The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer [Kindle Edition]

Harvey Karp Md (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Karp, a pediatrician in Santa Monica, Calif., and assistant professor at the School of Medicine, UCLA, offers a new method to calm and soothe crying infants. While nursing or being held satisfies some babies, others seemingly cry for hours for no reason. These babies suffer from what Karp calls the Fourth Trimester. When you bring your soft, dimpled newborn home from the hospital, you may think your nursery is a peaceful sanctuary.... To him, it's a disorienting world part Las Vegas casino, part dark closet! Karp recommends a series of five steps designed to imitate the uterus. These steps include swaddling, side/stomach position, shhh sounds, swinging and sucking. The book includes detailed advice on the proper way to swaddle a child, the difference between a gentle rocking versus shaking and more. According to the author, virtually all babies will respond to these strategies although some trial and error may be needed to find the most effective calming method. A number of the steps letting kids nurse more frequently or encouraging babies to use pacifiers, for instance contradict other childcare experts. However, parents who are at their wits' ends because of a baby's incessant crying will find this book invaluable. In fact, expectant parents may want to read it before they bring their newborns home from the hospital.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

PRAISE FOR DR. HARVEY KARP

“A must read! Dr. Karp offers insights into parenting by combining ancient and modern wisdom. Our baby boy responded to the 5 S’s immediately!”
--Keely and Pierce Brosnan, TV journalist/environmentalist and actor

“Harvey writes about areas that most parenting books don’t address. What every mother needs are simple tools that really work . . . and Harvey’s do.”
—Michelle Pfeiffer, actress/producer

“A witty and masterful book bursting with wisdom from start to finish. It contains some of the best, most original ideas about new babies I have ever seen. Dr. Karp entertains as he teaches, providing wonderful and innovative suggestions in a family-friendly way.”
—James McKenna, Ph.D., chairman, Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, and director, Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory

“What a marvelous book! Parents for years to come will be grateful to Dr. Karp for this lucid and entertaining explanation of why babies cry and how to help them.”
—Martin Stein, M.D., Professor of pediatrics, University of California, San Diego Medical School, author of Encounters with Children: Pediatric Behavior and Development

“Harvey Karp is the type of pediatrician that every parent would want. His experience is beyond compare and his ability to relate to parents is impressive. The Happiest Baby on the Block has the perfect solutions for helping parents grow and thrive . . . along with their babies.”
—Sandra Apgar Steffes, R.N., M.S., member, Board of Directors, Lamaze International

“There is nothing quite like watching Dr. Harvey work wonders on a screaming baby. He’s not a pediatrician, he’s a magician. Every time I bring my kids in to see him, I walk out wishing he was their father.”
—Larry David, star of Larry David: Curb ...

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 3153 KB
• Publisher: Bantam; 1 edition (November 19, 2008)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000SEI6L8
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (903 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,742 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Advice & How-to > Parenting & Families > Parenting > Babies & Toddlers > Infants
  • #58 in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Parenting
  • #97 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Lifestyle & Home

More About the Author

Harvey Karp, MD., is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine, with a private practice in Santa Monica. Author of The Happiest Baby on the Block, Dr. Karp is a nationally renowned expert in child development, children's health and the environment, and breast-feeding. He lives with his wife and daughter in California.

For further information and for information about the award-winning The Happiest Baby DVD/video and The Happiest Toddler DVD/video, please visit www.thehappiestbaby.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

333 of 341 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magic, December 1, 2004

By 

A reader "moneysavers" (wilmington, DE United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Happiest Baby on the Block (Paperback)

The advice in this book is pure magic. Our baby wasn't colicky but she was Very fussy. Everytime I did what this book suggested - swaddle, jiggle, hold sideways, and shush - she would stop crying instantly. Yes, Instantly. It was like pure magic. Nothing worked before this book. I encourage everyone to buy it, it is a life-saver.

I agree with a previous review, in that it is most helpful the first three months. That's what it's geared towards. The author calls it the fourth trimester and focuses on that. After I started swaddling her (as the author clearly isslustrates how to do) my daughter started sleeping through the night. I no longer need this book because I was able to be so responsive to her needs in the first three months, that she is now secure enough to sleep on her own without being swaddled.

This book is also very well organized. As a matter of fact, you don't even have to read the whole book! He has helpful summaries and bullet points along the way. Just reading one page where he clearly and succinctly summarizes everything can save your life the first three months and get your baby on the road to being a trusting, self-suffient child.

This book did more than just help me soothe my infant. It increased my self-esteem as a parent. I knew that jiggling my baby soothed her. But the horrified looks on people's faces when you start jiggling a baby! Oh my! At least after reading this book it helped me know that it was indeed ok to do what intutively worked.

Also, the author is right - there's no spoling a baby. I "spoiled" my daughter like crazy. And what do I have now? A clingly baby who is addicted to jiggling and swaddling (as many people predicted when I followed the author's advice - "she'll be addicted and you'll have to swaddle her FOREVER!"). No! I have a happy baby who goes to sleep on her own and sleeps through the night. By the way, she's 4 months old. She Never needs to be jiggled anymore, or swaddled. I still put white noise on in the background for her though. But I hear many adults sleep that way too.

This book is also very sensitve and kind to the needs of our precious little babies. He says that the first three months are the fourth trimester. That the baby was in you for nine whole months and got used to there being sound and movement and confinement. And when they're born it's unnatural (and, in my opinion, cruel) to leave them to their own devices and figure out how to be a human being in the world right away. They need our help while they get their bearings. They're so tiny and the world is so big.

As a matter of fact, many book I read suggest not swaddling past the second month, or even past the first month. But the author recommends doing it for as long as the baby needs it. All babies are different and need to take their own time! And not only for as long as the baby needs it, but also as much as the baby needs it. That's right, swaddle the baby as often as the baby wants it. Some books say this hinders development but the author points out that if the baby needs it, it calms the baby down enough for the baby to be a ble to pay attention to the world and learn. My baby wanted to be swaddled for many hours out of every day. I felt guilty becuase so many other resources say not to do that. But this book helped me see that it was only natural. The author asked - doesn't your baby seem happier this way? YES!! She was So much happier when she was swaddled. And this did not make her addicted to it, as I said before - she went from being swaddled most of the day to not being swaddled Ever quickly and effortlessly.

I know this is a long review. I just have to strongly recommend this book. It's usefuleness and help go so much beyond sleeping issues. I love this book. It is the single most useful book I have ever read.

77 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good info...but not worth a whole book, June 28, 2010

By 

Alex Atterbury - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Happiest Baby on the Block (Paperback)

The thesis in the book is excellent - by understanding a baby's needs and how the first few months are really the "fourth trimester," we can learn to use his five-steps to calming a colicky infant.

The problem isn't that the advice is bad, because it's excellent and very practical. It's that he just repeats and repeats the same points, occasionally slipping in another nugget of useful info. This should be a 10-page handout, not a book. Heck, I probably could paste in enough directions for you to do this in this comment box, thus saving you from buying the whole book.

My advice - check it out from the library or borrow it, because in 20 minutes you'll have figured it out and you you can spend the money on diapers (the need of which cannot be abridged!).

244 of 262 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good - but only for the first three months., September 6, 2002

By 

Judith E. Golden (Burlington, MA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Baby Sleep Longer (Hardcover)

This book is an excellent read - having a nice easy style and with some Anthropology thrown in. Be warned, this is not very good for babies over three months. I have a two month old who is fussy, and I found that I already used a lot of these techniques without knowing it! The one thing that has really been helpful so far is swaddling. It seems to help her take naps better. For 3 months and up, look at "The No-Cry Sleep Solution". It is similar to this book in that it uses a common sense approach to getting babies to calm down or sleep. Also, Healthy Sleep, Happy Child" gives a more scientific explanation of baby sleep.