Exclusive interview with baby expert Dr. Harvey Karp at Destination Maternity grand opening

Destination Maternity, the world’s largest maternity store, opened its doors last week in Carle Place, NY. To celebrate its grand opening, the retailer brought in Dr. Harvey Karp, author of The Happiest Baby on the Block and The Happiest Toddler on the Block. The world renowned child development expert and America’s most read pediatrician provided lectures to parents about his revolutionary techniques on how to calm fussy babies in minutes and help them to sleep an extra 1 to 3 hours per night.

Dr. Karp’s techniques revolve around imitating the uterus environment outside of the womb. The first three months after birth is known as the “4th Trimester,” and babies have a natural calming reflex that their parents can trigger to soothe fussiness. Dr. Karp developed “The 5 S’s” method, which includes: swaddling, side/stomach position, shushing, swinging, and sucking. He dispels the myths that gas causes colic and that babies need complete silence to sleep well. Each of his bestselling books is available in a DVD version that provides parents a visual learning tool to perfect the techniques.

In an exclusive interview, Dr. Karp spoke with the Long Island New Moms Examiner regarding his teachings and current and future projects.

How did the idea to write The Happiest Baby on the Block come to fruition?
The Happiest Baby on the Block came to my mind when I learned about this tribe (!Kung San) in Africa that could calm down babies in less than a minute. In our culture [babies] cry for an hour…sometimes, two, three hours a day. So when I learned that these parents could be so much more successful, I realized we must be doing something wrong. That’s when I really started to investigate what worked to calm babies down and put this program together.

How did you go from realizing you had great techniques to writing the book and then getting it published?
I did this for 20 years at my practice, and I [realized] that I knew something nobody else knew. So I started writing. I went to New York and was interviewed by 13 publishers. Eleven bit on the book. They all saw the value of it. This is a cure for colic. This is an explanation of what is colic and how to help them, [how to help] kids with [only] a little bit of crying, and how to help kids sleep at night. It was actually a lot of things all in one book, so they were very excited about it. And The Happiest Toddler on the Block, well, you can’t quite believe there’s simple techniques that literally in a day can make a difference in a child’s behavior.

How did you determine the techniques used to calm fussy babies as described in the book?
I reviewed all the research that had been done in different cultures around the world and many medical studies to look at what were their specific techniques. Of course, these are things that grandmas and mothers have been doing for thousands of years. None of these are new [such as] the swaddling. The side/stomach position was kind of a surprise to people, but when you understand they all imitate the uterus…then really, to figure out what you need to do you just have to go back to the source, and try to imitate the uterus as much as you can.

Will your techniques to calm a baby work on any infant or are there exceptions?
The techniques will work on any healthy baby. So if the baby is sick, [like] if the baby has an ear infection, they won’t cover a serious problem. If your baby cries, do the 5 S’s, and if the baby gets happy, calms down, and smiles at you, then you can feel confident that the baby is healthy.

How long can parents use these techniques on their babies? Is there a point when the techniques stop working because the babies are too old?
The 5 S’s works like a reflex for the first 4 months or so – maybe even 5 months – which means that they work almost automatically. If you have an upset 3 or 4 month old and you do the 5 S’s, they almost can’t stop themselves from calming down. But over 4 or 5 months, it doesn’t work automatically. So when you have an upset 3 year old, you might rock or shush to calm them down, but if they’re really angry, it’s not going to work like a switch. But in babies, they work like a switch.

Some parents say the techniques in the book have not worked for them. What advice would you give them?
Tweak your techniques if they’re not working. If the swaddle is not tight enough, if the baby is not on its side enough, if you’re not shushing loud enough…it’s like the knee jerk reflex. It’s all or nothing, you need to do it right to make it work.

How do the DVDs supplement the books?
Many more people know about The Happiest Baby on the Block book, but not as many know about the DVD. The DVD is really the teaching tool. These are visual techniques. A lot of people don’t have time or patience to read a book. But even if you do, and you like books, the DVD is in addition [to the books] because you have to see [the techniques]. It’s hard in a book to say how loud to shush or what does a jiggle look like when you’re holding the head. It really is very visual. As for The Happiest Toddler on the Block, the DVD is the first thing you watch, usually 2 or 3 times, and then the book has a lot more information.

Many parents “Ferberize” their babies, also known as, “Cry It Out.” What are your thoughts about this technique?
It can work, but usually, there are things you can do so you don’t even have to let your baby cry it out. Fundamentally, nobody feels good just closing the door and letting their child scream and scream. It’s not a great solution if you have other options. If you start with swaddling and white noise – and white noise is critically important from the first weeks of life – [these] will help babies get into a better rhythm of sleep so that they don’t wake up from teething, growth spurts, and all those other things that disturb sleeping at 4, 5, 6 months of age. If you haven’t used white noise, you can start at any time. Even adults sometimes start with white noise.

If you have a child who is having difficulty, before I would do Ferberizing, I would use white noise for 4 or 5 nights. The white noise becomes like an auditory teddy bear. The babies hear the sound and think, “Oh yeah, that reminds me of going to sleep.” When you travel or if your child has been sick or when you have a time change, it helps babies to get through that and keep their sleep intact. For most kids, it has to be like a soft shower…it doesn’t have to be too loud. For crying babies, it needs to be as loud as a vacuum cleaner.

What projects are you currently working on?
We have an educators program that trains people to teach Happiest Baby classes in hospitals and clinics across the country. We have 2,000 educators and another 1,500 in training. We have them in community hospitals and also in teen parenting programs, postpartum depression programs, fatherhood programs, child abuse prevention programs…it’s being used in inner city groups and suburban hospitals. [The program is] in 10 nations around the world. I’m working pretty hard to get people to know about it. I’m working to develop a four-class curriculum for teaching the Happiest Toddler techniques so that parents will be able to go to classes in their local early head start or community center to learn how to help their toddlers.

What projects would you like to work on in the future?
I’d like to write a book on sleep. There are a lot of books out there; they all pretty much say the same thing. They say you can’t sleep train a child until 3 or 4 months of age. They say that some kids are just going to cry no matter what you do so you have to let them cry it out, and in 3 or 4 days they’ll get into a routine. The second part is true, but it turns out you can sleep train a child, even in the first week or two of life when you use my techniques. You can even get days and nights set up in a 2 week old and get them to sleep 3, 4, 5 hours at a stretch at night. It’s kind of remarkably simple to do that using the techniques.

As for The Happiest Toddler on the Block, eventually it will be more popular than the baby book. The baby book is really important, but that period lasts 3, 4, 5 months. The toddler book is from 9 months to 5 years [of age]. People think [the book is for] 2 or 3 year olds and only for kids who are challenging and have temper tantrums. But [the techniques] work starting at 9 months of age, and it helps easy kids become even easier. The effects are almost immediate. It takes a little practice. It’s not as instantly obvious as the baby [techniques] so it takes a little more investment in time. But you can literally prevent 60-90% of temper tantrums – that’s a pretty good payout.

The brands are really getting well established. There will be opportunities to develop them until a real full-scale business other than DVDs and books. There will end up being a line of Happiest Baby products so when parents see them, they’ll know these are the best diaper wipes, best bottle, and best mattress to get. With my background in environmental issues and things that are organic, green, and recycled, [everything will be] done in a sustainable way.

Written by Maria Adcock, posted on November 4,2009, at www.examiner.com