How to Irritate a Baby

The art of irritating a baby has been greatly overlooked by child care books. Why would you want to irritate a baby? * Because baby sleeps more during the day than during the night and you want to keep baby awake during the day. * Because baby is dozing while you're trying to feed him/her at 4:30 AM and you just want to finish the bottle and get back to sleep for another 15 seconds. * Because confusing your baby can sometimes get them to stop crying. * Because overstimulating your baby can distract them from pain. * Or perhaps because you're just a horrible person who wants to safely irritate a baby.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• A sponge, some baby soap, and a small tub of warm water.
• A "blue bulb" for sucking snot out of baby's nose.
• Fresh diapers and wipes...unwarmed wipes.
• A properly adjusted, safe car seat.

1. The first and easiest way to get on baby's nerves is to gently blow into baby's face. This is particularly useful for if your hungry baby is dozing while you're trying to feed it at 4:30 AM. If you want to be cruel, drink coffee to blow coffee breath into baby's face. Baby hates that.
2. Change baby's diaper and give baby a good old fashioned cleaning and sanitizing with a room temperature or slightly cold wet wipe. This bugs the crap out of baby because it's cold. Oh but it's so clean. Again, this helps to wake baby up before his 3:00 AM feeding.
   
   WATCH OUT! Sometimes the cold wet wipe will make baby pee when the diaper is off. This is baby's natural self defense.
3. Bathe the baby with a sponge bath. This activity has the added benefit of being "good for" the baby. Again, baby gets wet. Baby gets cold. Baby gets pissed.
   
   Why would you DO this? I don't know. It's both cruel AND it helps to keep baby awake during the day so that you might turn baby's circadian rhythm around.
4. Buckle baby into baby's car seat. Babies HATE car seats. You'd do this because...you...don't want your infant to, you know, wander off while you're having your martini. That's what you'd tell the cops anyway. The real reason is to just irritate your baby, or maybe you actually want to go someplace and you don't want to pull a Britney Spears and have baby on your lap while you drive. Note: babies love being on your lap.
5. Oohhh...the blue bulb. The wonderful wonderful blue bulb, AKA nasal aspirator. This is standard issue baby torture device. They give you one at the hospital along with the little plastic tub used to give baby a sponge bath. The blue bulb is designed to SUCK snot out of baby's nose. Chimps put their mouths over their baby's nose and suck to remove snot...humans use the blue bulb. In both cases, the baby rapidly loses its mind with blind, red fury while its nasal passages are being suctioned. In theory, you do this because baby has a hard rattle in baby's nose. But it's a sound way to bug your offspring.
   
   Baby will breathe easier and clearer after this maneuver.
6. Tummy time. What's tummy time? When baby is born, his neck muscles are like jelly. So to strengthen his neck muscles you put baby on his tummy for five to ten minutes and watch him struggle to lift his head. It's pure torture. Baby will descend into madness during tummy time as he strains his muscles.