Learning to Soothe a Baby: a letter to a new mom

Posted on by Amy Rogers Hays
A few months ago I was emailing with a dear friend, also named Amy, who was about to have her first baby.  (Here’s a picture of us when I was pregnant with Jackson.) Amy is wise and kind, an ennegram 1 with a 2 wing (like me!), organized, caring, and especially wants to be organized in the caring of others. As we were writing back and forth she said, “I’m praying that baby is a good eater and sleeper and that we can learn how to soothe him quickly.”
( Amy with a tiny Jackson)
I nodded my head when I read that. What a beautiful prayer of the woman on the edge of holding a baby in her arms. Some of my most raw prayers have been about getting my baby to sleep: Please, Lord, help this child to sleep! And the Lord has always answered that prayer (sometimes a couple hours later, but it’s always been answered!)
So in addition to adding my own prayers for a peaceful first few weeks for this first child, I wrote her back with all the little things I have picked up over the course of two babies. And I thought I’d share the gist of what I wrote her here (with a few more pictures of tiny Jackson & Lily).
Two quick things about this letter. One is that it’s a little heavy on the nursing, but I have some of my dearest friends who couldn’t nurse their little ones because of adoption or medical conditions, and they soothe their babies just as well as any of my nursing friends. (Actually their babies are notably calm ones! So do not be discouraged if nursing isn’t something that you get to do.) Second, this letter doesn’t touch much on the huge role that dads have in soothing babies and making those first few months work. But Evan was there every step of the way. He was such an equal partner in the workload. Dads are the best.
Dearest Amy, You guys are going to do great! Every baby is so different, and finding the steps to the dance between mother and child is special and unique. This, I think, is the hardest but also in the end one of the best parts of becoming a mother. I think the key is trying to keep a curious attitude of wonder about what will work for you and your baby–even if it’s not what  experts say is “the right way” to do it.
You’re the expert on your baby, because you are spending all the time studying and experimenting and loving! Figuring out how your baby likes to be bounced or swaddled or sung to is one of the first of many little details that will make up your special relationship. (A great book that champions this approach is Spirit-Led Parenting: From Fear to Freedom in Babies First Year by Meg Tietz & Laura Oyer.)
When I was a baby, my dad figured out that the only way to calm me down during the witching hour in the evening was to thump me firmly and slowly on the back as he carried me around. To this day I find that same motion soothing. And that’s probably why I pat my babies like that too! (Here, my dad is figuring out that Lily liked “flying baby.” Who knew?)
Generally, I think the new parent learning-curve is figuring out that your baby is probably hungry and tired more often and faster than you’d think, and that an over-tired baby is surprisingly difficult to get to calm down and sleep. So when in doubt, nurse the baby to sleep. Also, when your baby wakes up, look at the clock and know that they are going to  probably need to be back asleep in 90 minutes, but maybe significantly before.   When you get the early hunger and sleep cues down, then all the rocking and patting and swaddling and shushing should work a lot better.
So, here’s what worked for me and my two kids, and hopefully it’ll give you a few ideas to try or resources to check out!
#1. Try to make your hospital time as restful and helpful as possible. While the hospital’s aim is to keep you and your baby healthy, sometimes the constant people running in and out of your room is exhausting. And while you probably can’t have the peace of a home birth or a birth center at a hospital, if you need more peace, make sure you ask! Try and leave the hospital as well-rested and comfortable as you can, so make sure to keep letting your nurses know what you want.
Do you want to be left alone and have more sleep? Tell them; they can put a note on your door. Do you want them to turn visitors away at a particular time? (They don’t mind being the “bad guy” to help you set boundaries with your well-meaning friends and family!) Do you want them to come in and help re-swaddle your baby? (Pro tip: bring a couple of velcro swaddles to the hospital with you.) They are so good at that. Do you want them to take your baby for a couple of hours so you can sleep?  Or do you not want them to take your baby for testing without waking you up? Whatever is going to make you more comfortable, ask! Even if they can’t 100% accommodate you, they’ll try to do what they can.
With Jackson’s birth I had gotten 3 hours of sleep before laboring for 26 hours and then had a few 30 minute naps the next day. By the time Jackson was 20 hours old, I was desperate for sleep, in tears because I was so incredibly, almost deliriously tired. I told my nurse, and she was awesome.
She swaddled him up, and we decided together that if he didn’t go down, I’d let her take him to the nurses’ station (which was something I really hadn’t wanted, but I was so incredibly exhausted).  Then, baby Jackson slept all wrapped up for three blessed hours. It was the best three hours of sleep of my life. She put all sorts of notes on our door at the nurses station to leave us be! I had to take a picture with my nurse-angel before we left the hospital.
With Lily, I was far better rested throughout the labor and since she was born in the evening, it was easier to get settled into the postpartum ward and left mostly alone. (And I told them that’s what I wanted: just to be left as much alone as possible. And my nurse was like “Great! We can do that!” ) Even still, after a couple of rounds of getting woken up every 45 minutes, I let the nurses take her for 3 hours. Again…best three hours of sleep.
(In general, in the months that followed, I found that getting one 3 hour chunk of sleep followed by a four or five 90 minute chunks interrupted by nursing sessions made for a decent night’s sleep. But as I read somewhere, if you’re up more than 5 times a night, it’s difficult to feel well-rested. I found this to be true.)
#2. Try to get nursing off to the easiest start. Keep asking for help from lactation consultants at the hospital until you feel comfortable. (Hopefully you’ve read a few books on nursing or taken a class before hand too, I thought this quick refresher video was helpful especially getting ready for Lily. But the best thing by the time you’re in the hospital is to have the lactation consultant help you a few times!)  And  it’s also great if you need more help to have a lactation consultant come to your house and help you in your actual setup at home. (But bringing your nursing pillow to the hospital can help you learn to nurse without a hospital bed and 4 hospital pillows.)
#3 Try to minimize potential baby tummy issues. Of course there are going to be things outside of your control when it comes to baby feeding issues. Consider giving your baby a probiotic like evivo and taking a soil based one yourself like just thrive during pregnancy and afterwards (These are fairly new, and better than the ones I used. I learned about them on the paleo view podcast episode 330). (Also, you might want to bring your own iron supplement since they almost always prescribe one to postpartum moms, but it’s the type that you need to also have a stool softener with since it has a side effect of constipation (which is not good for postpartum moms) people love the megafood one.)
I had done a big elimination diet five years before I had my kids, so I had been off all grains and all dairy (except butter), but a lot of women find that those two are big culprits for fussy baby tummies. So I’d suggest having a game plan for if you need to cut dairy and grains out of your diet (My favorite resource is ThePaleoMom.com. It’s kind of a terrible time to try and learn a whole new way of eating, but if your baby is struggling, it can really be worth it. A lot of people find it really helps, even if it can take a week or two to really see a difference. I had to cut chocolate and coffee out for the first six months with both kids, and butter for Lily for the first…well 16 months and counting.)
Also…My kids didn’t need a lot of burping, but especially if your babies are early they might.
#4. Babywearing. The first couple weeks aren’t really the time for YOU to be baby wearing (much / at all … just stay home with the baby, preferably in bed like Blythe Fike 🙂 because your muscles are healing. I’ve run into so many moms who say “I tried baby wearing, but it hurt my back, so I stopped.” And my theory is that these women tried to baby wear too much too early. And ironically babywearing sometimes is so convenient that you can try to overdue things with your now-free hands.
But having your husband or other caregiver walking / bouncing the baby in a baby carrier might be really helpful. (Evan did a lot of baby wearing and skin to skin with Jackson especially early in the evening. I’d sleep and Jackson would sleep with Evan). So you might want to make sure your husband (or whoever is helping you) is ready to go with how to put on the baby carrier (and put the baby in the carrier). Youtube is helpful (search for whatever carrier you have; we like the ergo with the infant insert), but having a parent-friend help you practice with your carrier with a live baby or teddy bear is probably more slightly helpful.
We never used a swing, rocking chair, or a pacifier, but I know that some people cannot imagine newborn care without them! #5. You pretty much can’t do too much skin to skin in the first weeks. (Here’s some resources on skin to skin)  So make sure you have a couple nightgowns/bathrobes that make it easy, and a good set up at home to spend time mostly reclined with a baby on your chest (wedge pillows, nursing pillows, body pillows, extra pillows…I’m a big believer in the power of pillows).
If you have a baby that doesn’t mind being set down: that’s awesome, and a little unusual. Most very young babies want to be held all the time. You don’t necessarily have to hold them all the time, but it’s helpful to remember that’s what most babies want, and some babies are more amenable to being set down than others. Jackson was not amenable to being set down, so for the most part, if I wasn’t asleep 2 feet away, someone (usually me) was holding the baby.
#6. Make your bedroom a quiet, cool, dark sanctuary. We loved our co-sleeper, although for Lily we just made her crib into one by taking one side off  with a pretty elaborate setup of bungee cords. (Although I have sleep apnea and had to make a way for a cpap to be there, so you don’t have to do that.) I never co-slept but I made the bed safe enough so that if I fell asleep with a baby in bed they’d be safe.  The biggest benefit to having a co-sleeper is that it makes getting back to sleep yourself easier; the less you get out of bed and walk around, the easier it is to fall back asleep, especially if you’ve just nursed without looking at a screen.
We keep our house at 65 degrees at night and my kids wore one cotton pj footie jammies, one cotton velcro swaddle, and then one muslin swaddle blanket swaddled around the velcro swaddle and they seemed at the right temperature without a hat. We also have a white noise machine and a fan on, although my good friend Gwendolyn loves her GermGaurdian Night-Night 4-in-1 Air Purifier.
Speaking of swaddling, I thought reading Happiest Baby on the Block was helpful to learn about the 5 ‘s :  Swaddle, Side-Stomach Position, Shush, Swing, and Suck. (We had some friends who rented SNOO but I don’t know much about it.) But I also liked Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect by Magda Gerber — a very different approach to infant care than Happiest Baby on the Block, but helpful too!
#7. It’s ok to nurse the baby to sleep. I definitely nursed my babies to sleep, and after a few weeks with Jackson figured out that I could just keep him swaddled while I nursed him, and that was very helpful. With Lily, our routine (even still at 16 months) is to nurse her swaddled, me sitting cross legged on the edge of my bed that butts up against the open edge of her crib/co-sleeper. I use a boppy nursing pillow and prop my knee that’s under her head up with a pillow so it’s more comfortable. Then when she’s asleep I just slowly lower her down to her bed. When she was really little, I’d put her on her back, but now that she’s big, I put down her on her side.) When she was super little, she didn’t like the cold sheets after being against warm me, so we’d put a hot water bottle down in the spot that she would go and take it away right before we put her down. (Obviously be careful not to burn yourself or your baby! I feel it’s a little safer with a hot-water bottle than a heating pad. I had a friend burn herself using a heating pad this way!)
For lots of other tips of nursing and sleeping, I loved La Leche League International’s Sweet Sleep: Nighttime and Naptime Strategies for the Breastfeeding Family. People get kind of crazy about baby sleep; just look up all the books on getting babies to sleep! My main advice is find what works for you and your baby, and be confident in that. If something else works for someone else then practice what Amy Poehler says: “Good for her! Not for me. That is the motto women should constantly repeat over and over again. Good for her! Not for me.” ( Yes Please! p. 38). You know what your family needs to be rested, content, and connected. Ask for help if you need it, but if it works, then rock it.
And I would pay a lot of money to be able to go back and read a book while Jackson took a nap on my lap post-nurse. It’s the sweetest (as long as someone can bring you water, or you don’t have to go to the bathroom!) Eventually we did a lot of ergo naps so I could get lots of walking in and he could get lots of napping.
#8. Most babies don’t need nighttime diaper changes! But you still might want a (red) nightlight to help you get everything set up for nursing in the middle of the night. As far as seeing during the middle of the night for nursing or diaper changes, we like our salt lamp, I don’t necessarily think it cleans the air…but it’s dimmable and red toned and lets people know we’re crunchy! ) (I found out about not having to diaper change from this post with lots of great tips from a catholic mom Kendra Tierney who just had her 10th(!) baby.) I think formula-fed babies might be more prone to diaper rash, so nighttime changes might be a good plan for them. I used this diaper balm with all the early diaper changes and we didn’t have a problem, but if your baby does show signs of diaper rash try to pounce on it quickly!
#9. Create a Nursing Nest Get stocked up on things for you for nursing: a big water bottle, audio books (we love to listen to ours on really basic mp3 players, so then we keep phones out of the bedroom) and paper books (although people swear by their kindles for nursing). Something fun and light is usually what postpartum moms want to read (or re-read!) (Some of my favorites are: Anne of Green Gables, Penderwicks, Lunar Chronicles, Wrinkle in Time, Harry Potter, Narnia, Mitford, James Herriot, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.) I got to finish the Lunar Chronicles when Jackson was born, and The Penderwicks when Lily was born. With Lily, I re-read the whole series as a treat to myself.
I’m not in the purest camp that all you should do is stare lovingly into your baby’s eyes while you nurse, because that’s the exact distance that babies can focus and that’s how they bond. (I mean it sounds great, but in my public health class in college the lactation consultant taught us that babies and mothers naturally avoid eye contact in the beginning of a nurse to let the baby focus more on nursing, and at the end often make eye contact. Plus that’s a lot of time staring at your baby if you practice extended nursing with multiple children. I’ve easily nursed 2,000 hours over the last four years. There are many opportunities to engage your infant with eye contact and a peaceful presence throughout the day. )
Still, I found that being on my phone at night was not a good plan; the light from my phone woke me up way too much. So I kept my phone nursing time for the day time, but even still I tended to find reading an actual book during the day made me happier than scrolling my phone, and then listening to an audio book in the darkened room for naptime was better for both of us.
I also liked to nurse cross-legged in a big chair or in bed resting on a wedge, as opposed to a rocking chair. No matter the chair, the main thing is for your back to feel fully supported in the chair and nursing pillow(s!) you use. (And don’t forget to stretch!)
10. Meet Your Basic Needs: Meals, Snacks & Going Potty.  I love how cook books like The First Forty Days: The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother by Heng Ou bring the traditional practice of helping new moms with meals more into the main stream. The less you need to worry about meals in the beginning, the better for you and your baby! Before you have your baby, have a friend set up a meal train for you.
I’d also suggest having about four freezer meals ready, especially the kind that could just be dumped into a crock pot frozen and you come back and it’s ready: so soup is great. We had people bring us a lot of food, and moms help make a lot of food, so four meals in the freezer was plenty. Also, I really liked, with Jackson who was a much fussier baby, putting a snack sized amount of real food into pyrex containers so that I could just grab one quick and eat real food in the middle of the night or when Jackson had just fallen asleep and I wanted to go nap but was hungry. I felt a lot better eating vegetables than just lara bars all the time. Also a breakfast-in-bed tray is great for eating meals in bed.
Also, don’t feel bad about going to the bathroom before you begin to comfort your baby or nurse them in the middle of the night. You are going to be a lot more peaceful and comfortable if you don’t have a full bladder, especially a full bladder with postpartum pelvic muscles that are still recovering. 30 seconds of an upset baby at the beginning, is better than rushing to set them down before they’re ready and having to start over again.  Meeting your baby and your own basic needs (food, sleep, connection, and basic hygiene) is the work of those early days.
11. Try to keep your visitor infrequent and helpful.  Tell them what you want to eat (again, have someone set up a meal train for you!). You probably are going to need help with laundry, cleaning the kitchen, cleaning the bathroom, and grocery shopping.  I found that people bringing over an early dinner (or as early as they could manage with their work schedule) and visiting for 20 to 30 minutes around then was great.  I liked chatting with people, but when they left I realized I was tired.
I didn’t really offer to let people hold my newborn babies babies (and people almost never will ask you to take a baby out of a carrier to hold them or while you’re nursing them. So if that’s a good place to park your newborn during a visit if you don’t want to pass the baby around.) I just didn’t want to deal with germs and an upset baby (esp. with Jackson a sensitive baby, born in flu season, with my later springtime baby Lily it didn’t seem to matter as much). Everyone is different when it comes to passing newborn babies around, but if you DON’T want to, you DON’T have to. You’re the parent, you get to decide!
12. Remember to Stay Calm . I think the other thing that is helpful with soothing babies is to remember you are leading them to being calm by being calm yourself. They mirror deep breathing and relaxed muscles. So find ways for you to stay calm as you calm them, sing and rock and do what you need to do. (If you don’t know a lot of lullabies or hymns by heart, print off the lyrics of a couple. Some of my favorites are Swing Low Sweet Chariot, I Love You Lord, All Through the Night, Amazing Grace).
Also a great little book on this is CALMS–A Guide to Soothing Your Baby by Carrie Contey & Debby Takikawa. They use the acronym calms (C – Check in with yourself //  A – Allow a breath  //  L – Listen to your baby  //  M – Mirror your baby  //  S – Sooth your baby).
13. Other Miscellaneous Tips & Tricks
  • Go Outside! Weather possible, try walking the baby outside. Even if it’s only for a minute or two, sometimes just the change of scenery helps everybody calm down.
  • Count to 200 slowly. I found if I was losing my patience, I would try to count very slowly to 200 (with my baby’s breathing, or if I could manage it my own breathing) and usually by the time we got to 200, they were calm or asleep. And then I’d slowly count to 40 after I put them down. If they stayed asleep after a slow count to 40, they usually stayed down.
  • Babywearing. Most of the time my babies were hungry and tired (or with Lily during the summer occasionally over-heated) so just nursing in a dark, cool, quite place usually did it. If after they nursed, they were still fussy (usually in the early evening) then walking them around in the ergo in a quiet place would help (exaggerating my steps with a little bounce). Occasionally I’d have to combine them: nursing them in the ergo while walking around, which I figured out how to do with Jackson around 4 months and Lily probably around 2.
  • Nursing is probably the answer. I feel like there is a lot of pressure on parents to differentiate cries, to not try to feed a cry that’s actually a gas or tired cry.  Again, I think that might be solid advice for bottle fed babies who can over feed, but for most breast-fed babies it’s hard to overfeed. A little nursing usually solved most of my babies’ cries.
  • Keep the 90 minute cycle in mind! Basically, 90 minutes after your baby wakes up, she’ll be ready for a nap (The Natural Baby Sleep Solution: Use Your Child’s Internal Sleep Rhythms for Better Nights and Naps by Polly Moore is where this idea comes from, I haven’t read it, so I’m not sure I’d agree with what you do within that 90 minute block or how you string them together,  but my kids definitely followed the 90 minute rule of thumb when it came to guessing when they’d be sleepy). Eventually, your baby will string together a couple of 90 minute cycles, and by nine months, probably have 2 naps. Here is a 2-3-4 nap routine that worked for my children: 90 minutes to 2 hours after waking up: nap#1, then 3 hours after waking up from that nap: nap#2, then four to four and half hours after waking up from that nap: bedtime!
  • Rule out sickness. Most of the time moms know that their baby is off and sick by how they are acting and how warm they are to the touch. But it’s a good idea to have a thermometer, numbers for the nurse line, urgent care, and pediatric ER, and the guidelines that your pediatrician gives you for when you need to call the nurse line, take the baby right in, or call for an ambulance.
  • Postpartum Doula! These ladies know so much and can help in such practical and helpful ways. If people want to know what to get you for a shower, suggest that they go in to get you a few hours of care from a postpartum doula. They usually do some peer-coaching breast feeding, they might wear your baby, fold some laundry, chat with your toddler, bring you some tea, encourage you to nap, take out your garbage, offer a few words of advice about sleep and soothing, and generally be amazing.
  • Pray! Ask the Lord to help your baby sleep. Most of my prayers are “Jesus, please help this baby sleep.” But you could also Psalm 4:8 “In peace I will lie down and sleep,  for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety” and Proverbs 3:24 “When you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet” would be beautiful prayers to whisper over your little one as well.
Again, you’re going to do great! He’s already such a loved little one! We love you both so much! Love, Amy
*Sweet little Anderson was born to Amy a touch early and just perfect from head to toe. Amy graciously said yes to my request to share a few photos, and I thought her words on what she’s learned were particularly wise.
I know I’m only 8 weeks in, but I wish someone told me that NOT everyone gets baby blues/postpartum depression. So many people, even a few coworkers I didn’t know well, warned me about it and I came to expect that it would happen to me and that I would be miserable. In fact, in the last few months before Anderson was born, I was miserable anticipating being miserable! It’s good that people are talking about it more so that women who get it can feel comfortable asking for help. But it turns out that I think I actually had prenatal anxiety and felt a million times better after Anderson was born and wished I hadn’t worried so much about it.
Also, I wish someone had told me about all of the little things I would enjoy about my baby — the way they look so peaceful when they sleep, the funny noises and faces, the joy of dressing them in cute outfits. It sounds so obvious, but babies are really cute and fun!
Aren’t they so beautiful? It’s such a blessing to be in community with people having babies right before and after you to share in the victories and challenges of new parenting! What are your best tips on soothing babies?

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