Hi, y’all! A couple weeks ago, I reached out to my friends on the gram (yes, I count my Insta-people as friends) for ideas on helping babies sleep at night and, as usual, they didn’t disappoint. Here are a few baby sleep ideas, resources and methods that have been mom-approved by some mom, somewhere.
- Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleep Suit – We have the cotton one and LOVE it! One thing we struggled with during Emmett’s first month was establishing a bedtime routine (and a million other things!) and this really helped with that. The suit has also helped Emmett go to sleep by letting her know it’s time for bedtime as well as sleep at night.
- Sound Machines – At night, Emmett sleeps with the Hatch sound machine and it is amazing. The machine has an app so I’m able to connect it to my phone and control the sounds, volume and color of the night light. This is a major #momwin because I can turn it on from the living room if I want without sneaking into the room she’s sleeping in. It’s available at Amazon, Target and Buy Buy Baby.
- Shusher – As if one sound machine isn’t enough, we also have a shusher. This little machine plays a “SHHHH” sound over and over and is magical for putting babies down to sleep. It’s available at Amazon, Target and Buy Buy Baby.
- Swaddling – We only swaddled Emmett for about a month or so and the Ollie Swaddle was our favorite. Super easy for us and super comfy for her.
- Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child Book
- On Becoming Babywise Book
- The Sleepeasy Solution Book
- Ferber Method – We’v been using a rough outline of the Ferber method for putting Emmett down to nap and at night. You can find more information out about the method with a quick Google search or by clicking here but, essentially, it involves putting Emmett down to bed drowsy, getting her calm and then leaving her for increasing intervals of time. For naps, I put her down and set the timer for 5 minutes before going back in the room to soothe her by putting the pacifier back in her mouth, giving her a few pats on her belly and a kiss. I do NOT pick her up though! Once she is calm (this typically only takes a minute or two), I leave the room again, set the timer for another 5 minutes and either go back in to soothe her or leave her if she’s asleep once the timer goes off. We will be doing longer intervals when we move her to the crib.
- Focusing on Wake Times – Based on the reading I’ve done and talking to other moms, I choose to focus on wake times during the day with Emmett. This essentially means that I’m following a rough schedule for her naps and our routine is wake, feed, play then nap. Personally, I like that it keeps me from feeding Emmett before she goes down for a nap so she doesn’t depend on nursing to sleep. This website helped with creating a schedule; I love it so much because I was able to customize the wake-up time and save an image to my phone!
- Goodnight Sleep Site – Alanna and her team of sleep consultants help parents get their babies to sleep. They will customize a plan for you and the first consultation is free. Services are $100+.
- La Lune Consulting – Chloe offers one-on-one consultations for helping babies sleep. Services are $100+ and the first assessment is free.
- Taking Cara Babies – Cara helps parents nationwide get their babies to sleep by learning healthy sleep habits.
- Wing It – At the end of the day, we are all just doing what we can to survive one day at a time so YOU DO YOU BOO! Take everything I wrote with a grain of salt and please know that I break all of my “rules” at least once a day ha ha. Also know that there are a million other resources, products and methods that I simply don’t know about or haven’t dove into myself.
If you have something that you do for your little one, drop it in the comments below so other mamas can hear it.
I’m sending you peace and blessings from my couch to your couch. Have a great Tuesday!
