To be bothered that a mother and father shaking newborn to pacify him/her.

[whenitrainsitpours]

Last night, this new mom and dad came out for a meal at the restaurant i work at with newborn baby. Lovely couple and sweet baby, must have been at the most 3 weeks old. Especially the dad, while the mum was eating her meal, was holding their baby and kept bouncing him on his knee very fast and was jolting the baby. I suppose that was his way to pacify the baby, but i did not think bouncing/shaking up and down fast would be any good for such a small infant. Your thoughts.

by the way you are only guessing the baby was 3 weeks old. After 2 kids it's still pretty hard for me to judge whether a baby is 3 weeks or 8 weeks to be honest.

Thanks all for your replies. Does help me to give me some insights. So was right by not stepping over and getting involved in a situation where obviously i would have made a complete fool of myself.

Best way ever to get their wind up, plus they look like grumpy little old men with their head resting in your hand

Yeah, the whole over your shoulder thing is overrated. The baby burps and you get to LOL at their grumpy old men faces. Win win!

Don't worry, I'd have thought the same before I had my dd.

Definitely the best way to wind some babies. I find my nephew responds much better to a bit of bouncing on my knee than he did to having his back rubbed/tapped.

It sounds like he was winding the baby, that's how I wind mine and how my family winds all of theirs, I've also seen midwifes and other medical staff do it that way

Hand under babies chin supports head and also chest keeping baby upright, allowing you clear access to their back to burp them. I'm also sure sitting upright helps with the wind.

How do you know the baby was 3 weeks old?

Yabu

Yabu. That's not shaking. That's jiggling. Christ with ds1 we had to jog on the stop with him in a sling to calm him down. Heaven knows what you would have thought of us . The father had the head supported.

Yup, it's also how I winded mine - I was also a fan of swirling them while they were on my knee - imagine hula hooping and you're half way there

Wiggles that's how I winded mine,the kind of hula hoop motion. The only way they would burp.

Both my babies, in particular colicky DD1, required vigorous jiggling for months on end.

Well, no. DD1 required it for four months non stop, DD2 only required it until we worked out how to get her to go to bed at 7pm at 8 weeks and then she was fine.

But either way, it was VIGOROUS, constant jigglejigglejigglejigglejigglejigglejigglejigglejiggle

Shaking is getting the baby by the underarms and jolting him/her back and forth quickly which would no doubt make a baby cry. What they were doing sounds like burping the baby or calming him. I often did that with DS after a feed as he suffered from reflux and it was a good way to help him digest his feed without it coming back up.