50 people who make Chicago a better place: Helps parents soothe their fussy babies

#23

LINDA GILKERSON

If your infant won't stop screaming but you've already tried advice from your doctor, family and friends, it's time to call Linda Gilkerson.

Gilkerson, 61, is the director of the Fussy Baby Network, a lifesaver for parents having problems soothing their newborns. The program, which was started by Gilkerson in 2004, offers comfort, support, ideas and evaluations for families with a fussy infant. The program has a "warmline'' to answer questions over the phone, but experts on child development will even come to your home.

The program is run out of the Erikson Institute, where the Hyde Park resident has been a professor since 1986. Gilkerson, who says she is the parent of a one-time fussy baby -- and was a fussy infant herself -- says she has "a real passion about the beginning'' of life, she said. "We want babies and parents to have the best start.''

Since starting the program in 2004, Gilkerson and her colleagues have helped more than 3,000 families.

As the director of Erikson's Irving B. Harris Infant Studies Program, Gilkerson also has designed programs to help teen mothers evaluate the development of their babies and also worked on Project Connect, which seeks to help families reunite after children have been placed in foster care.

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NO. 24

Photo: Linda Gilkerson, director of the Fussy Baby Network, comforts 3-month-old Dylan. ;