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I like to read. I just can't read the book version of The Happiest Baby on the Block because the author's writing style drives me bonkers. I read the first chapter and got the distinct feeling that the entire book could be summed up in one chapter, but it was stretched out into 150+ pages. The same was true for the DVD. It was very repetitive at the beginning, but then it got into the good stuff.
The Happiest Baby on the Block is a very popular book/DVD about techniques to calm a crying baby. The author/host, Dr. Harvey Karp, teaches 'The 5 S's': Swaddling, Side/Stomach, Swinging, Shushing, Sucking. It has 237 reviews on Amazon.com, and most of them are glowing.
I think the DVD was probably much more beneficial to me than the book would have been. In the DVD, we get to see Dr. Karp practice his various techniques on lots of crying/screaming newborns. And it's amazing. He does several demonstrations on how to swaddle a newborn. Most of the babies don't appreciate being swaddled, but he encourages parents to continue to the next 'S' and assures us that babies actually do want to be swaddled, they just don't know it.
He goes through each 'S' with different babies, showing how some babies only need the swaddling and to lie on their side to be comforted. And they are comforted almost immediately. It is enough to make me wonder whether this man is the Messiah.
Besides the repetitive beginning, I found this DVD to be terrific. I loved how Dr. Karp did home visits and showed parents his different methods of calming their crying babies and then also hearing from the parents about how they were doing with Dr. Karp's techniques.
As a producer of television, I would've done the DVD a bit differently by introducing us to the parents and their babies. We don't learn a single parent's or baby's name and that just would've been a sweet addition to humanize Dr. Karp a little more.
I'm sure we'll be referring to this DVD once we bring our little one home. Dr. Karp's techniques were so startlingly effective on these screaming babies that I am now a believer. I hope I can learn his technique and be successful at it, too!
Be sure to leave me comments about whether Dr. Karp's calming techniques worked for you... or what did work.
Available at Amazon: 
I found the 5 S's to be very helpful with my kids when they were newborns. The swaddling was a must to get them to calm down and stay asleep. Yeah, that book drove me crazy, too. I pretty much skipped to the middle of the book where it summarizes the whole thing. The Happiest Toddler book is the same. Helpful, but the repetition drives me crazy.
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My mom basically showed us two of the S's when we first brought LV home--I had no idea about swaddling and she convinced us it was okay to let her sleep/lay on her side which is how she naturally preferred to be. Later I came across the book and thought, oh, yeah, I suppose some money could be made off these ideas :-) I think it's one of those things that moms used to show other moms and now that we're all so disconnected from each other we have to pick it up in a book or from a dvd. Good stuff though! Definitely got us through many a rough spot, and Lorelei still calms when we shush her (which we actually got from another baby book). I wouldn't worry too much about learning a technique, the baby will teach you what works for her!