Happiest Baby
Magic? A Miracle? No, it’s a reflex!
Are You Ready To Be A Parent?
New babies are such a blessing, but they can also bring with them sleepless nights, crying, and sometimes quite a bit of stress. We can help you become less frustrated with the baby (aged 0 to 3 months) in your care!
We believe every child is a precious gift and those entrusted with caring for them should be well educated and well informed! Learn an extraordinary approach to keeping your baby happy. In our Happiest Baby Class, new parents will learn step-by-step how to help their baby sleep better and how to soothe even the fussiest baby in minutes…even seconds. Our class is based on the highly effective, new approach to babies pioneered by Dr. Harvey Karp in his best-selling book and DVD:
Each class session includes:
- The 5S’s developed by Dr. Harvey Karp
- The Missing 4th Trimester: The theory that babies are born 3 months too soon
- A take home parent kit for each class participant
- A question and answer session
- How to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
- Preventing Shaken Baby Syndrome from over frustration
- The Calming Reflex: the virtual off-switch to crying that all babies are born with!
- Lessening the chances of:
Postpartum Depression
Marital stress
Sleepless Nights
Having an unconsolable infant
New parents will also learn:
- Why the idea that colic is due to gas pains is mostly an old wives tale
- Why keeping the house quiet may actually be upsetting to many newborns
- Why most babies get more upset in the evening
- Why it’s impossible to spoil young babies
- An easy way to help infants sleep a few hours more a night
- Why fathers are often the BEST calmers in the family
- Information on how breastfeeding reduces the instances of colic, SIDS and more
About Dr. Karp
Harvey Karp, M.D., has appeared on The View, The Dr. Phil, ABC News’ “World News Tonight,” CNN, Lifetime Channel and numerous national radio programs. He was trained by some of America’s top pediatricians, including Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, and in 1981, Dr. Karp received the prestigious Ehrmann Fellowship to study crying and colic. He is an assistant professor of pediatrics at UCLA School of Medicine, with a private practice in Santa Monica, California. He is a nationally renowned expert on children’s health and the environment, and an authority on breastfeeding.
Dr. Karp has done extensive research on colic and has discovered that colic is essentially non existent in several cultures around the world. Based on his research, he has developed a method which can reduce, if not eliminate, colic symptoms in your baby. Read through the reviews The Happiest Baby on the Block have gotten and see how much of a change Dr. Karp’s method can create. He has lectured extensively, nationally and internationally, to conferences of health care professionals. In addition, his work has been featured in People Magazine, the LA Times, and dozens of newspapers across the country. He has also been mentioned in Time, Newsweek, and many other national magazines. His expert advice is also featured in the article“The Best Baby Sleep Tips Ever” , in the May 2005 issue of Parents Magazine.
According to Dr. Karp, “Although today’s mothers and fathers are very well educated, they are the least experienced parents in history. No wonder even loving parents sometimes feel pushed to the breaking point by their infant’s screaming.” Dr. Karp places in the hands of all parents, grandparents, and childcare providers the tools they need to be able to calm their babies.
Dr. Karp has made many appearances across the country, as well as other countries, to educate people in his amazing method of infant calming and “toddler speak.”
Dr. Harvey Karp in the News:
…”Madonna, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Pierce Brosnan all think so. All have used and recommend Karp’s techniques. And according to Karp, some emergency room physicians are using the five-step system before administering often painful tests on incessantly crying infants.”…
The Five ‘S’ Way To Calm A Fussy Baby Babies Need Noise, Like To Feel As If Back In Womb
Can This Man Keep Your Baby Quiet?
Articles featuring Dr. Harvey Karp and The Happiest Baby on The Block:
- Newsweek Magazine 2002
- Fit Pregnancy Magazine August issue 2002
- American Baby, September 2002
- Fitness Magazine, November 2002
- Parents Special Baby Issue Summer 2003 “Sleep, Baby, Sleep.”
- Fit Pregnancy, June/July 2003 “A Guy’s Guide to Having a Baby”
- LA Family Magazine
- Parents Magazine July 2003 “Your Baby’s Body.”
- Parenting August 2003 “7 Secrets for a Happy Baby”
- Parents November 2006 “Your Amazing, Marvelous and Miraculous Baby”
About Dr. Karp’s Method
Dr. Karp believes that babies, especially in their first few months of life, can experience “fourth trimester” issues. Babies can have a difficult time getting used to the huge amount of stimuli present in life outside of Mom’s body. Their reaction to all of this is to cry and cry.
The Happiest Baby On The Block method formulated by Dr. Harvey Karp, addresses these issues by helping you learn how to effectively recreate the environment of the womb, outside of Mom’s body. Once you have learned the steps, you will be able to alleviate some, if not all, of your baby’s colic symptoms.
The 5 S’s:
There are 5 components to this method which, when used together, work amazingly well to calm your crying baby and in many cases help your baby go to sleep with no fuss. Using cross-cultural techniques combined with his own research, Dr. Karp has developed the “five S’s system”. Some babies will need all five, others just a few to help induce what he calls the “calming reflex.”
- Swaddling – Tight swaddling provides the continuous touching and support the fetus experienced while still in Mom’s womb.
- Side/stomach position – You place your baby, while holding her, either on her left side to assist in digestion, or on her stomach to provide reassuring support. Once your baby is happily asleep, you can safely put her in her crib, on her back.
- Shushing Sounds – These sounds imitate the continual whooshing sound made by the blood flowing through arteries near the womb. This white noise can be in the form of a vacuum cleaner, a hair dryer, a fan and so on. The good news is that you can easily save the motors on your household appliances and get a white noise CD which can be played over and over again with no worries.
- Swinging – Newborns are used to the swinging motions that were present when they were still in Mom’s womb. Every step mom took, every movement caused a swinging motion for your baby. After your baby is born, this calming motion, which was so comforting and familiar, is abruptly taken away. Your baby misses the motion and has a difficult time getting used to it not being there. “It’s disorienting and unnatural,” says Karp. Rocking, car rides, and other swinging movements all can help.
- Sucking – “Sucking has its effects deep within the nervous system,” notes Karp, “and triggers the calming reflex and releases natural chemicals within the brain.” This “S” can be accomplished with breast, bottle, pacifier or even a finger.
These steps sound pretty easy, but seeing them done properly, in conjunction with each other, is the key to relieving your baby’s colic symptoms and making Mom, Dad, and baby less stressed and much happier!
Why does it work?
Dr. Karp has uncovered 2 facts that began to put everything into focus for him. First, he learned that there are profound differences between the brain of a 3-month-old baby and that of a newborn. During the first few months of life, babies make massive developmental leaps. This accounts for the huge gap between how parents in our society expect new babies to look, and act, and their true behavior and nature. His second pivotal discovery came when he began to read about child rearing in other societies. As he explored the musty shelves of old books and journals at the UCLA Library, he was shocked to learn that the colicky screaming that haunted so many of his patients and their parents was totally absent in the babies of several cultures around the world! The more he investigated this issue the more he realized that although our culture was advanced in many ways, it was very backwards when it came to understanding the needs of babies! Somehow, somewhere we had taken a wrong turn. He began to realize our ideas about babies’ crying had been built upon centuries of myth and misconception.
In many ways, the peoples living in primitive cultures seem ignorant and backward. However, in some areas their wisdom is great…and we are actually the “primitive” ones. This is particularly true when it comes to understanding infant crying. While researching information from the past and then blending them with cutting edge modern research and his own unique observations, made while caring for more than 5000 young babies over the years.