
How to Calm a Crying Baby Like a Mesopotamian - diodorus
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/crying-baby-in-mesopotamia
======
DoreenMichele
If you have a crying baby, check the diaper and check if they are hungry. Then
calm yourself. You want your heartbeat and breathing to be slow, steady,
calming and reassuring while you hold them and walk the floor with them.

Have a routine. Always hold them the same way so it becomes part of the
signal. Etc.

Never spend more than 15 minutes trying to get them to sleep. If they won't go
to sleep in that time, go play with them. They probably aren't mentally tired
yet.

Try again to feed them, check the diaper, see if they are too warm, too cold,
etc. Then try again to get them to sleep.

If it's a chronic issue, start a journal and see if you can find a pattern.
They may be allergic to a particular juice they are getting. They may need a
different formula because the one they are on is causing tummy aches. Etc.

~~~
jacobolus
Checking a diaper and figuring out if they are hungry is a good first step
(and I would add burping the baby a bit, and making sure their nose isn’t
stuffed up), but the rest of this advice is a bit misdirected in my opinion,
and ignores the most effective actionable things parents can do to shush a
crying baby.

Namely, what pediatrician Harvey Karp calls the “5 S’s” of (1) swaddling the
baby, (2) holding the baby on their side/stomach, (3) loudly shushing in the
baby’s ear, (4) swinging the baby back and forth, (5) giving the baby
something to suck on.

Go find Dr. Karp’s “happiest baby” video or other videos of people performing
these steps, as text posts don’t really convey the idea fully.

These techniques are extremely effective on the vast majority of babies
(usually just shushing and swinging is enough for my current newborn), but
many new parents don’t know about them or do them improperly. In particular,
shushing needs to be a very loud constant white noise, and the
rocking/jiggling/swinging of the baby should be a bit more vigorous than new
parents might naturally do.

~~~
opless
#4, and #5 for sure.

My niece was upset due to just being fed and her stomach having the usual baby
issues, a bit of jiggling on my lap with my little finger to suck on calmed
her right down as mum was having a bit of a meltdown due to lack of sleep, and
baby being super demanding. Niece was asleep in no time due to being handled
confidently and noticing what was working and what wasn't.

One size most certainly doesn't fit all.

~~~
ZumbidoPalmares
What would you recommend as number 5?

~~~
opless
Some babies like their pacifiers/dummies, some like a _clean_ little finger
for #5

Sorry for the late response ... Notifications don't seem to be a thing on this
site.

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icxa
Your baby's first ~3 months is basically the "4th trimester" but just outside
the womb. It basically explains why things like swaddling work so well for
their sleep at this age, and why shush sounds work (because it supposedly
mimics how the baby hears the mother breathing inside the womb of the mother).
Also counter-intuitively to a new parent, why perfect stillness didn't really
matter for her sleep and actually a little movement ended up being better.
Invest in a good rocking chair is probably the best advice I can give any
parent! Don't cheap out here, you are going to be spending a lot of time in
it!

~~~
Roedou
The book "Happiest Baby on the Block" goes into a lot of detail about this.
I've not read it, but watched the ~10 minute video that accompanied it.

It was possibly the most useful 10 minutes of new-parent advice we could have
gotten. Definitely try to find that book; highly recommended.

------
weinzierl
> Along with songs, the text suggests parents rub dust from a significant
> street, doorway, or even a grave—perhaps representing an ominous, ultimate
> silence—on a wailing baby.

[...]

> Scholars believe these words likely originated in folk poetry that had been
> transmitted orally for years before being written down sometime between 500
> and 300 B.C.

So the sandman myth is not Northern European folklore after all but originated
more than 2500 years ago in the Middle East.

~~~
fallous
I've raised three kids and was working with a guy who brought his sixth child
to the office to take care of while his wife was away with work. His child was
a month or two old and was pretty fussy and co-worker seemed to be at his
wit's end. I asked him if he had tried the "off" switch, which he had never
heard of. I started calmly and regularly stroking the baby's forehead from the
mid-forehead to between the eyes. Kid was out like a light in less than a
minute. Co-worker asked me how I knew that trick and I asked him how he didn't
given this was his sixth kid.

I wonder if the "rub dust" method originated with something like this but used
the dust component as a means of justification/explanation to people so that
they would be focused on calmly applying the dust rather than going overboard
with the stroke on the forehead due to frustration.

~~~
blub
Bringing a 2mo old baby to the office has great potential to obliterate the
productivity of the entire team... I'm really surprised that the management
accepted this instead of giving the guy some days off.

This is mandated by law in some EU countries, but I assume the companies don't
like it.

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senorsmile
As a wannabe Assyriologist, I was really hoping there'd be an actual line by
line translation; or better yet, a link to one of the online cuneiform sites
offered the cuneiform, transliteration and translation.

~~~
mcguire
May not be the same text, but ETCSL has "A lullaby for a son of Šulgi (Šulgi
N)":

[http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-
bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.4.2....](http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-
bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.4.2.14&display=Crit&charenc=gcirc#)

[http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-
bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.4.2....](http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-
bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.4.2.14#)

------
ConfusedDog
I thought it's gonna be some cruel recommendation like threaten the baby... it
turns out just threaten the parents to take care of babies. That's a relief.

------
hutzlibu
Beeing a fresh new father myself ... so far beeing calm yourself worked
amazing.

And even though they are so tiny and breakable ... just hold them and relax
and breath slowly, then the baby will relax along your heartbeat (so that the
mother can have a shower).

But who knows, in a few days we might also try the mesopotamian spell ...

------
karussell
I was curious if monkey babies also cry (I really thought they don't due to
deadly consequences) but found this:

[https://www.livescience.com/7778-crying-baby-monkeys-
nerves....](https://www.livescience.com/7778-crying-baby-monkeys-nerves.html)

There is an interesting quote:

> mothers appear to pay attention to who's around when their young cry.
> Semple's team observed that when dominant bystanders were nearby, mothers
> acquiesced to their babies' demands about twice as often as when they were
> alone or in the company of close relatives, which are more forgiving of
> tantrums.

> The study shows for the first time that, much like people, monkeys are aware
> of the social consequences of not only their own actions, but those of their
> babies, too.

------
UnFleshedOne
"Along with songs, the text suggests parents rub dust from a significant
street, doorway, or even a grave—perhaps representing an ominous, ultimate
silence—on a wailing baby."

~~~
ToshioSaeki
Ah!

Nice from you to mention dust from a grave....

As some other commenter in this thread mentioned "swinging back and forth"

And this is about children....

We have all the ingredients for a spooking horrifying japanese horror movie,
the best of his kind

When Toshio swings the guy....

The name of this movie is Ju-On, The Grudge

But Toshio first apparition is in the movie 4444444444

[https://ju-on-the-grudge.fandom.com/wiki/Toshio_Saeki](https://ju-on-the-
grudge.fandom.com/wiki/Toshio_Saeki)

