Looking for the Carp

Seize the carp! Or the day! Or the moment! Anything that will help make this life of yours richer, filled with love, and acceptance of yourself. This is my little journey to always be on the look out for that carp, grabbing it, and never letting go. This is the only life we have and it's too short for what ifs and maybe laters!

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Product review - The Baby Shusher

     Hello all, 

I decided to not include this post as part of my 'carp'list as it is a product review and not something that I am 'seizing' in the moment. That being said, here are my thoughts regarding this product: The Baby Shusher.

Any parent of a high needs, frequent crying and overall draining baby is looking for the miracle product or fool- proof tip to get said inconsolable babe soothed. The Baby Shusher is trying to fill that void as the go to aid for tired, troubled parents....but does it work? 

After extensive trails here is my overall experience. 

I received this product over a month ago and wanted to make sure I had completely made up my mind before writing a review regarding it. To understand my point of view, you will need to know two points pertaining to our circumstances. 1) My second son is a very easy going baby. He has had a few really hard crying fits but that is all. Most of the time he is quite content to be soothed with a quick nursing or nearby soother. 2) I was given this product to review after my boy reached the 4 month milestone. The product insert stated that this machine would work best on infants when introduced as soon as possible as it is suppose to mimic the ambient sound/ decibel level of being inside the womb. 

That being said, I have to say that The Baby Shusher did not work well for us. The highlighted points above contributed to these failed attempts. Baby R is an easy baby, however we did try the product each time he seemed inconsolable to our go-to tactics. Unfortunately this seemed to just make him more angry. I believe it is because when we 'shush' our babies, we use short 'shh shh shh' sounds not a continuously long 'shhhhhhhhhhh'. Because this was unfamiliar, he seemed to get more upset by it. Every time we eventually turned the machine off to try other ways of soothing that are in our arsenal. 

I think The Baby Shusher would be more beneficial if it had more settings. I am sure we are not the only family who uses short, quick shushing sounds just like there are many who use the long version. Maybe it would be a good idea to test this out with their iTunes app before adding it to their portable machine. 

In all, I would recommend this to a friend if they had a high needs newborn. I would probably say to test out the $4 app before purchasing the stand alone machine to see if it could work. As the parent of a colicky baby, I know the benefits of shushing as a means of soothing so I can definitely see it's potential. The app seems like a great way to try it out inexpensively before committing to the $30 price tag. If your baby enjoys the sound, and is soothed by it, I definitely would recommend buying the baby shusher as to cut down radiation exposure from cell phones. 

I hope that sheds some light on this new product. As with others who do product reviews, I was given this item free of charge from the company however all the opinions stated above are my own.