Baby Bliss

by Harvey Karp

There is a new five-step secret to an automatic 'switch off' for your baby's crying. Dr Harvey Karp reveals an extraordinary treasure sought by all parents - how to calm a crying baby in a matter of seconds. A gentle antidote to rigid routines, Baby Bliss is a wonderful blend of ancient and modern advice and wisdom. Bringing your baby home for the first time is often a worrying time, so give yourself a little support and feel happy in the knowledge that your baby will feel calm and content if you follow Dr Karp's simple advice. With pragmatic guidance and simply suggested baby schedules Baby Bliss's tips can be easily applied by both mothers and fathers. Dr. Harvey Karp's successful method includes these revolutionary concepts . . . · The Calming The automatic rest switch to stop any baby crying in the first few months of life. · The Cuddle The Five S's that can calm even the most colicky of infants, including 'swaddling' and 'shhh' for soothing sounds · Night-time The simple routines that will help baby (and parent) to relax and sleep through the night ...and there'll be no more tears before bedtime. 'Karp has devoted his entire career to babies and part of the appeal of Karp's methods for calming babies is that they don't require anything fancy . . . any blanket will do' The New York Times

Genres: Parenting

352 pages, Paperback

First published June 24, 2004

About the author

Dr. Harvey Karp is a nationally renowned pediatrician and child development specialist. He is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine. Over the past 30 years, he has taught thousands of parents, from working moms to superstars like Madonna, Michelle Pfeiffer and Pierce Brosnan his secrets for making children happy.

Dr. Karp has committed his full-time efforts to writing, lecturing and education. He now travels extensively across America and around the world lecturing the medical community and the public about how to use his innovative discoveries to help parents successfully meet the needs of their young children.

Reviews

[Michelle]

The good: This explained what we already know - that newborns feel more secure when we imitate the conditions of the womb. It also helpfully explains ways we can do this. The 5 S's is something I already practice with my newborn and it works pretty effectively for me. It doesn't 100% stop the unsettledness, but it does help to calm him down most of the time.

It also taught me about matching the baby's intensity - this whole time I have been ineffectively trying to be calm and quiet in shooshing my baby, when I should be matching his cries so that he can hear me over them. Tried this out with a super loud SHHHHH earlier and it actually worked!

The bad: This could have all been compressed into a 4 page article. I skipped a lot of the filler in the book because I mainly just wanted a quick solution to calming a crying baby.

[catthebookworm]

DNF at 80 pages. I've been reading this book for over a year and I can't force myself to pick it up and finish. As a nurse with some experience in the neonatal/maternity area, this book reveals and adds nothing. The writing style is extremely dry and, from what I've read, everything said by the author is mostly common knowledge or something the scientific community in this area is already aware of. This could've been an article instead off a 200+paged book.

[Samantha]

I learned a lot from this book about infant sleep and would recommend it to other new parents struggling with this.

[Siying]

Of course it's not going to be interesting... It's a guide book. The first chapter was quite boring, the second was the useful part, while the third was kind of reassuring. But definitely not engaging writing. In fact it's like a long winded doctor speaking... And I suspect the writer is one. But this kind of doctors are always reassuring. Whether they're giving good advice or not.

Chose this cos it came out high in reviews. The explanations make sense and I guess no harm doing those stuff unless they're proved harmful... In any case doctors are always contradicting each other / past well-known "facts", I have kind of given up on deciding who to listen to.

[Kathleen]

This is a total waste of money. Do you know how to wrap, rock and shush your baby? Then you're already in on the secret.