Dad’s burps soothe infant

Much to my wife’s chagrin, I discovered a secret method to calm our three and a half month old son; burping. And I’m not talking about his burping either, I’m talking about my burping.

Recently my wife and I were shoveling down a meal as fast as possible so that we could deal with our self destructing infant. Balanced on her knee, he squirmed and yelled as though he were the most woeful person in the world. As he ratcheted up the crying, I ate faster and probably ingested as much air as I had pesto pasta on the plate in front of me.

A s I finished my dinner I realized that all the air I gulped in the process needed to be released. I was tired and not too concerned with manners at that point, so I burped out loud. Frankly I thought his wails would mask any reverberations I could possibly emanate. I was wrong.

The burp thrust into the room with the magnitude a fog horn warning sailors of a craggy shoreline. It seemed to last for ever, I worried that I had cracked some of the good china in the hutch. But when it ended there was just silence. No crying. No fussing. My son’s head shot around and he stared at me in awe. His demeanor was so calm that one would question if he had ever actually been crying in the first place. A corner of his mouth began to turn as if to crack a smile, but he stopped just short. After gazing at me for a few moments he turned his head away with a sigh and began to quietly look around the room as if to say “so what was I just doing?”

The most amazing thing was that he didn’t cry again until bedtime. As much as my wife DETESTS this, I have used this same technique several times since with the same results. It’s amazing. If you have a fussy infant try burping really loudly. It works wonders.