Baby Travel Shop Crying babies and air travel

Crying babies and air travel

Crying Babies and Air Travel
Writer: Christof Selden, Gymboree Switzerland

“I was in business class on a Zurich – New York flight and there was a mother with her baby that screamed for five hours. No cuddling, cooing, rocking or giving the bottle helped. And a very kind flight attendant was equally helpless. I felt sorry for the mother, but I couldn’t relax, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t sleep.”

Sounds familiar? Then you may also know the paranoia and have seen the trepidation washing across the faces around you, when a parent with an infant is boarding and you desperately hope they are not going to sit near you. As a parent I am sympathetic with other parents travelling, seeing them struggle with all their baby gear and the futile efforts to calm their restless infants. But having one or more crying babies on the plane can be true agony. In a restaurant, you can escape. On a plane, where are you going to go?

Now there is hope! Dr Harvey Karp, a renowned pediatrician and child development expert, came up with a method that can easily be learned by any parent and flight attendant on how to transform even the fussiest infant into a calm and happy baby… in minutes… and help all infants sleep an extra one or two hours!
Thousands of parents, from working moms to superstars like Madonna, Michelle Pfeiffer or Pierce Brosnan, have come to Dr Karp to learn his remarkable techniques.

In the womb babies have a symphony of stimulation, including continual touch, frequent jigging, and a constant whooshing sound that is louder than a vacuum cleaner 24/7! Then, after birth this rich stimulation stops and is replaced by long hours of stillness and quiet. This new “sensory deprivation” can trigger waves of crying which may erode a parents confidence and lead to nursing failure, marital stress, postpartum depression, and even abuse. No wonder so many parents and babies have trouble adjusting those first three months.

Dr Karp highly successful method is based on three revolutionary concepts: 1. The missing Fourth Trimester; How to recreate the womblike atmosphere a newborn baby still yearns for… outside the womb. 2. The calming reflex; an ‘off switch’ all babies are born with, which quickly soothes fussing and crying. 3. The 5 Ss, five techniques that activate the calming reflex; Swaddling (tight wrapping), Side/Stomach (laying baby on her side or stomach), Shushing (strong white noise), Swinging (rhythmic, jiggly motion), and Sucking (on anything from your nipple or finger to a pacifier). These five methods are extremely effective, but only when performed exactly right. When done incorrectly these techniques have little or no effect.

Transcontinental flights with infants on board do no longer need to be sleep depriving and exhausting. Parents and flight crews can easily learn to ‘swaddle and shush’ and effectively reduce infant crying and improve sleeping while on board. All one needs is a suitable swaddling blanket and a 2 hour hands on course to learn the technique. Dr Karp’s baby-calming method is now being taught to pregnant couples and new parents at birth clinics and Gymboree Centers across the United States. In Switzerland, courses on the Karp method are bing offered at Gymboree Centers and later this year also at the birth clinics of the Hirslanden Group.

For more information in the US, please visit www.thehappiestbaby.com and www.gymboreeclassees.com
For more information in Switzerland, please visit www.gymboree.ch and www.hirslanden-baby.ch.

Swiss Air Inflight Magazine June 2007