beginning!

Summary: A must buy for all new parents and those who are expecting.