TACOMA, Wash. - Don Izenman says rocking a baby is like riding a bike - once you've learned how, you never forget.

Izenman has two grown children. But now he devotes one morning a week to other people's children as a volunteer baby rocker at Tacoma General Hospital.

"For babies, positive human touch is essential," says Chantel Rios, manager of the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit. "When babies are held, they sleep and rest more."

And that helps hospitalized babies grow and heal, she says. When parents can't be there, or when they need a break from the draining hospital routine, volunteers such as Izenman step in with comforting movement, lullabies and smiles.

He's volunteered for three years, since he retired from his job as a letter carrier.

"Just because you're retired doesn't mean you're not useful," says Izenman.

Volunteers serve both the NICU and the intermediate care nursery. The babies are there for a variety of reasons. Some were born premature, some have malfunctioning lungs and others are born with heart or digestive tract problems.

Izenman recently spent some time in a rocking chair holding Bailey Rose Womack, born on Valentine's Day and still in the NICU after four months.

Born with her intestines outside her abdomen, Bailey has undergone four surgeries. Other than an angry scar down her belly, she bears no outward sign of the congenital malformation. When Izenman takes her on his lap, she smiles and sticks out her tongue. Izenman smiles, too.

Bailey's mom, Melanie, spends hours at the hospital every day caring for her daughter, coaxing the little girl to take her bottle. But after months of being there day in and day out, she sometimes needs a break. She says Bailey loves attention from the hospital volunteers, and she's grateful for the help they supply.

"She likes to be held," the mom says. "Since she is older, she's awake a lot more. She likes attention."

Michelle Fossum, whose daughter, Taylor Grace, was born seven weeks early in May, says it's hard to leave her baby in the nursery when she's awake. But she knows she can rely on the volunteers to keep her daughter comforted until she returns.

The volunteers also are a godsend to nurses, who often are too busy to pick up an infant immediately after the child starts crying. Each nurse typically cares for three patients, so spending a lot of time in a rocking chair isn't always feasible.

"The volunteers are wonderful," says Amanda Bradbury, a registered nurse. "They save us on many days."