Can a tissue really put a baby to sleep?

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In the quest to get their babies to sleep, most new parents are willing to try just about anything. From boring them with mundane stories about work, to loading them up with multiple pacifiers, parents have come up with some pretty ingenious solutions to help their little ones (and themselves!) get some shut-eye.

Among the many unorthodox methods of putting babies to sleep out there, you may have heard that tissues are as good as any lullaby when it comes to sending babies to snooze-land. The idea is that gently sweeping a piece of tissue over a baby’s face will have a calming effect on them and, before you know it, they’ll be fast asleep. But is it an old wives’ tale, or does this silly-sounding solution actually work?

Laura Nickerson, aka The MomBuster, put this unconventional method to the test, and you can see what happened in the video below:

Although believers say just 60 seconds of the tissue trick will put a baby to sleep, it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on little Rebecca, the 6-week-old baby in the video. Back in 2015, NBC’s “Today” host Savannah Guthrie also tried the tissue method out on her then-8-month-old daughter, Vale, to little success. Not only did the tissue trick fail to put her to sleep, but it actually made her a little excitable and giggly.

However, Guthrie was inspired to give it a try in the first place because of an Australian dad who swears by the tissue trick for getting his baby to nod off. Nathan Dailo’s YouTube video showing the hack in action, shot in 2015 when his son, Seth, was just 3 months old, has since garnered more than 12 million views:

Bottom line? As with many aspects of parenting, unfortunately, the clever hack does not appear to be a one-size-fits-all solution. Would you give the tissue trick a try on your baby?

Curiosity, Family & Parenting, Health, Parenting
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About the Author
Kate Streit
Kate Streit lives in Chicago. She enjoys stand-up comedy, mystery novels, memoirs, summer and pumpkin spice anything.

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