A Girl in Pearls & A Boy with Toys: Pearly Wisdom: Sleeping/Napping Tips

Today’s Pearly Wisdom topic is:

Sleeping/Napping Tips

Before we get into the individual replies, there is one recommendation that almost everyone seems to agree on:

Noise Machines!

The Sleep Sheep is an example of one (We love ours and are still using it every night!)

Katie

Miracle Blanket. And BREAK THE SWADDLE AS SOON AS YOU CAN!!! Now I’m not saying don’t use the swaddle, because it’s a beautiful thing. But don’t keep it going til 6 months. Because you, your spouse AND your baby will cry. Especially your baby when you’re making him cry it out (I HATE this technique by the way) because he refuses to sleep without it and it’s getting to be a safety issue since he’s rolling age and wrapped up like a bean burrito and if he were to roll over it would be near impossible for him to roll back. Lucky for me? The Mister took this one for the team while mommy had THREE girls night outs in a row and he suffered through the CIO. Thank goodness. I had to listen to it once and I’m not sure who cried harder.

Naps? Eh. Mine napped in a swing until he was too big to do so any more. Then we moved him to his crib at about 8-9 mo? I even let him nap on me many a time before that. Do what works for your baby. They will let you know.

And sleeping through the night? Ours did at 2 mo. (10pm – 6:30am) How? Because we followed what the pedi said. Listen to your doctor, your friends, facebook. The best advice comes from people who’ve been THROUGH it. The one thing I will say is don’t do the CIO before they’re ready. The first few months are about building that bonding period, they need to know you will be there when they need you. They are building that parent/child trust.

Oh and a noise machine. Caleb sleeps to a iTunes rain track on repeat all night. And our child NEVER wakes up to a thunderstorm. I’m just sayin’ …

Andrea

sound machines are great
crib are made for babies ;) babies love their own sleep space
when baby outgrows the swaddle, sleep sacks/sleep blankets are awesome!
bedtime and sleep routines having consistency help

p.s. we have a "sleeper" our baby LOVES her sleep and has slept thru the night from 5weeks on. she sleeps 10-11hours straight though the night. so i am more than happy to share what we do/have done when it comes to sleep- things work for us that might/might not work for your baby but it never hurts to hear our tips.

Emily

-Don’t use a swing for naps. We used the cradle/crib from day one.

-Sound machines are fantastic.

-The Halo SleepSac/Swaddle is a life saver

-Don’t try to set a schedule for them. Just be responsive to their needs. They usually develop their own schedule.

Erika

I truly can’t say enough for this miracle book! As a first time mom I truly had no clue that babies really need help falling asleep. I thought that most babies would just fall asleep when they were tired. Well, we found that leads to an over tired baby who rarely sleeps. Once Savannah understood that we would help her fall asleep when she was showing us she was tired, naps and nighttime became so much easier. What works for us is a consistent nap and nighttime routine. We do not force her to sleep at certain times, we follow her cues. She still loves her swaddle! So this is our routine: Swaddle, turn on white noise, bottle, rock, put in crib. She now takes 3-5 naps a day lasting from 45 min – 3 hours. For nighttime the only difference is that we give her a bath, and she sleeps about 12 hours (waking 1-3 times a night to eat). Consistency is the key for us.

Transition to the crib: For us we thought Savannah would sleep in our room for at least 6 months. After 2 weeks we noticed that we were not getting much sleep and neither was she. She would grunt and squeal in her sleep, she would open her eyes and still be “sleeping” and we would pick her up and feed/change her when she could have put herself right back to sleep. After much consideration at 4 weeks she went in her crib. First we did naps, then nighttime. She transitioned easily, I think because she was so young. It worked for us. She got way more sleep and so did we. We were all for her sleeping in our room, but this was now the best decision we could have made for all our sleep hygiene.

Sara

- I didn't believe my midwife when she told us all babies like to be swaddled, but I think she was right.

- I use the lavender scented baby lotion on myself... the smell has become part of our bedtime routine.

- 2 words: sound machine. white noise does wonders for babies and those sleep sheeps are heaven sent.

Mrs. C

Lack of sleep will drive you crazy. It will destroy you and everything around you. Nothing is more annoying than someone telling you to sleep when the baby is sleeping. Once you learn how to power nap...you will feel so much better.

Stay away from caffeine! It's no help! Sure it wakes you up, but it keeps you up! Even if you are only getting 20 mins at a time...TAKE IT! Blog Post on Sleeping

McKeever

Go ahead on the first night and have your baby sleep in their own cribs. I promise you will sleep so much better and your child will get adjusted just fine. When Grayson was a newborn she had to be rocked to sleep. Now, heaven forbid she let me rock her. We now just lay her in her crib. If she stands up, we go lay her back down without talking to her as many times as it takes. At the beginning it took a couple tries. Now she knows when she is in that crib, it's nap time.

Shanna

Samuel came home on a sleep schedule when he was discharged from the hospital at 14 weeks old. He would wake every three hours to feed. We transitioned him from night sleep in the Rock and Play to the play pen at about three weeks adjusted and moved him to his crib within a month from then. By the time he went to his crib, he slept through the night unswaddled. The Sleep Sheep was a life saver some nights.

Melissa

Landon is not a good sleeper. I have the luxury of being a stay-at-home-mom, so I can always nap when he does if we have a rough night. Sleep is the one thing that has caused me more stress and worry than anything else. Landon used to take really short naps (still does sometimes), and he wouldn't go down for the night until like 11pm. He was also up every 2-3 hours all night, with the rare 5 hour stretch thrown in. Our Dr. said it was normal and that it would pass, and he was right. I had to learn to just go with the flow and try to be consistent with sleep routines. Landon now takes a 1.5-2 hour nap 2 hours after he wakes up, the second nap is usually like 40 minutes and often in my lap after nursing, we're working on that one, and he goes down at 8:00pm, sleeps a few hours, eats, sleeps 3ish more hours, eats, then sleeps a 6ish hour stretch. Not perfect, but a lot better. I had really unrealistic expectations about sleep and I had no idea how long it could take for it to get better. I also don't believe in crying it out, so that was never an option for us.

Samantha

Xavier's always been a really good sleeper, so I can't say that I have had much trouble. I mostly use Happiest Baby On The Block 5 S techniques to help him sleep.

Cara

Sleep sheep! Or any other sound machine works wonders

Consistency. Start a night time routine and stick to it. Eventually your baby will pick up on it.
For night time feeding/changings, keep the room dark and quiet. Don't engage the baby or make eye contact. It's hard sometimes, but if you're all business, the baby won't get amped and think its' play time.
Invest in some good black out shades. BEST INVENTION EVER.
For naps, use the same routine for night time. I originally thought that Millie would confuse nap time for night time if I did this, but she never did. They know the difference.
If your baby is nap resistant like mine, don't give up! A well-rested baby = a happy baby. And a happy baby = a happy mama.

Thank you to this week’s contributors!

Katie, Mama to Caleb, 15 months, Author of Life in the Fulmer Lane