Review of The Happiest Baby on the Block by Harvey Karp

This is another one of those books that was recommended to me countless times while pregnant, and I can understand why!  In this book, Dr. Karp first explains why newborns are so prone to being upset, and then teaches a combination of five tactics to help sooth them.

The basic premise is that newborns are born three months too early, but if they were born much later than 40 weeks their heads would be too large to be delivered.  So the first three months of the baby's life is really like the "fourth trimester" and the parents are still caring for a fetus who happens to be outside of the womb.

Given this premise, the famous (infamous?) "5 S's" of Dr. Karp try to simulate the womb sensations.  These include swaddling, side/stomach position, shushing, swinging, and sucking.  He goes into detail on how to perform each one in separate chapters of the book.  Not all of the 5 help every baby, but most parents seem to find a magic combination that works for their kids.  My daughter liked the sucking and swinging (more like gentle jiggling) most.

I found these techniques to be incredibly useful for the first three months.  Not only did they actually work like magic most of the time, but they also empowered my husband and I to feel like we knew how to do something, and that we could do something when our newborn was crying.  And I must admit, to successfully execute the S's and have a baby calm down definitely makes a new parent feel like a million bucks!

I should mention that there is a companion DVD of Happiest Baby on the Block.  It doesn't go into as much detail about the theory of the fourth trimester and the five S's, but it does demonstrate in detail the technique for executing each of the five.  I found it very useful to watch the DVD because some of the steps, such as the swinging, were much easier to understand and do well after seeing a demonstration rather than just reading the description.

I would absolutely recommend this book and DVD to new parents everywhere.  However, once you have the steps down there really isn't much need to refer back to the them.  So if you have a mommy friend or a good library nearby, I would recommend borrowing the set.

Final Rating: Borrow