The Fourth Trimester
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by Mike Clark
I first learned about the fourth trimester from Dr. Harvey Karp, author of “Happiest Baby on the Block”. He was the keynote speaker at BabyTime Expo in Las Vegas in 2008. The fourth trimester basically means your child needs three more months to adjust to her new world. We were expecting our third child at the time, and I really wish I had known about this concept for the first two!
If you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense. Things are very different in this brand new world for your baby. Your baby was comfortable where she was, and she needs to feel comfortable now. If you mimic what it was like for most of her life, it will help calm her down when she is upset.
The following isn’t the exact formula that Dr. Karp teaches. This is just what I got out of it and what I found effective when calming my baby. And for the first time after having three kids, I know why! If you want to learn more about Dr. Karp’s techniques, I recommend you pick up his book or DVD (I did).
1. Your baby is used to a confined space. She just spent nine months in a tiny place. Now she has all this space. It’s very weird to her. This is why swaddling, tightly wrapping her up in a blanket (like a burrito!), works so well. It may not seem comfortable to you and me to be wrapped up tight like that, but we’ve been in our new world for years. We’re used to stretching out. Your baby is not.
2. It’s dark in there. I found that if I turn down the lights, it helped calm my baby. With my first two, I left a night light on for them. I guess I thought they were afraid of the dark! They’ve been in the dark all their lives, how could they be afraid of it.
3. They’re used to movement. Mom has not been lying in bed for nine months without moving. She has been walking around, getting up and down all day, and perhaps getting aerobic exercise. The baby is used to getting jiggled around. So I jiggled her a little. She loved it. I did not shake her. Just a jiggle, securing her head in the palm of my hand and rocking back and forth.
4. Shush. Along with moving around all day, it’s pretty loud in the womb. Mom’s heart is beating, blood is pumping, her stomach is turning. Your baby is used to loud noises. That is why shushing helps. Shush right in her ear. It makes her feel at home.
Along with a lot of love and the fourth-trimester techniques, our baby has done great. After a couple months she began to sleep through the night.
Believe me though, there’s no magic potion here. We still had plenty of sleepless nights. If you are expecting, prepare yourself. However, waking up to a crying baby with confidence that you can calm her is a very good feeling. Waking up dreading that you are going to have to listen to a crying baby for an hour in the middle of the night is quite the opposite.
Mike Clark is the Director of Operations at ConvExx , show producers of BabyTime Expo, and a father of three.
I first learned about the fourth trimester from Dr. Harvey Karp, author of “Happiest Baby on the Block”. He was the keynote speaker at BabyTime Expo in Las Vegas in 2008. The fourth trimester basically means your child needs three more months to adjust to her new world. We were expecting our third child at the time, and I really wish I had known about this concept for the first two!
If you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense. Things are very different in this brand new world for your baby. Your baby was comfortable where she was, and she needs to feel comfortable now. If you mimic what it was like for most of her life, it will help calm her down when she is upset.
The following isn’t the exact formula that Dr. Karp teaches. This is just what I got out of it and what I found effective when calming my baby. And for the first time after having three kids, I know why! If you want to learn more about Dr. Karp’s techniques, I recommend you pick up his book or DVD (I did).
1. Your baby is used to a confined space. She just spent nine months in a tiny place. Now she has all this space. It’s very weird to her. This is why swaddling, tightly wrapping her up in a blanket (like a burrito!), works so well. It may not seem comfortable to you and me to be wrapped up tight like that, but we’ve been in our new world for years. We’re used to stretching out. Your baby is not.
2. It’s dark in there. I found that if I turn down the lights, it helped calm my baby. With my first two, I left a night light on for them. I guess I thought they were afraid of the dark! They’ve been in the dark all their lives, how could they be afraid of it.
3. They’re used to movement. Mom has not been lying in bed for nine months without moving. She has been walking around, getting up and down all day, and perhaps getting aerobic exercise. The baby is used to getting jiggled around. So I jiggled her a little. She loved it. I did not shake her. Just a jiggle, securing her head in the palm of my hand and rocking back and forth.
4. Shush. Along with moving around all day, it’s pretty loud in the womb. Mom’s heart is beating, blood is pumping, her stomach is turning. Your baby is used to loud noises. That is why shushing helps. Shush right in her ear. It makes her feel at home.
Along with a lot of love and the fourth-trimester techniques, our baby has done great. After a couple months she began to sleep through the night.
Believe me though, there’s no magic potion here. We still had plenty of sleepless nights. If you are expecting, prepare yourself. However, waking up to a crying baby with confidence that you can calm her is a very good feeling. Waking up dreading that you are going to have to listen to a crying baby for an hour in the middle of the night is quite the opposite.
Mike Clark is the Director of Operations at ConvExx , show producers of BabyTime Expo, and a father of three.
Labels: BabyTime Expo, Dr. Harvey Karp, Fourth Trimester, shush
posted by Mike Clark at
2:34 PM
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