Disco Ball

One of the most challenging tasks an adult has to face as a parent is calming a distraught baby. Some babies are more difficult to sooth than others but every baby challenges his parents with a good, long cry and it seems almost impossible to console the little one. Believe it or not, one of the most effective tools I have come across when trying to calm my baby is a disco ball.

When people think of a baby’s nursery room, they often envision Winnie the Pooh, Disney characters or little animals. The colors are usually pastel and calming and the entire room just has a cozy baby feel about it. The last thing that comes to mind is something like a disco ball. These lights are associated with parties, dancing and the night life.

We discovered the calming effects of the disco ball on our baby girl completely by accident. We were in the family room in the basement getting ready for her first birthday party. We thought that we would add a disco ball among the other decorations, but we did not really think that we were going to use it.

The light was a gag gift from one of my husband’s high school friends. When he brought it down to the family room, I told him to just take it right back upstairs to the attic. I had my hands full and the baby was getting very fussy. My husband plugged the disco light into the wall. Our daughter was crying at full volume by then and I was too caught up in decorations to extricate myself in time to calm her.

My husband turned the disco ball on and the baby’s crying stopped immediately. She gazed at the multi-colored lights passing around the walls and over the ceiling. She gazed as if she were in a trance, perfectly motionless. The light completely mesmerized her and she just kept still while following the moving balls of light with her eyes.

Of course, we used the disco ball for the party. The children who were in attendance loved the lights and they darted back and forth around the glowing orb. The adults made jokes about having flashbacks to the 1970’s, but that was part of the fun. Once the party was over, the disco ball immediately went into the nursery where it remains today. We still use it to calm our baby girl and get her ready for sleep.