[muzani]

The three big things are rhythmic motions (swinging, car rides, bouncing), sucking, swaddling. (Dr M. Weissbluth) Sounds also seem to a big thing - I think they like low frequency noise like daddy's humming. But lullabies and conversations work too.

The advice I got from a professional is to swaddle the baby by 6 PM, put the baby in a room, by themselves, and let them fall asleep. Sometimes the baby will cry for a period of time before they find a way to sleep. If you help them out while they're crying, they won't pick up the skill. Leaving a baby to cry alone in a room seems a little cruel, and it didn't work for us, because we couldn't muster the resolve for it and because some other family members wouldn't take it.

What I prefer to do is to preemptively do the calming behaviour before bedtime. Like swaddle the baby and take her for a stroller ride at 6 PM. And then mix it up and gradually reduce it. The routine itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but avoid it being anything you wouldn't do every day for a year, e.g. breast milk before bed, or carrying them around.

Our first daughter didn't learn to calm herself until around 3 years old. Second was about 8 months. It was a relief when she learned to suck her thumbs before sleep, as that's self-reliant.

You'll also want to deal with colic very early on because that's usually the #1 cause of a cranky, difficult baby. There's a lot of home remedies for mother and child and a good number of them is to prevent colic for this reason. Whether they work is up to experimentation. We are skeptics and would avoid the usual home routines to see what happened. Next baby we'll follow everything.