Vanquish the terrible baby horde with this one weird trick!

April 10, 2015 3:31 PM

How to deactivate a baby. Previously: how to deactivate a cat.
posted by phunniemee (53 comments total)

I love how at 33 seconds the kid tries to regain consciousness and the tissue is all ah ah ah not so fast.

p.s. Just field tested this and it totally works on my dog, too.
posted by phunniemee at 3:34 PM on April 10, 2015 [8 favorites]

Boy, if I'd known about this trick a few years ago, I'd probably have a lot less gray hair now.
posted by mittens at 3:38 PM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

This does not work on my baby. Though I did try using a receiving blanket rather than a tissue.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 3:39 PM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

Kleenex atoms have a pronounced tendency towards spontaneous quantum snuggling, which interact with the scalar snoozon field to cause this effect. Not magic at all you see, but science. BABY SCIENCE!
posted by XMLicious at 3:46 PM on April 10, 2015 [18 favorites]

That seems to be a lot less stressful for the kid than the old binder clip on the back of the neck trick.

Thanks!
posted by bonehead at 3:47 PM on April 10, 2015 [22 favorites]

Works on me too!

But does not work on my boss during my annual staff review though.
posted by helmutdog at 3:48 PM on April 10, 2015 [12 favorites]

Xanax also works.
posted by dortmunder at 3:51 PM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

this rather upsets my cat.
posted by bxyldy at 3:52 PM on April 10, 2015

Dammit. Watching this led me to binge watching more baby videos. Babies eating lemons for the first time, babies eating ice cream for the first time, and babies laughing in their sleep.

Unnamed Giant Internet Conglomerate is not getting their money's worth out of me today. Thanks!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:55 PM on April 10, 2015 [7 favorites]

This would drive my 10-month-old batshit insane. No way I'm trying this.
posted by not_the_water at 3:57 PM on April 10, 2015

so thankful this isn't labelled as "one weird trick to put your baby to sleep"
posted by raihan_ at 3:59 PM on April 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

My kids are too old to try this now but I'd love to have seen if it worked during one of those intense screaming spells.
posted by greenhornet at 3:59 PM on April 10, 2015

I'm pretty sure you have to soak the tissue in chloroform first.
posted by dr_dank at 4:00 PM on April 10, 2015 [10 favorites]

Abehammerb Lincoln, have you seen this one yet?
posted by phunniemee at 4:03 PM on April 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

phunnienee, you are not helping! Little Leon is going to be quite the lady's man.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 4:06 PM on April 10, 2015

I used to do a variant on this with my kids, but it was more just the fingers on the eyes (a la a hypnotist) with a dramatic "and sleep..." for my amusement. But it "occasionally" worked :-)
posted by doozer_ex_machina at 4:28 PM on April 10, 2015

If my kids were tired when they were babies, I could sometimes get them to fall asleep by getting them to look at my finger and then move my finger back in forth such that their eyes were making the same motion they make when the babies went to sleep.
posted by drezdn at 4:33 PM on April 10, 2015

There's a slight chance I may have been hypnotizing them.
posted by drezdn at 4:33 PM on April 10, 2015 [5 favorites]

Even reading the phrase "deactivating a baby" can get you in legal trouble in Kansas these days.
posted by delfin at 4:44 PM on April 10, 2015 [29 favorites]

That kid has great hair for a baby.
posted by desjardins at 4:45 PM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

My brother just tested this on my four week old niece. Complete success!
posted by longdaysjourney at 4:51 PM on April 10, 2015 [5 favorites]

Heh. I used to do this to my son, but using the hem of my (long) hair. Worked very well and a great party trick.
posted by anastasiav at 4:56 PM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Let me try this on myself and see if
posted by phaedon at 4:58 PM on April 10, 2015 [38 favorites]

My preferred method for putting kids to sleep - 8-12 seconds.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:10 PM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

It's amazing how similar it is to the ASL sign for "sleep"
posted by fancyoats at 5:11 PM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Tried the Vulcan Nerve Pinch. Screaming intensified. Maybe I'm not doing it hard enough?
posted by um at 5:25 PM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

Wait, so putting the alligator clip on the back of a baby's neck isn't effective?
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:27 PM on April 10, 2015

My dog loves this but the instant I stop he barges up and paws at me impatiently until I resume.
posted by winna at 5:43 PM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Somebody try it on themselves. I would, but I'm out of Kleenex and I buy the cheap toilet tissue.
posted by discopolo at 6:18 PM on April 10, 2015

Adults are bigger, so you have to use a pillow and hold it there longer.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:19 PM on April 10, 2015 [28 favorites]

This baby is really well swaddled. You could swaddle a baby really tight and play them Reign In Blood and they'd probably go to sleep in 30 seconds too.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:20 PM on April 10, 2015 [10 favorites]

(The chloroforming/smothering/drugging babies jokes make me uncomfortable. Maybe I need a baby to understand, but it's all just sad to me. I just have never had the stomach for finding dead baby jokes funny and don't know what it means when others are able to make those jokes. I don't even have a baby. Maybe you need one to find that funny?)
posted by discopolo at 6:23 PM on April 10, 2015 [5 favorites]

I thought the term for deactivating a cat was "de-cativating"
posted by discopolo at 6:31 PM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

uncomfortable

Bad things are done to babies and children, sad, sad, sad, but very very rare (as in never) that is due to misinterpretation of jokes as something real.
posted by sammyo at 7:34 PM on April 10, 2015

Bad things are done to babies and children, sad, sad, sad, but very very rare (as in never) that is due to misinterpretation of jokes as something real.

I need to stop reading the news. I feel like all I ever read are those stories about kids and animals getting abused. It just makes these jokes seem incredibly heartless.
posted by discopolo at 7:43 PM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

The reason jokes about drugging babies to make them sleep are funny to those of us who have actually had babies is that sleep deprivation is a form of torture and despite being adorable sweet cuddly beacons of wonder, human infants are also straight-up monstrous masters at torturing their parents by depriving them of sleep. For like, a year straight, in some cases.

It's just in-the-trenches humor.

We would never actually drug babies.

Even if we thought about it really hard once or twice at 3 a.m.
posted by BlueJae at 7:48 PM on April 10, 2015 [48 favorites]

Imagining that a kleenex was all I needed all that time makes me want to cry a little.
posted by moira at 8:04 PM on April 10, 2015 [10 favorites]

Have baby. Jokes about drugging babies still not funny.
posted by FritoKAL at 9:06 PM on April 10, 2015

> We would never actually drug babies.

When I was about 10, we were visiting some friends of my mom's. We were in England. They had a baby - some months old, maybe a year, tops. When it was time for the baby to go to sleep, the mum added some sweet sherry to the baby's milk bottle. I think this was not the only baby to ever get this treatment; mum and dad were respectable middle-class academics and no one else at the gathering seemed to think this was worth commenting on.
posted by rtha at 9:11 PM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

Have two former babies (currently teenagers) and find jokes about drugging babies funny. We used to call our toddlers drunken terrorists. Every time we flew, we'd lament that dosing them up with Benadryl was frowned upon.

I love my children more than my own life. Doesn't mean they haven't ever been a pain in my ass or that my demented sense of humor ended when I gave birth.
posted by cooker girl at 9:36 PM on April 10, 2015 [6 favorites]

My brothers and I were born in the UK in the late 60s. We all got "gripe water", a few percent alcohol in water, or 1/8th strength vodka or so, added to our bottles routinely. Mom always wondered why we so happy and calm when we returned from our nanny, when she had so much difficulty when we were teething.
posted by bonehead at 10:18 PM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

I like children. But I couldn't eat a whole one ... da boom!
posted by Thella at 11:18 PM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yeah, colic and teething both made me consider gripe water.
posted by dejah420 at 5:24 AM on April 11, 2015

We would never actually drug babies.


Speak for yourself.

(That's what I do for a living.)
posted by TedW at 5:32 AM on April 11, 2015 [15 favorites]

this rather upsets my cat.

Cats require a slightly different technique. Forget the tissue, but instead, swipe your thumb, not down, but up, starting at the bridge of their nose up to about the middle of their foreheads. Nearly instant calming with every cat I've tried it on, and yes, if you do it long enough, you can induce catnap. My household refers to this as pressing "Cat Button 'A'".

I'm no vet or animal behaviorist, but I imagine the similarity to a momma cat grooming her kittens' faces to get them to settle down is the key. Because you're trying to mimic that lick grooming, you have to go with the grain of the fur, and I doubt a piece of kleenex is going to be substantial enough, which is probably why it's upsetting your cat to try it like they show on the baby.
posted by radwolf76 at 5:58 AM on April 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

Cute video...but while watching it, *I* started feeling sleepy. Hmm. I must further investigate the magical powers of Kleenex/third eye massage.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:11 AM on April 11, 2015

Slipping a little something into the milk is definitely a thing. Or, if you're breastfeeding, having a couple of stiff whiskies yourself beforehand. By all means question the ethical or medical side of it, but if it's that or the actual destruction of your higher faculties in a seething cauldron of pure psychic pain it normally seems acceptable.

In Victorian times, it was common to use opiates in "infants' quieteners" such as Godfrey's Cordial, with dire consequences - recommended reading for anyone disposed to promoting 'Victorian family values' as anything other than horror story material.
posted by Devonian at 11:23 AM on April 11, 2015

We will add this to the list.
posted by one weird trick at 12:07 PM on April 11, 2015 [7 favorites]

cooker girl: "Have two former babies (currently teenagers) and find jokes about drugging babies funny. We used to call our toddlers drunken terrorists. Every time we flew, we'd lament that dosing them up with Benadryl was frowned upon.

I love my children more than my own life. Doesn't mean they haven't ever been a pain in my ass or that my demented sense of humor ended when I gave birth."

See, that's why you get St. Joseph's Children's Strength Thorazine... The secret to my high school babysitting success!
posted by Samizdata at 12:38 PM on April 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

Nearly instant calming with every cat I've tried it on, and yes, if you do it long enough, you can induce catnap.

It worked! Very cool.
posted by Room 641-A at 2:00 PM on April 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

As opposed to all the things you can do that don't cause a catnap.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:21 PM on April 11, 2015

Seems too complicated. Can't I just use the scruff clamp from the cat video?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:25 PM on April 11, 2015

I did a version of this with my son when he was two months old--I spent about twenty minutes one night and ten minutes the next sweeping my hand from his hairline down over his face, sliding over the cheeks and jawbone. It worked like magic. Best was that ever since, to calm him down and put him in a sleepy state, all I need to do is stroke his cheek and he'll sigh and cuddle down with a drowsy smile. Magic.
posted by Liesl at 4:04 PM on April 11, 2015