Babies: 0 - 3 Months

What do you do to get LO ready for nap/sleep?

I'm about to pull my hair out with DS, I try to get him ready to go back to sleep 30-45 minutes from waking and it just turns into hell.

Aside from white noise, swaddling, swings and vibrating chairs what's your routine to prep LO for sleep?  

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Re: What do you do to get LO ready for nap/sleep?

  • During the day?? You can forget it. Besides me holding her for a good 30 minutes before putting her down asleep. I can't get her to sleep any other way.

    At night. Our routine is to turn off all of the lights except for a night light.  Turn off all noise. Change her Daiper. Swaddle her very tight or put her in her sleep sack that we've used since birth since she has become used to it. (Note we DO NOT Swaddle or put her in her nap sack until it is BED TIME, that way it's her que that it's time to go to bed.) I bottle feed her burp her and then rock her for exactly 10 minutes and lay her in bed with me on her side and she will STTN.

    If she wakes at night for a feed, I change her, feed her, Burp her, re swaddle and rock for 10 minutes exactly and put her back down on her side

    But during the day we keep noise at normal levels which may be mean. But we have a toddler in the house and no other room to put her to naps for quite time. But I think this has helped her differentiate between day and night.

    Sorry If I haven't helped.

    If you can't get her to sleep during the day I'm not much help since mine will only sleep in my arms. But I have to carry her on my arm facing the ground with my arm supporting her head and both legs go on either side of my arm like she is flying.. lol and rock her back and forth. She falls fast asleep that way.

    Good luck!

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  • Honestly, my little guy just goes down really easily on his own so I dont have to do much other than feed and diaper him. 

    Are you following your LOs cues? I know there are 'guidelines' for how long babies of certain ages should be awake at a time, but my DS2 had really long naps and sleeps, so he was often awake for longer, but fewer, stretches in a day. Perhaps your LO is simply not tired enough? Alternatively I'd try wearing him in a wrap or something so he's facing you. Then you can get on with your day while the closeness and movement might get him asleep, and then you could transfer him. 

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  • We have a couple of things in addition to what you already do.  When i lay her down to sleep, i say the same phrase while rubbing her tummy "sshh, it's sleepytime".  also, paci if she's overtired and having trouble getting to seep. before her bedtime, we'll do some infant massage as well.
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  • During the day LO usually naps after I nurse him. He'll stay awake maybe 1-2 hours at a time and then will get hungry and fall asleep on the boob. He'll stay asleep for up to 3 hours.
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  • Also my LO sleeps on his tummy. We figured out early on that he sleeps like a dream on his tummy instead of his back, so once he could turn his head, we let him sleep like that. Could be worth a shot? 
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  • Watching the clock.

    Disclaimer: Do what works for you, this is what we do.

    Babies can get overtired and overstimulated VERY fast.

    We keep an eye on the clock and keep DD2 up for only a certain amount of awake time (which at this age is basically enough time to diaper and feed her). See below for guideline by age. We put her down awake, to fall asleep on her own. No crying necessary. By not letting her get overtired, she is able to fall asleep on her own. Also, by putting DD2 down in her space awake, she does not wake up in a different place than she fell asleep (i.e. she doesnt fall asleep in my arms, then wake in her crib and be scared).

    We also swaddle using the escape proof swaddle. I personally swaddle till about 5-6 months old. We thought DD1 hated swaddling, so we stopped at 2 weeks old. Then we found this method at 10 weeks and she fell asleep for 7 hrs that night. It works great for us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K4VdZxwsu4

    We also have a fan for white noise and a fisher price aquarium for music/lights to distract her. And, if necessary, a pacifier. I highly recommend a crib attachment thing, like the aquarium, not a mobile. A mobile needs to be constantly wound up whereas the aquarium plays for 18 minutes and has a wireless remote that can turn it on from the doorway.

    Guideline for Awake time for babies
    0-4 weeks: 30-45 minutes
    4-6 weeks: 40-60 minutes
    6-8 weeks: 40-70 minutes
    8-12 weeks: 50-80 minutes
    3-4 months: 60-90 minutes
    4-5 months: 1 hr to 1.5 hrs
    5-6 months: 1.5 hours
    6-9 months: 2 hours, give or take 15 minutes

     

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  • He's fine at night, eat, change, eat sleep.

    I'm just losing my stuff over trying to get him to take a nap.  He fights it and with a toddler who is running around asking what I'm doing every 2 minutes plus my need to get back to work (WFH), well I value his sleep.  It's just that he doesn't.

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  • Naps - nothing. He usually falls asleep after nursing on his own. If he doesn't, he's not tired.

    At night, I nurse him, change his diaper, and then rock him back to sleep. I turn his Sleep Sheep on and give him a pacifier while I'm rocking him. 

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  • imageNikko Blue:

    Naps - nothing. He usually falls asleep after nursing on his own. If he doesn't, he's not tired.

    At night, I nurse him, change his diaper, and then rock him back to sleep. I turn his Sleep Sheep on and give him a pacifier while I'm rocking him. 

    I actually disagree with this. **watches for flames***

    Even if they don't fall asleep while eating, they still get tired very very easily and get overstimulated fast.

    At 1.5 months old, 45 minutes of awake time is plenty. Forcing them to stay awake, or even not putting them in their crib to allow a nap opportunity might work okay for now, but I promise it will backfire soon.

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  • imageSawyerplus1:

    Honestly, my little guy just goes down really easily on his own so I dont have to do much other than feed and diaper him. 

    Are you following your LOs cues? I know there are 'guidelines' for how long babies of certain ages should be awake at a time, but my DS2 had really long naps and sleeps, so he was often awake for longer, but fewer, stretches in a day. Perhaps your LO is simply not tired enough? Alternatively I'd try wearing him in a wrap or something so he's facing you. Then you can get on with your day while the closeness and movement might get him asleep, and then you could transfer him. 

    I like this. For us we just feed him and he's usually ready to go down for awhile, if not holding him for a while may help but sometimes he's just not ready to go to sleep yet 

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  • I don't want him to feed to sleep outside of eating in the middle of the night.  I did it was DD and it was hard to break when it came time to sleep training her, I do a mock EASY with him w/o following a time-table. 

    His last wake-sleep period went easier: woke, ate, I tried to interact with him a bit with song and finger play but he was crying.  Swaddled, paci & white noise and his eyes became very heavy.  Placed in swing over 90m ago and he's still there snoozing, no fight to get him down.  I'm guessing he has a short wake period, but if he sleeps like this I'll be a happy Mom Wink

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  • imagejuliane2004:
    imageNikko Blue:

    Naps - nothing. He usually falls asleep after nursing on his own. If he doesn't, he's not tired.

    At night, I nurse him, change his diaper, and then rock him back to sleep. I turn his Sleep Sheep on and give him a pacifier while I'm rocking him. 

    I actually disagree with this. **watches for flames***

    Even if they don't fall asleep while eating, they still get tired very very easily and get overstimulated fast.

    At 1.5 months old, 45 minutes of awake time is plenty. Forcing them to stay awake, or even not putting them in their crib to allow a nap opportunity might work okay for now, but I promise it will backfire soon.

    He doesn't stay up for hours on end. He will wake up, eat, fall back asleep... or eat and be awake for a bit. I wasn't telling OP her baby isn't tired if he doesn't sleep after eating - I'm talking specifically about my baby and his routine.

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  • For night time sleep I bathe my LO and give him a small massage with baby lotion and sing to him "baby massage, baby massage" (may sound crazy but he loves it). then I put his PJ's on and give him his last bottle for the night (in dim lighting), rock him for a few minutes and then put him to sleep.
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  • During the day, I swaddle him and nurse him to sleep.  Sometimes he also likes for me to gently bounce on a exercise ball while I nurse him and sing him to sleep.  At night, we take a bath, I put some lavender baby massage oil on him, swaddle him, and then I nurse him until he falls asleep.  If he's not in the mood to nurse (which is basically never since he likes to comfort suck), the bouncing works wonders.  And sometimes, but not often, he will fall asleep on his own in the swing. 
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