theITbaby

the IT city, the I.T. Baby

Baby straight jacket now required for calming/sleep

Maggie in a Swaddler (age approx one month) when that baby straight jacket fit her
Maggie at a little over a month

104 days after Baby M’s birth we’ve reached an interesting point in which we have a couple of certainties. The first of these is that at approximately seven PM the baby becomes a minor screaming demon, the other is that to calm screaming demon down you have to hit her with a series of unexpected calming moves usually culminating with at least temporary swaddling.

What’s really odd about it is usually there’s a smile on her face as I’m gently restraining her. I never would have imagined that babies would appreciate some sort of pre-sleep baby bondage thing but that’s the case.

She’s pretty much outgrown her infant swaddlers, although I will toss her in one for a few minutes to calm her a bit. It’s not horribly small, just a little smaller than I’d want her sleeping in.

But that’s now a comfort move to contain and confine rather than free. Seems a bit backwards to me. But whatever works. I usually can let her free after she passes out, which is coming up on 40 seconds post-swaddle as the record now.

Post swaddle calm down, you can usually do what you want and have a happy baby… well… for a bit…

I’m finding this parenting thing odder, but at least there are a couple of hours a day of a really awesome little baby peeking out between naps and Satan himself attempting to manifest through our child.

Paul King

Paul King lives in Nashville Tennessee with his wife, two daughters and cats. He writes for Pocketables, theITBaby, and is an IT consultant along with doing tech support for a film production company.