Now that you have become familiar with the common features and two important principles of soothing that are often used in all countries and all cultures, let's consider a number of common soothing methods that parents and caregivers have used to calm their infants.

As you may imagine, there are hundreds of options. As an example, cultures around the world have developed many methods for carrying their infants. Some of these include different ways of swaddling their infants, some of these include different kinds of baby carriers or slings, and some of these just include carrying your baby around in your arms. When you think about the carrying methods that you or others have used, you will probably notice that your carrying technique incorporates many of the common features of soothing, for example:

Carrying often includes changes of position; Carrying often (but not always) includes looking at your baby and him/her looking at you, increasing eye-to-eye contact as well as human stimulation; Carrying includes many sensations including touches, smells, sights and, if you talk while carrying your baby, sounds; Carrying includes closeness with the baby's mother or parent; If you are walking around with your baby, the walking introduces rhythm into the baby's calming experience.

And, of course, the two principles of soothing will be part of it: carrying works some of the time, but it doesn't work all of the time; and carrying is something that you can do all of the time, not just in response to the baby's crying.

Common soothing methods in the Period of PURPLE Crying.

In another section of this website, there is a description of the Period of PURPLE Crying program. The program materials describe in a very straightforward way what a parent or a caregiver can expect a new baby's crying to be like in the first weeks and months of life. This is important because, as anyone who reads the booklet or watches the video will learn, the crying of new babies will increase in the first weeks and months of life before it decreases.

So, as a starting point, let's talk about soothing methods from the Period of PURPLE Crying materials. The booklet contains a section about what is appropriate to do if a baby is crying a lot. It suggests three action steps, and the First Action Step is about soothing. The first action step says that caregivers should:

"Increase the comfort, carry, walk and talk responses with their infants."

Why is this important to do? Well, there are two main reasons. The first is that it is a reminder for caregivers to do all the great soothing things that they already know, but to increase the amount or number of times they soothe their baby. In other words, pick up your baby more often, carry them around more often, sing to them and gently pat and stroke them more often. This is because the more you do these things, the more likely it will be that you will be able to calm your baby. "Comforting" might involve wrapping your baby in a blanket, or just holding your baby in your arms. "Carrying" includes holding, contact and closeness. "Walking" includes all of those as well as introducing a rhythm to your movements. You may also want to move your body to the rhythm of the beats in music while carrying and comforting your baby. "Talking" includes adding a human voice, perhaps saying or singing the same things over and over to a melody.

"Pick up your baby more often, carry them around more often, sing to them and gently pat and stroke them more often. This is because the more you do these things the more likely it will be that

you will be able to calm to your baby."

The second reason comes from the soothing principle that doing these soothing methods when your infant is not crying will make them even more effective by keeping your infant calmer once it stops crying. So, if you begin using these comfort, carry, walk and talk methods when your infant is crying, it is helpful to continue to use them after the baby has become calm. This can help to prevent the crying from beginning again. Many mothers put the baby down again as soon as it stops crying, but continuing to use soothing methods for a while afterward should help your baby stay calm.

It is good to experiment with various methods and see what works at the time. It is also important to see what makes you feel good as you try them. Some parents have said that just having a list to go through gives them "something to try" or "something to do," even if it does not work all the time. Calming yourself down by trying things can be as important as calming your baby down.

"Some parents have said that just having a list to go through gives them

"something to try" or "something to do," even if it does not work all the time."

It is very important, however, not to let yourself