Om Your Way to a Calm Baby

I hope you guys had a great weekend!  We spent our weekend hanging out at home with Vishnu’s parents.  While our time together didn’t include organized plans, we had a blast!  Lots of Kaiden snuggles, laughs, and fun. 🙂

At one point, Vishnu and his dad left to pick up dinner.  This was right around Kaiden’s bedtime, so I fed him and then started to change his diaper.  For some reason, this time of the day is a little hit or miss with K.  Sometimes he goes with the flow and it’s a breeze, and sometimes he’s fussy and all over the place.  On this particular day, he was a little fussy + hyper.  I couldn’t get his diaper on for the life of me!  Part of me wanted to laugh and part of me was like ‘stop moving, kid!’

So what did I do?

Well, in a calm and steady voice, I started chanting ‘om.’  Kind of like this, ‘OMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.’  Deep breath and repeat.

My MIL giggled a little when I started but was amazed by how Kaiden responded.  He stopped moving, quieted down, and stared at me.

So here’s the thing.  After Kaiden was born, I read a blog post/article about how a dad chanted ‘om’ to calm down his newborn.  This was in the early days of mommy and Kaiden when sleep was more elusive.  Desperate for sleep, I started changing ‘om’ as I willed my baby to sleep.  And guess what…it worked!  My fidgety baby would calm down in a matter of minutes.

Thankfully, this chant still works like a charm.  The minute Kaiden hears ‘ommmmmmmm’ he stops whatever he’s doing to listen.

To be honest, I’m not surprised because ‘om’ is a sacred sound with high spiritual power.  I just didn’t know how effective it would be.

Before I leave you to it, two notes…

1. Chanting ‘om’ to a crying baby doesn’t always yield positive results.
2. I highly recommend picking a sound or two (we love ‘om’ and ‘shhhh’) and starting early.  With Kaiden, the shushing starting at the hospital and the ‘ommmming’ started when we got home.  It’s like his conditioned to calm down!

With that, have a happy and calm Monday.  OMMMMMMMMMMMMM!