Gas and Keenan’s 2nd iTunes play list!

Our little guy sure does get some pretty nasty gas attacks. He’s been getting them since he was about 5 weeks old. The first time he had a big one he woke us up with peels of screaming at around 3 in the morning and after an hour of trying massage, bouncing, rubbing, walking around the apartment and a bit of crying myself I figured out the magic formula. I sit with him sideways on my lap, I hold him tight and close into my body with one hand and with the other I pat him 4 times on the side between his ribs and hipbone and then I bounce my leg up and down 3 times all the while talking to him in a calm voice. Repeat, repeat, repeat and change sides when necessary. The end result is a sleeping baby (knock on particle board). This may sound incredible but after two months of this I’ve run out of things to say for the “talking in a calm voice” part of the exercise. So I’ve put together an iTunes play list called “Sing Keenan to sleep”. It’s about 4.5 hours of songs I know almost all the words to so I press play, sit myself down in front of the computer with the wee guy getting bounced and patted on my lap and sing along. So far Keenan’s favorites to fall asleep to are by Jack White, Gordon Lightfoot, Billy Bragg, Joe Strummer, Bob Dylan, David Francey, Green Day, Joni Mitchell, Matthew Good, Johnny Cash, Pearl Jam and the Housemartins. I think it’s speaks volumes of the quality of your music if it has the ability to soothe a baby of it’s gas pains and carry it into a sound sleep. Especially when it’s being sung by a somewhat sleep deprived mom with a not so great singing voice!