What on earth makes people think that babies want to be jiggled incessantly?

Yesterday in church.

In front of me there was a young couple and their 6-month-old baby, and a Grandma-type woman who was not related to them, who just happened to be sitting next to them in the pew. And “Grandma” (“Squeee!”) quickly took charge of the baby.

And just could not leave the kid alone. Every 10 to 30 seconds (I got so fascinated that I started clocking her, my bad for not listening to the sermon) she would shift the baby’s position. It reminded me of nothing so much as a little girl playing with a doll. It went like this:

Baby up on shoulder, joggling it and patting its back.
Baby on knee facing Grandma in the two-handed “posing baby on knee” grip, knee bouncing up and down.
Baby on knee facing the dais in the two-handed “posing baby on knee” grip, knee bouncing up and down.
Baby sideways on Grandma’s lap, similarly being jiggled by thigh bouncing up and down.

Repeat ad lib.

And it wouldn’t normally have been something that obtruded itself on my attention–old ladies play with babies during church all the time–except that the kid, who I assumed was female because it was wearing pink sweatpants and teeny little Mary Janes, kept trying to look around, dammit. She must have been just barely 5 or 6 months old, old enough to have mastered the spine muscles for sitting posture, and old enough to have mastered the neck muscles for “holding my head up and looking around”, but the back and neck were both still a little wobbly.

And she was doing her darnedest to look around every chance she got. Every time Grandma let her sit up, that little wobbly neck started moving the head around in little figure-8s like a periscope on Demerol, tracking slowly but definitely from left to right and back again, the big eyes taking in every detail of the surroundings, all the colors and patterns and movement and lights. She was looking at things, deliberately. Her face wasn’t like that “tiny baby thousand-yard stare” thing–I could see her choosing to look at things, her little face had the exact expression of, “oh wow i’m looking at stuf”.

And then Grandma would break it up by MOVING her. And she’d blink, and then patiently start over from whatever position she was in.

I really wanted to lean over and tap Grandma on the shoulder and say, “Geez, for goodness sake, leave the kid alone.”

Eventually the mom took the kid back–and she also kept her jiggling on her knee, although she didn’t shift her incessantly. And I wanted to lean over and tap her on the shoulder and say, “Look, hon, just let her sit there quietly on your lap. She doesn’t need to be jiggled all the time.”

People think that jiggling a baby keeps it calm. Well, in my experience, a baby that’s fed and dry is only irritated by jiggling, and then it starts to cry, and the person holding it who thought that babies need to be jiggled is embarrassed that the “baby doesn’t seem to like me”, and hands it back to Mommy.

So sure enough, about halfway through the sermon, which meant after about 45 minutes of non-stop jiggling and joggling, the baby got tired of it and got cranky, so THEN they resolved it, not by holding her close and letting her rest, but by producing a bottle and sticking it in her mouth.

Which she kept spitting out.
Because she wasn’t hungry, dammit.

She wanted to sit there quietly, being cuddled in a lap, and look at Pastor in his yellow shirt, but They (there’s always a They) wouldn’t let her.

Eventually she gave in to the inevitable and consented to drink some of the bottle. Way to produce an obese baby, peeps. :rolleyes:

You ever just wanna take a kid away from her parents because you know you can do a much better job?

Oy.

Babies tell you want they want, in unmistakable ways. They reinforce your desired behaviour by smiling and laughing, and they tell you when you’re not doing what is required by crying. So, if that baby was being jiggled a lot, it really did want to be jiggled a lot (or it liked what came with the jiggling, like close contact with other people, and people smiling at it).

Constantly. OTOH, maybe the baby likes being jiggled, generally. I have one charge who, I know only from repeated experience, likes to be jiggled, and when we stop jiggling him, he’ll cry. Sure, eventually he’ll cry anyway, but jiggling prolongs the silence. People who don’t know him well think I’m a little nuts, but experience is my best teacher. Other kids, I don’t jiggle. Depends on the kid. “Grandma” probably wouldn’t have known, of course, but that might be why Mom kept up with the jiggling.

Now, if we could talk about the my friend who’s trying, at 9 months pregnant, to potty train her 3 year old before the baby arrives, I’ll be right there with you at despairing of other people’s parenting decisions. Just one month ago he got booted out of his crib to make way for the baby, and now he’s going to give up the diapers as well? I don’t see this going to a good place…

Some babies do like to be jiggled, though. When I was a baby, one of my favorite things was to have somebody bounce me around and sing “The Beer Barrel Polka” to me. For hours at a time, if possible. (And then we’d go eat some bratwurst and drink some warm beer. It’s why I have hair on my chest today.) If we didn’t polka long enough, then I’d cry.

Similarly, when one of my cousins was little, he loved to have his butt patted while you held him. Not just little pats, but hard enough to bounce him. And my younger brother used to fling himself and his walker into the kitchen cabinets, because he liked crashing into things really hard.

My baby is one that likes to be jiggled. He’s about 6 months old, and he’s very very squirmy…has to be in constant motion unless he’s asleep. Therefore, it’s really hard to hold onto him because it’s always like a wrestling match. He will sit still if I hold him on my lap facing me and bounce my knees up and down…makes him laugh hysterically, and it’s actually less tiring than trying to hold him still, so I do it a lot!

If the baby was 5-6 months old, the mom knows what it likes and doesn’t like by now. Some babies love constant movement, others don’t. By that age you get to know your infant pretty well.

(what’s wrong with trying to potty train a 3 year old before a new baby comes? If the kid seems otherwise ready, I mean. 3 doesn’t seem too early to me, granted, I wouldn’t start the process right before a new baby but that doesn’t seem like a very big deal to me.)

Number Two Nephew was a colicky baby, and unless he was being jiggled constantly, the colic fits started up. So it became SOP, when you visited my brother’s house, you’d immediately be handed the baby to jiggle for a while… because everyone else’s arms were about to drop off from the constant jiggling.

Now, at 2, he’s long since outgrown the colic, but still loves being bounced. And prefers guys holding him to women, we think because he was so used to it always being the men jiggling him as a (heavy) baby. He often greets me or my dad with arms stretched out to be picked up and “bounce, pleez.”

You want to see something really funny? Pay attention to the other women around when there’s a crying baby in a public place or family get together. Even if they’re not holding the baby, the other women will automatically start swaying and jiggling a bit out of habit.

A few months after having my first baby I found myself on a solo grocery trip methodically rocking the produce in my cart back and forth while I browsed.

Yes, it’s the right-before-the-baby-comes part that has me going :smack: . The fact that she and I (I’m his babysitter) talked about this nine months ago, and we both agreed that IF she wanted him potty trained before the baby, she’d better get on it (and she never did), just adds to my grr. Kids tend to regress a bit when a new baby comes home, and this kid is the Spoiled King of the Castle (only child of a single mother and a father who (not unexpectedly) died while the kid was an infant, which has made for all sorts of idealization). He’s already told us that when the baby is born, he’s going to punch it and throw it in the garbage. Yes, kids say stuff like that, and we’re not freaking out, but it’s indicative of his mindset about the new baby. New baby: Do not want! As resistant as he’s been to talks of potty training, I just don’t see how she thinks it’s going to work.

In my experience, the babies that dislike being jiggled are few and far between. My daughter was an exception, but she had a weird quirk that she preferred a jerky swing to a smooth one. If you put her in the swing and wound it up, she’d cry non-stop, but strangely enough if you caught the swing on the upswing every time, jerking her (ever so gently, we’re not talking brain damage here) she would be asleep within minutes.

My son loved being jiggled.

I’m rocking in my chair just reading this thread.

I don’t even have any kids and my knee is just jiggle jiggle jiggle jiggle… my mom and I kept my niece when she was a baby and had terrible colic, and the only way to get any peace at all was constant motion.

I don’t have much to add on the jiggling, but IME the constant shifting is because babies are HEAVY, dammit.

Ha, me too. I also found myself wandering around the store looking for my husband saying out loud (to my empty cart), “Now where has Daddy gone? Let’s go find Daddy!”

Also hot. Don’t forget hot.

snort

I went to bed a few nights ago, and as I was heading out of the office into the living room, looked at my husband on the couch and said “I’m going night-night.”.

He immediately laughed at me.

Well, apparently it’s natural for them to like it.

I see, I can agree with that. If a kid is resistant to the idea, trying it just as a new baby is coming is not going to work.

My own 3 year old has been in the “mostly” potty trained stage for a while now and I am still hoping he will take the final steps before December though (when baby is due.) But that’s still a few months away and he has the basics down already.

Well, I tried juggling babies once, but then the parents stepped in. Maybe I shouldn’t have been juggling two babies and a chainsaw.

You’ll know you’ve gone too far when you ask a grouchy co-worker, “Are you poopy?”