Crying. Screaming. Tears. Red-faced. Sweaty. It can drive a newor even an experienced parent crazy,  left feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, confused, and fed up.

We have been really lucky – Jia really was never much of a crier. The only time we really experienced much crying with her was in the early days when she was trying to teach us what she needed – to be fed. After that, around 3 months old (like the photo above), she only cried when she was in an unfamiliar place and someone else wanted to try holding her, or if we were in the car. Yep, the “drive the baby around the block to stop their crying” didn’t work for us at all. She’d be a happy smiley baby and the second you got in the car, you better hope you didn’t hit the red light on your 1/2 mile drive to Target.

Anyway, we attribute our happy hardly-crying baby to white noise and swaddling, which we started literally from the day she was born. Jia was swaddled basically the whole time we were in the hospital and when she cried, Jeff immediately placed her on her side and shushed then jiggled her and she became serene. Immediately. I wanted to share with you what tips for white noise and swaddling we swear by. Continue reading “For Crying Out Loud…!” »