Calming Colic with the 5 S's!!! And other updates!

So many exciting things have happened since I last posted! One of which was we bought a piano for Father's Day! It was Mitch's first Father's Day and it was so exciting to be the first to wish him a happy Father's Day. I am SO excited to have an electric piano in our apartment. It is CRAMMED at our place, but we have loved playing it so much! Mitch has played piano forever and he's currently working on learning "Rhapsody in Blue," the ending credits from the movie E.T. and the intense and often dissonant yet beautiful organ music from one of his favorite movies, Interstellar! It's exciting because since we have a key to our local church building, we can go during the week and Mitch can practice it on the real organ! It's pretty exciting!

Myself, I'm learning "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".....:p I'm learning to play the piano with Mitch teaching me using the Suzuki Method! I am SO excited, I have wanted to learn how to play the piano since I was a little girl, and now my dream will come true! Mitch also plans on teaching Lydia using the same method, and I LOVE this picture we took of her, playing the piano for the first time! Mitch helped her little hands play Mary Had a Little Lamb. :)

To the right are pictures of Lydia laying on top of Mitch on Father's Day. She sure loves her daddy!








Also, on Tuesday, June 23rd, Lydia started to REALLY smile for the first time! She had little grins before, some were probably gas, others I was certain were real, but now they are legitimately real, and positively adorable! My heart melts every time she grins up at me! These are a few pictures I was able to get of her smiles on Wednesday, and I just can't get enough!

That being said, there are times when even after we have fed, changed, burped and done everything to help Lydia, she cries for no reason that we can figure out. She by no means has colic, but there are definitely times when we have no idea what is upsetting her. It is definitely the PURPLE crying they tell you about at the hospital. They warn parents to be aware that this can be dangerous if their child cries so much that the parent becomes desperate, frustrated or angry which can sometimes lead to them harming their child. :( 

BUT...my dear friend Lynsie Timoteo told me the BEST thing ever about how to calm a colicky baby, and it works!!! It comes from this book by Dr. Harvey Karp:

Dr. Karp was horrified as a young doctor after treating babies who had been shaken by their parents because they cried so much. He said parents have very little support in knowing how to calm their babies and are usually told to do everything they can, and when all else fails, walk away and let the child cry it out so you don't lose your cool. This is great advice, but Dr. Karp has a method that helps babies calm down so quickly, it's awesome, and it works for Lydia every time! Anytime she starts crying and we've tried everything, this method works in about a minute or less, and puts her right to sleep!

It's called the 5 S's. They are:

1. Swaddle
You wrap your baby up pretty tight in a comfy blanket. Be careful their legs aren't wrapped straight out though, this can cause hip dysplasia.

2. Side/stomach

Hold your baby horizontally on their side, their stomach against your stomach. You can also try horizontally facing down or out.

3. Swing/sway

You need to swing and sway back and forth, up and down, quite quickly/vigorously. This is where most parents go wrong by being too slow and smooth. Dr. Karp says you are trying to mimic the feeling of being back in the womb for the baby, and pregnant moms run up and down stairs and all around so the baby is used to quick, vigorous movements that quickly lull them to sleep.

4. Shhh

For this one you make really loud "shhhhh" sounds, right up next to your babies ears. This mimics the sounds baby hears during their months in the mother's womb. Inside the womb, babies are surrounded incessantly by incredibly loud, repetitive sounds of the mother's arteries, breathing, etc. that also lull them to sleep. That is why loud fans, hair dryers, white noise, vacuums, etc. are so good at putting babies right to sleep.This is another one that needs to be done right in order to work; it can't be quiet and gentle.

5. Suck

You start with the first four S's until the baby is calm enough that they will accept something to suck on. This is the icing on the cake, Dr. Karp says.

So there you have it! It works AMAZINGLY for Lydia, and if I do it for about 10 minutes or so, she will stay asleep for a long time. It's great. Dr. Karp says that for especially colicky babies, you may need to do it for a while and a few times before it starts to work and the baby realizes that you are giving them what they need/miss from being in the womb. I seriously think that these things should be given to every parent as they leave the hospital, it works wonders! It's also best for the first 6 months or so, after that I don't know if it works for older babies.

Anyway, with other exciting things, I keep working on my photo-editing skills! This is a maternity picture taken by my sister-in-law, Summer. (She's awesome! See her photography page.) I took one of the raw, unedited pictures she took and tried editing it for fun. I'm still not very good at getting our skin to look natural after enhancing the colors around us, but I'm definitely having fun! 

Lydia got to meet her great-grandparents and take some pictures with them! On my side, she only has one living great-grandparent, on my mother's side. On Mitch's side, she has the Robisons, pictured here, and the Steeds who we still need to get pictures of with her. :) 

 

Grandpa and Grandma Robison

Grandma Kathryn (Brown) my mom's mom.

Great Aunt Myrna (Grandma Kathryn's sister)

Great Aunt Nola (another of her sisters)

It was so fun to visit them! 

This week, the members of our church ward had a cultural night! It was great; in our ward alone we have people from Japan, Germany, Brazil!!!, Chile, Mexico, China, Hawaii, Samoa, and I know I'm missing some! It's pretty awesome and I LOVE learning about their cultures, customs, and of course speaking Portuguese with the Brazilians! For our activity, we all brought foods from our cultures, or where we served our missions. I was going to make Brazilian food but have had my hands full with Lydia. Mitch served his mission in Arkansas, so he made fried Oreos, haha! It was great! 

Here he is frying them up! The Oreos were SO GOOD and so emotionally healthy ;)

For the entertainment, Mariah from our ward who is from Hawaii did some dancing/teaching the hula and Maika Tuala did the fire knife as he used to perform it in Hawaii at the Polynesian Cultural Center! It was pretty impressive. He said, "Don't try this at home. Come try it at our home!" He also told his little sons, "Don't play with fire...until next year." :)

This week we took one of our first family pictures! We took it at a place called Millennial Falls at the wedding reception of my dear friend, Tiffany!!! The waterfall there is beautiful!

 Lastly, I had to add this picture we took this week. I'm wearing my flamingo shirt and Lydia is wearing one of her flamingo outfits! :D It made my day! One day she will choose her own favorite animal, but for now I will dress her up with mine. :) Have a great week!