Baby Instruction Manual

Are you a STEM guy who is a new dad or dad-to-be? Are you used to getting instruction manuals for your new gadgets and frustrated that your baby didn’t come with one? Then this post is for you! Through careful experimentation, I have developed this checklist for fixing a crying baby. By learning and practicing this protocol, you can develop the skills to watch your baby without your wife’s supervision, so she can take a break, go out for coffee, see a friend, go for a walk, or anything else she wants for a few hours.

The first thing to know is that if your wife ever leaves you in charge of your baby, you have to immediately stop reading, thinking, and working. Put down everything and focus on the baby. Your baby may be happy for a while, but at some point it will start to cry. When it does, go through the following checklist step-by-step. If your baby stops crying and seems happy again, you are done. If not, continue to the next step.

The author with his children.

Baby Crying Checklist

1. Pick up your baby and say “shhh-shhh.”

2. Check your baby’s physical condition.

   1. Check to see if any clothes are pinching or rubbing your baby.

   2. Check the straps on a high chair or car seat to make sure they are not too tight. Loosen them if so.

   3. See if your baby is too hot or too cold. Feeling your baby’s nose, forehead, and hands is a good way to assess this. Take off or put on clothes as necessary.

3. Move your baby to a calm, quiet place. Sometimes babies get overstimulated and need less noise and lights.

4. Check if your baby’s diaper is full of pee or poop. Modern diapers have an indicator, usually a color change, for urine presence. If necessary, change the diaper. Changing a diaper full of pee is fairly straight-forward, but you should practice once with your wife to make sure you are doing it properly. Changing a poopy diaper is much more involved, and you should definitely watch your wife do it a number of times, get instructions, then practice multiple times under her supervision before attempting on your own.

5. Try feeding your baby. Your wife probably timed her break around the baby’s feeding schedule, but sometimes babies get hungry when they aren’t supposed to. Your wife will have left you some pumped milk or shown you how to make formula just in case. Don’t forget to warm the milk, and follow instructions carefully to make sure you don’t make it too hot. Don’t forget to burp your baby after you feed it.

6. Try putting your baby to sleep. Your baby might be having fun playing with you, then suddenly get tired and want to sleep (resulting in crying). Babies do not just sleep once per day like we do; they need lots of short naps.

7. Take your baby outside for a walk. Sometimes babies want to see new stuff and get some fresh air.

8. Call your wife and ask for help. This is a tricky one. You definitely should not reach this step most times, or your wife will be mad at you. But if you are really flummoxed, you better call in the cavalry. You will definitely be in trouble if you somehow screwed up one of the previous steps and your baby is still crying for an obvious reason when your wife comes home. There’s also a very small chance of a serious problem, in which case your wife will want to come home and evaluate the situation immediately.

I hope this checklist is useful! If anyone has more suggestions, please leave them in the comments.