Maylee's Calming Recipe

Week 5 of her life was life changing for us all!  I went to free mother support classes with a lactation consultant available on Tuesdays before I had to return to work.  I enjoyed meeting other moms and knowing I'm not alone with my experiences.  Moms of older babies shared ways that work to calm their babies and I brought these ideas home with me.



Crying after she wakes up = feed me now!
Crying after she eats = change my diaper (even if the last change was only 5 minutes ago)
Crying and the diaper is not wet = I'm tired and need help falling asleep
Crying & heavy kicking of the legs = I don't like what you ate mom so now my tummy is upset.  I need Gripe Water and lots of bouncing.


Ingredients:
*1 crying baby
*1 swaddling blanket (our favorite is the Miracle Blanket because it has no Velcro that startles her or wakes her when she is asleep)
*1 Sleep Sheep (Her favorite sound on the Sleep Sheep player is the last button which is whales singing - she'll grow up to be a marine biologist)
*1 Soothie pacifier
*1 exercise ball to bounce on while holding her
*1 CD with the shower playing (One day she went totally silent when she heard the shower running.  We were wasting a lot of water so I recorded the shower running and burned it onto many CDs.  Now we can listen to the shower in any of our vehicles and if different places of the house)

When she is tired, we swaddle her tightly, bounce on the exercise ball, help her keep the pacifier in her mouth to suck on, and give her something to listen to.  If she is kind of quiet we play the whales singing.  If she is really mad and screaming, we play the shower on a louder volume to calm her.

When we put her to bed, she sleeps on her side with a sleep wedge.  We place the Sleep Sheep player set to the whales singing (times out in 45 minutes) above her head.  She falls into a deep sleep every time!  In the morning she sometimes she starts to fuss so we will reach into her bassinet and turn the whales back on.  She will continue sleeping for another hour or more.  We love the Sleep Sheep!!!