Comments on: Vanquish the terrible baby horde with this one weird trick!

Vanquish the terrible baby horde with this one weird trick!

phunniemee — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:31:57 -0800

How to deactivate a baby. Previously: how to deactivate a cat.

By: phunniemee

phunniemee — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:34:33 -0800

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.

By: mittens

mittens — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:38:40 -0800

Boy, if I'd known about this trick a few years ago, I'd probably have a lot less gray hair now.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:39:03 -0800

This does not work on my baby. Though I did try using a receiving blanket rather than a tissue.

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:46:58 -0800

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!

By: bonehead

bonehead — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:47:12 -0800

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

By: helmutdog

helmutdog — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:48:43 -0800

Works on me too! But does not work on my boss during my annual staff review though.

By: dortmunder

dortmunder — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:51:55 -0800

Xanax also works.

By: bxyldy

bxyldy — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:52:55 -0800

this rather upsets my cat.

By: Abehammerb Lincoln

Abehammerb Lincoln — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:55:45 -0800

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!

By: not_the_water

not_the_water — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:57:17 -0800

This would drive my 10-month-old batshit insane. No way I'm trying this.

By: raihan_

raihan_ — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:59:05 -0800

so thankful this isn't labelled as "one weird trick to put your baby to sleep"

By: greenhornet

greenhornet — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:59:16 -0800

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.

By: dr_dank

dr_dank — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:00:02 -0800

I'm pretty sure you have to soak the tissue in chloroform first.

By: phunniemee

phunniemee — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:03:43 -0800

Abehammerb Lincoln, have you seen this one yet?

By: Abehammerb Lincoln

Abehammerb Lincoln — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:06:33 -0800

phunnienee, you are not helping! Little Leon is going to be quite the lady's man.

By: doozer_ex_machina

doozer_ex_machina — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:28:11 -0800

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 :-)

By: drezdn

drezdn — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:33:31 -0800

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.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:33:52 -0800

There's a slight chance I may have been hypnotizing them.

By: delfin

delfin — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:44:42 -0800

Even reading the phrase "deactivating a baby" can get you in legal trouble in Kansas these days.

By: desjardins

desjardins — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:45:03 -0800

That kid has great hair for a baby.

By: longdaysjourney

longdaysjourney — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:51:14 -0800

My brother just tested this on my four week old niece. Complete success!

By: anastasiav

anastasiav — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:56:55 -0800

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.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:58:16 -0800

Let me try this on myself and see if

By: Nanukthedog

Nanukthedog — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 17:10:44 -0800

My preferred method for putting kids to sleep - 8-12 seconds.

By: fancyoats

fancyoats — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 17:11:38 -0800

It's amazing how similar it is to the ASL sign for "sleep"

By: um

um — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 17:25:50 -0800

Tried the Vulcan Nerve Pinch. Screaming intensified. Maybe I'm not doing it hard enough?

By: Joey Michaels

Joey Michaels — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 17:27:33 -0800

Wait, so putting the alligator clip on the back of a baby's neck isn't effective?

By: winna

winna — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 17:43:21 -0800

My dog loves this but the instant I stop he barges up and paws at me impatiently until I resume.

By: discopolo

discopolo — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 18:18:42 -0800

Somebody try it on themselves. I would, but I'm out of Kleenex and I buy the cheap toilet tissue.

By: Dip Flash

Dip Flash — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 18:19:00 -0800

Adults are bigger, so you have to use a pillow and hold it there longer.

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 18:20:15 -0800

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.

By: discopolo

discopolo — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 18:23:59 -0800

(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?)

By: discopolo

discopolo — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 18:31:33 -0800

I thought the term for deactivating a cat was "de-cativating"

By: sammyo

sammyo — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 19:34:26 -0800

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.

By: discopolo

discopolo — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 19:43:17 -0800

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.

By: BlueJae

BlueJae — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 19:48:22 -0800

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.

By: moira

moira — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 20:04:46 -0800

Imagining that a kleenex was all I needed all that time makes me want to cry a little.

By: FritoKAL

FritoKAL — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 21:06:54 -0800

Have baby. Jokes about drugging babies still not funny.

By: rtha

rtha — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 21:11:17 -0800

> 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.

By: cooker girl

cooker girl — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 21:36:43 -0800

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.

By: bonehead

bonehead — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 22:18:30 -0800

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.

By: Thella

Thella — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 23:18:06 -0800

I like children. But I couldn't eat a whole one ... da boom!

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 05:24:14 -0800

Yeah, colic and teething both made me consider gripe water.

By: TedW

TedW — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 05:32:34 -0800

We would never actually drug babies. Speak for yourself. (That's what I do for a living.)

By: radwolf76

radwolf76 — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 05:58:50 -0800

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.

By: hurdy gurdy girl

hurdy gurdy girl — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 11:11:41 -0800

Cute video...but while watching it, *I* started feeling sleepy. Hmm. I must further investigate the magical powers of Kleenex/third eye massage.

By: Devonian

Devonian — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 11:23:28 -0800

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.

By: one weird trick

one weird trick — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 12:07:36 -0800

We will add this to the list.

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 12:38:39 -0800

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!

By: Room 641-A

Room 641-A — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 14:00:04 -0800

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.

By: The corpse in the library

The corpse in the library — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 14:21:58 -0800

As opposed to all the things you can do that don't cause a catnap.

By: The Underpants Monster

The Underpants Monster — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 15:25:18 -0800

Seems too complicated. Can't I just use the scruff clamp from the cat video?

By: Liesl

Liesl — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 16:04:26 -0800

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.