The 5 S's; or How We Got Six Hours of Sleep In a Row Once

All things considered, Raptor-Son is a pretty chill baby. He mostly sleeps whenever he can, and for the first month, anytime he fussed or cried at all the solution was always feeding. He doesn't seem to mind sitting in a dirty diaper for hours, and if anything cries more when we change him. At about four weeks though, he started getting himself all worked up with no cause. He would cry and yell, and when we tried to feed him, he would just get angrier. He waves his little fists around when he's angry, which means we have to keep his nails trimmed carefully or it's like living with a tiny Wolverine.

Enter Dr. Harvey Karp. While we had until that point prided ourselves on being The Best Parents Ever, but when Raptor-Son hit that 4-week mark we had more trouble calming him. Before he was born, we purchased The Happiest Baby on the Block, and intended to read it for several months and never got around to it. Several of our friends swear by it, so we decided instead to watch the short video version, which was extremely helpful.

In short, Karp's plan follows what he calls the "5 S's System" to calm down a newborn. Since they can't naturally calm themselves, they need to have their living conditions in utero replicated for the first 12 weeks or so, or what Karp calls "the Fourth Trimester." The S's are:

1. Swaddle - we use a Halo Sleep Swaddler to strap down Raptor-Son's arms at night, without hurting his legs. Swaddling with a blanket can result in hip dysplasia, which is bad. We had avoided swaddling because it seems mean to restrain him like that, but his arms freak him out when he remembers he has them. So we wrapped him up. 
2. Side/stomach position - Turning him on his side usually calms him down pretty quickly. He doesn't like to be on his stomach, but his side is okay. I've heard that keeping them on their back gives them the sensation of falling constantly, which would make it hard to fall asleep. 
3. Shushing - This looks hilarious. You shush not to tell them to be quiet, but to simulate the sounds they are familiar with in the womb. But to do it effectively, you have to be louder than they are crying, so to an outside observer, you have to shush your baby super loudly, and it looks like you are just yelling at them to be quiet. This takes a minute or so, but is usually the thing that actually calms Raptor-Son down. 
4. Swaying - This part I'm glad we had a video for. Dr. Karp sometimes refers to this as "jiggling," which doesn't start with an "S," so I guess he changed it. The basic point is to bounce, or gently jiggle your baby to replicate motion in the womb. Raptor-Son loves this in general; his favorite place (other than being held or in his Moby Wrap) is to be bouncing on his mom's yoga ball. Calms him right down. 
5. Sucking - This one we haven't had to deal with yet, but it's basically using a pacifier. We've been reluctant to do this for a variety of reasons, but have them at the ready just in case. 

So far, the first 4 S's have been sufficient to sooth Raptor-Son. The first night we tried the system, he slept for four hours in a row, then another three after eating. That was the most sleep we'd had since the week before he was born. Two nights ago, he set a new record of 6 hours, which was amazing. Last night, he did a good stretch of 4 hours, then decided that he would just be awake from 3 until 5 A.M. Not appreciated, but he seemed content. 

Our First Big Adventure

This weekend, all the Raptors took a little trip to Louisville KY, about 90 minutes away. Raptor-Son rode with his mom in the backseat, and I drove us down. We were going to attend a short class about how to better wear baby wraps, and then eat lunch at the Blue Dog Bakery, where Raptor-Son's aunt works.

The drive down was fine, with a little rain and not much traffic. After initial fussing subsided, Raptor-Son passed out and slept the entire ride down. We listened to the podcast Wits, which I recommend. It's a weird mixture of music, sketch comedy, improv, and is generally hilarious.

We arrived at The Diaper Fairy Cottage for a class on wearing babies in wraps. It was a little independent store in an old Louisville house with an upstairs of small classrooms. There wound up being about 10 moms and me in the class, which was all about different styles and techniques to use when wearing your baby around. Since Raptor-Son loves being wrapped up and carried, it was useful to see new ways to do it. I also got to wear him for the first time ever, and it was pretty okay. He gets really warm in there, which he seems to like, but is less comfortable for me.

It was another opportunity to play the role of progressive, involved dad as well. Seeing as I was the only male who wasn't actually being carried in something, it furthered the point that parenthood in the US is really motherhood, and still dads are assumed to leave much of the childcare behind at work.

After the class, we went to the Blue Dog Bakery, a little fancy brunch place. They have a farm outside the city where they raise their own pigs, so I tried a grilled sandwich with chicken and Serrano ham, which was excellent.

We hit a little traffic on the way home, but overall the trip was a success. Raptor-Son only fussed a little at the very end, when he'd been in his car seat for two hours and was ready for some eats. The only major snag we hit was bringing only four diapers, when we know about his tricks.

Figuring that a clean diaper would be nice to ride home in, we changed him in the car right before we headed out. We forgot about his insistence that a clean diaper is meant to be filled, and almost immediately we could hear the sounds of something horrible happening in his diaper. With no clean diapers, we headed north with a baby who had just filled his pants. He slept almost the whole way.

Vengeance Pooping

So the name of the blog comes from a thing that apparently happens 10,000 times per child: changing a dirty diaper. I don't think anybody looks forward to this part of having a kid, but I wasn't necessarily dreading it. Before Raptor-Son got here, I was mostly just blanking on the whole concept, knowing that it would inevitably happen but not really knowing what to expect or do.

The first time that we had to change a diaper in the hospital, Raptor-Mom and I had to call the nurses' station and ask for assistance. I could hear them laughing over the intercom, but what else could we do? We had to learn about diapers somehow.

Since then, the mystique of changing a diaper has evaporated, leaving behind a fairly mundane life process. It's still kind of gross to be wiping someone else's butt, but he makes funny faces while I'm cleaning him up, and it isn't so bad.

Until he learned to Vengeance Poop.

So one of his favorite tricks is to get on the changing table, get us to take his diaper off, and get a new one ready. While the old one is off, and the new one is just underneath him, he'll let fly. Usually pee, but a few times with a full-on blast from his behind. So now we have to take that new diaper off, clean it, and put it in the laundry. Then he gets a second new diaper. He thinks this is hilarious, and while he isn't big enough to really laugh yet, it's clear he knows what he's doing.

Two days ago, I was going through this process with him. I had his sleep-and-play off, changed his diaper, then put his clothes back on. Then, I realized I had forgotten to put the waterproof cover over his diaper. I take off his sleep-and-play, and get ready to put the cover on, but by now he has peed in the new diaper. So now we take that diaper off, and I'm back where I was ten minutes ago. New diaper, waterproof cover, refasten the onesie snaps, all while he's crying. As soon as I've got his clothes buttoned up again, he calms down.

Now, his crying has switched to a quiet glare at me for this inconvenient intrusion into a situation that he had well in hand. I guess some babies really hate being in wet diapers; Raptor-Son seems perfectly content, and really only fusses when he's removed from those diapers. Having done it twice in rapid succession now, he's good and worked up. That's when he locks eyes with me, eyes that have all the rage and contempt that a three-week old heart can carry, and lets loose with a diaper-filling deluge that is audible over the ceiling fan. I know that this is my punishment for what I've done to him.

It doesn't bode well for his teenage years.

Hi, everybody!

Welcome to Nerdy Diapers, a journey through parenting based on my own experiences.

Who am I? You can call me Raptor-Dad, and I'm the proud parent of Raptor-Son, who is about four weeks old right now. I'm 30 years old, and a high school social studies teacher who enjoys movies, television, comic books, and gaming. I like reading history and non-fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and [Marvel] comic books. One of the areas I'd like to cross into with this blog is the realm of popular culture, and its impact and influence on Raptor-Son.

I'm also far from an expert on parenting. This isn't a blog that will solve all your problems, or answer your questions. It might leave you more confused than when you got here. What I'd like to do is to document my own journey through being a parent in the 21st century, using this space as a journal more than anything else.

Hope to see you out there with us.