Me? Prepared?

Last night was our last childbirth preparation class. After six classes of learning about everything from breathing techniques to massages to breastfeeding, we finally finished. Logic would say that at the completion of a preparation class, you would be prepared.


No fricking way.

Everything we learned was helpful, don't get me wrong. Even though most of it is common sense, it's nice to hear it so that when Rachel goes into labor and is screaming and not very cooperative or coherent I can fall back on this stuff. Might help me keep my wits about me a little better.

Last night we discussed techniques for calming a crying baby. We watched this video called "the happiest baby on the block." Basically it's a video by this doctor who is sort of a baby whisperer. He'd take these crying kids and do his patented "5 S's" and the kids would just fall asleep. It was crazy. The first S was Swaddle, which just cracks me up because you essentially wrap your kid up like it's a mental patient. Apparently the babies like this. The next S is to turn them on their side. He'd take this kid that's wrapped up like a burrito and it'd be on its back still bawling, and he'd just pick it up and tilt it on its side and it was like someone hit the mute button. Kid shut up instantly. Amazing. Next S was swing. Really it's more of a shake, but there's a lot of negative connotations with shaking your baby, so swing sounds safer. Basically you turn the baby into a living bobblehead. Judging from the video, babies love this. I'm a little hesitant to try it, but that first night I'm up at 3am and the baby is crying like somebody shot it, I'm sure I'll try anything.

The fourth S was Shhh-ing the baby. This is not gentle shhhhshing. This was basically making hurricane noises in the babies ear. Weirdest thing I've ever seen. He'd take the baby and make the loudest shhhhssssh you've ever heard and the baby would stop crying. I can't imagine doing this in public. People would think you were insane. That is, unless of course they've seen this video. I bet if you did this in public, you'd get about 5 crazy looks and one mother who'd just smile and say "isn't that video a lifesaver?" I don't know if anyone's done a study on hearing loss in these babies later in life, but man it's funny to see. The last one is sucking, which basically means if the baby's crying, stick something in its mouth and it'll shut up. That one's a no-brainer. I found a video on youtube of this guy....he's crazy. Check it out.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luZlph1mxWg