I think I once read that Indians used to make their babies stop crying by pinching baby's nose. I read in some cases they killed their babies because they were too noisy.

we went to a "life after birth" class and the midwife said that you can swaddle a baby all night if you leave the arms out so that they can cool themselves, and leave the legs a little loose to move around when dreaming, which supports mawaliens comments. apparently its the feel of something tight around their bodies that reminds them of the womb and has the calming effect. the same reaction can be found when bathing by putting a wet flannel on the babies belly/chest

I think the binky had a major effect on the situation. swaddling does work, but when the first thing you do is cram a feeder replacement in, I think the swaddling isn't the only solution. Babies cry when they need something. Food, a change or to get a gas bubble out. Colicky babies are a bigger mystery... W pretty much only swaddled EARLY on and then when feeding because he got too handsy, making feeding far too complicated. Not needed now... I type this with my almost 2 month old on my lap.

I am a master of the swaddle. Thanks for putting this out there.

I swattle myself now!

Great Googly-Moogly. It's like a magic baby straight-jacket.

I'm very curious to know how effective only covering the eyes is, compared to the eye-covering in conjunction with the swaddling, if anyone has a bunchkin they would like to experiment on.

if i only had children like this... tried on both twins. i didn't succeed

Brenn your comment shows such ignorance. Check your sources

Swaddling is a sanity saver for parents. :) Nice instructable. There are also spandex swings that you can hang from a ceiling. A crying baby/toddler/4 year old will almost instantly relax, smile, and coo them selves to sleep. just remember to stop the motion every few minutes, or reverse the rotation, and they'll be asleep in no time. :)

Hi all. Just a little note about swaddling. From my experience with my little boy: 1 - Babies' brains are constantly creating new neurons/neural pathways and reinforcing helpful movements. 2 - If you suppress a sense or movement, the babies brain will stop developing it. (As an example, I saw a Discovery documentary about how a little girl had a cataract on her left eye, and as her optical nerve wasn't receiving light, the brain stopped developing that neural pathway. The eye itself was 100% functional, in spite of the cataract. After removing her cataract, they found that her left eye's vision was impaired due to the brain not creating enough neural pathways to it. She had to spend a year with a patch on the other eye, so her brain could make up for the deficiency) 3 - Swaddling limits arm movements (And leg movements... depends on how you swaddle) 4 - I always used to swaddle my kid starting by folding over from the left side, then the right. The result was that his right arm was much better tucked in than his left. 5 - Results: My kid now favours his left arm. Conclusion: In order to reduce "forcing" an arm preference on your baby, I recommend that you use swaddling only under the following circumstances: 1 - Use it to calm your baby only. As soon as he's asleep, un-swaddle him. Dont leave him like that the whole night. 2 - Alternate folding, starting from the left side this time, then the right side next time. 3 - Although swaddling works really well, it's fun to find other ways to soothe babies. Holding them in your arm, tummy down, or trying different light levels, background music, etc.

This works great for infants and newborns, my daughter would immediately go to sleep when wrapped up...that and the swing at first..

I did this with ALL my boys, it worked like a charm! We called it 'burrito-ing'. lol Fussy, colic, cranky...however you want to label it, this was a sanity saver for me. Thanks for the memories!

Both my daughters liked being wrapped sort of like this (I didn't use any particular technical way, just wrapped them fairly snuggly in a blanket and tucked in whatever parts stuck out). Laying loosely covered or uncovered they'd complain, but laying like this they'd generally go right to sleep. My personal pet theory is that it's the previous norm - up until birth they were certainly in a rather constricted (if warm and protected) spot, now there's suddenly all this space everywhere and nothing pushing on you. After a while it becomes easier to deal, but at first it's nicer to be in a constricted space, preferably with some random movements, noises, etc. Then again, I have no real idea, just a guess. It did work great though until they started not liking it anymore (which, as babies tend to, they weren't shy about letting me know about so I could quit doing it).

That looks...really comfortable...

This is also called "swaddling" . It's a really great technique if you have a fussy baby or one who seems easily startled by the movements of their arms and legs. It can also work better if you tuck the legs in on the second wrap, and then fold the last one over the top of that tuck like you did. My youngest son was helped by this when he was a baby, too bad it didn't last until he was older!! Once they get past a certain age it doesn't seem to work as well, and they can get out of the covers. This child was also a very active (not hyper, but close) baby and I wonder if that had something to do with it?

Cool idea glocs, this is like the first Instructable you posted without paper! Hahaha just kidding. Great video!