Seven months into having baby girl and I’m finally getting the hang of it. But one thing that has been the hardest is definitely sleep. Baby girl was sleeping so well the first 6 weeks and then bam it all turned for the worst.
I did everything, from researching different types of sleep trainings to test out and one thing would seem to work and the following week it didn’t. I felt so lost with little to no sleep and a cranky baby I seriously tried everything. Here are some things I’ve learned along the way, somethings from trial and error and some great tips from sleep consultant from “Chasing Sleep”.
Now with three kids under my belt, I knew from my first baby was to help baby to distinguish from night and day. Which meant bright lights and noise during the day. But I also kept her nap consistent with what we did for nighttime which was the white noise machine and blackout curtains.
Amanda the amazing consultant from Chasing sleep I’ve learned so many incredible tips from her such as avoiding between feeding and sleeping which was one of our major problems when it came to baby girl’s sleeping. I wish I knew this sooner. As Amanda explains that cues baby gives when they are hungry or sleepy are quite similar which can be very confusing to parents. As parents what we need to do is pay attention to the signals they give when they are hungry as oppose to sleepiness, we have to discern those differences to curb those cranky baby behaviours. Amanda also recommends tips on how to prevent babies from dependence on feeding to fall asleep. She suggests following a different pattern instead of preparing a bottle for baby when its nap or bedtime, try feeding them when they wake from their sleep instead.
Another great tip Amanda mention is to help your baby learn to fall asleep on their own. Instead of rocking them to sleep, put baby down when they are drowsy so they aren’t dependent on you to go to sleep, they will learn healthy sleep habits to fall asleep on their own.
Last but not least, the best tip of all from Amanda from chasing sleep is to have your partner involved in the sleep training. The first rule is us MOMS need to let go and have DAD help.
As Amanda mentions babies are super keen and smart, when Dad comes into the nursery in the middle of the night, they don’t to nurse to fall back to sleep. The don’t associate dads with the boob which is why you’ll find baby going back to sleep faster with dad. I mean mind blown this makes total sense right.
Another great thing Amanda mention is that Dad’s see themselves as the protector of the family so of course when presented with a problem they want to be seen as the hero that fixed the problem. But the major hurdle in this scenario is us the mama. Although we want to the help, when it comes down to it and we ask for dad to step in and its his night to do the training lets be honest us moms are right there up in the middle of the night anxious of wanting to see if dad is doing it right. But here’s the thing mamas we got to let dad do it his way and we might be surprised of how it turns out.
Now onto some amazing products that have really helped with sleep….
1. Blackout curtains
2. White noise sound machine… major item that we’ve had for all three of my kids.
3. Breathable sleep sack…. We love our sleeps sacks from kyte baby. They also have different togs (levels of thickness) for summer or winter weather.
4. Breathable bassinet… we have the ingenuity bassinet that’s also turns into a rocker.. love amazing two in one products.
5. Comfy sleep cushion…. Our favourite baby cushion from a local Canadian shop… Sleep Tight baby. We seriously wished we had this sooner. We use it for naps (supervised) and she has the best sleeps in this. We not only use for naps, I literally lug it around the house and plop baby girl onto the cushion so I can get chores and things done in the house.
6. Breathable onsie… we love the ones from kyte baby made of organic bamboo cotton.
If your looking for a great team to support, you with your little one and sleep go check out Chasing sleep and Sleep tight Baby for amazing baby items (P.S. t his isn’t a sponsored post…. Its just something I wanted to share that has helped me so much).
What are some baby sleep tips that have helped you???? Thanks so much for reading along
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