You’ll be able to soothe your baby quickly once you become skillful at using the 5 S’s. However, the first few times you use these methods you may notice something peculiar: Your baby may ignore you or even cry louder. This is normal, so please don’t worry:

1. Baby brains have a hard time shifting gears.

If you think your baby is screaming loudly, you should hear what's going on inside his head! Chaos so distracts and overloads your newborn's immature brain that he has a difficult time escaping his frenzy to pay attention to you. It's like when your good buddy is in a fight. You try to pull him out of it, but he struggles against you to keep slugging away. It's not until later, when he finally calms down, that he admits, "Thanks, you're a real friend. I just couldn't stop myself."

So you expect your baby to resist the 5 "S's" until he calms down enough to realize that your shushing and jiggling are exactly what he needs from you.

2. Baby brains are very s-l-o-w.

When your baby is four months old, his eyes will quickly track you as you move around the room, but for now his brain is a little too underdeveloped to do that. During these early months of life, it takes a couple of seconds for messages from his eyes ("I just saw mom move!") to travel to the part of his brain that gives out the commands ("Okay, so follow her!").

This dragged-out response time is even more pronounced in colicky babies. All the tumult going on inside their heads overwhelms their brains, making their processing time even slower.

3. Baby brains get into cycles of crying.

When your crying newborn does start responding to the 5 "S's," he may only settle for the for a minute before he bursts into crying all over again. That's because your baby's distress from crying is still cycling through his nervous system like a strong aftershock following his just ended "baby earthquake." Your baby may need you to continue the 5 "S's" for five to ten minutes-- or more-- after he calms down. That's how long it may take for his upset to finish cycling through him and for the calming reflex to finally guide him into sleep.

These cycles can be confusing. They make it seem as if your baby has experience a jolt of pain, but that's rarely the case. Instead, what's occurring is like what happens when you catch a fish. The fish struggles, give up for a few moments, then suddenly fights again. With persistence you'll find that the 5 "S's" help your baby's cycles of crying gradually diminish and melt into a blissful peace.