General video · Level B2 - Part 2

A Secret Trick To Instantly Make a Baby Stop Crying

A baby's cry has been voted one of the worst sounds on Earth. Making it stop is the holy grail of parenting.

Level: B2 · 31 sentences

Transcript

  1. A baby's cry has been voted one of the worst sounds on Earth.
  2. Making it stop is the holy grail of parenting.
  3. Here we have a... a crying baby.
  4. Enter Dr. Robert Hamilton.
  5. 23 million people have seen him perform a miracle.
  6. I fold his right arm like this and then his left arm in front.
  7. And then very gently hold his little bottom and gently rock him up and down.
  8. Just like that.
  9. Is this magic? That baby just stopped crying.
  10. Who is this doctor? Or should I say magician.
  11. We're in Santa Monica to ask the magician pediatrician how he became the baby whisperer.
  12. When I examine the child in the hospital or here in my office I frequently make them cry.
  13. Over the years I've been able to really perfect this method of holding them and it works well.
  14. We rock them up and down very gently. Sometimes we stir him to the left and we stir him to the right.
  15. But how does this magic work?
  16. Dr. Hamilton believes that this technique works because it mimics the baby's experience in the womb.
  17. By folding the baby's arms across its chest, it creates a sense of containment.
  18. So that's a sense of familiarity for them.
  19. The gentle rocking motion mimics the sensation of floating inside the amniotic sac.
  20. So what I do is I take one hand like that, other hand like that
  21. and very gently hold her at about a 45-degree angle.
  22. The 45-degree angle has nothing to do with comforting the baby and everything to do with interesting the baby.
  23. It's almost as though the baby's going "oh! hello world",
  24. "this is new",
  25. "I like it".
  26. Suddenly they're at this angle that they're not used to experiencing. Usually, they're on their backs, they see the ceiling, they see some faces coming over.
  27. This combination of the familiar and the new provides a lot of different stimuli that overwhelm the baby's instinct to cry.
  28. I've had four babies and I wish I had known about the hold...
  29. all the times.
  30. Hopefully this is helpful to you, thank you for your attention.
  31. My best to your family.