How do you get baby DOWN for the night?

mrsgaines100 · February 2013

I am at a loss. I am about to start reading "The No Cry Sleep Solution" but for now, how do you get your child to sleep initially at night? She falls asleep on her own just fine all day, but when it comes to night time, moving her upstairs, and laying her in her rnpnext to my bed (she sleeps fine in it, once she is ASLEEP, wakes up to nurse at least two times but that is fine at the moment) starts a whole 1.5 to 3 hour process of trying to get her back to sleep. She is often obviously needing to sleep around 8-9, but doesnt actually make it to bed til midnight. Up to 1:30. All this time I am dying to pass out. Desperate, I am.

We try to change diaper, swaddle, and nurse, then go upstairs. Her little butt is up when we get to the part where we try to walk away. She often falls asleep side lying nursing, or just laying next to me, then I have to wait for her to sleep, deep enough to move. Arrrrgh. I have a soft top mattress I do not feel is safe for co sleeping...

hansonam446 · February 2013

I FF but I understand, LO seems a lot harder to put down at night. Usually we don't get to bed until around 10. I usually feed, swaddle and rock him. I hold him for awhile playing soft music on my iPod until I feel he's really asleep then Move him to his Boppy lounger where he sleeps on my bed. He HATED his bassinet. Sometimes this works and he stays asleep sometimes he wakes up and I have to rock him some more. I'd try white noise or music and maybe even putting a shirt or something that smells like you underneath LO. Good luck!

SPK926 · February 2013

DD cluster feeds in the evening so at about 8 I will go upstairs with her and change, swaddle and nurse her. We close the curtains, turn off the lights and put the white noise machine on. I then rock and nurse her in the glider. She falls asleep in my arms after nursing and all I have to do is move her two feet to her crib to put her down. Have you tried doing your routine in the room she will be sleeping in? I bet going up the stairs and all that moving is what is waking her. Try setting the calming mood during your last nursing session and seeing if that might help. That's all I've got, sorry!

mrsgaines100 · February 2013

It is possible I could be clock watching quite a bit but I can't help it. I feel pressure to get her on a schedule, I admit, since I have a month left before returning to work.

I am working on an upstairs nighttime routine but it is not working. Laying next to me last night, like she liked the two nights before, took several hours. I do want to grab a white noise machine but haven't since she sleeps in the room with us for now. I guess I will try to keep working on a routine, since all of you seem to have that in common, and I am going to try to transfer her up there for more daytime naps. Am I too focused on what time it is? If I didnt have to go back to work I honestly would not care, and so many of you seem to have this down by a certain time, from my occassional lurking...

mrsgaines100 · February 2013

Oh and thanks! Also, I will keep trying to let her grunt it out too but it does invariably turn into actual crying. Sigh.

dulcemariamar1 · February 2013

SPK926:
DD cluster feeds in the evening so at about 8 I will go upstairs with her and change, swaddle and nurse her. We close the curtains, turn off the lights and put the white noise machine on. I then rock and nurse her in the glider. She falls asleep in my arms after nursing and all I have to do is move her two feet to her crib to put her down. Have you tried doing your routine in the room she will be sleeping in? I bet going up the stairs and all that moving is what is waking her. Try setting the calming mood during your last nursing session and seeing if that might help. That's all I've got, sorry!

This. I nurse to sleep and because of reflux issues I keeo LO upright for 20 mins plus, so she is asleep when I put her in the crib. However, she usually stsrts to grunt and fuss for about 20 mins. until she fall asleep. I am just starting to ignore it and not worry about her waking up again.

My dh puts her to sleep. We give her a bottle at night so I can go to bed early. Is that a possibility for you?

Jo2013 · February 2013

I nurse on one side, chance his diaper get into pjs then nurse on the other side. I then swaddle him. If he isn't half asleep and ready to go down at this point I sit with him on the big exercise ball and bounce...sounds weird but it works wonders. He is down by 930/10 every night.

ta78 · February 2013

Every baby is different. They are still so young to be sleep training. DD is the exact same. She goes to sleep from 9-11 and then is up until 12 or 1. No matter what I do to encourage sleep. DS was the same way and eventually just rolled his hours back on his own. You could try and keep a good schedule during the day and make sure she is stimulated during awake time.

My biggest advice though is to try and just enjoy this stage. It will be gone before you know it. Your LO is only a month old.

kimmlet · February 2013

mrsgaines100:
It is possible I could be clock watching quite a bit but I can't help it. I feel pressure to get her on a schedule, I admit, since I have a month left before returning to work.
I am working on an upstairs nighttime routine but it is not working. Laying next to me last night, like she liked the two nights before, took several hours. I do want to grab a white noise machine but haven't since she sleeps in the room with us for now. I guess I will try to keep working on a routine, since all of you seem to have that in common, and I am going to try to transfer her up there for more daytime naps. Am I too focused on what time it is? If I didnt have to go back to work I honestly would not care, and so many of you seem to have this down by a certain time, from my occassional lurking...

White noise. DS HATES his bassinet, hated the rock n play, hated everything we tried except his crib. We have a routine(ish) that starts anywhere from 8:30 to 11, depending on when his last feeding is. I hold him until he's asleep then I put him in his crib, turn on an oscillating fan and a humidifier for white noise then I head to bed. Without the white noise the most he sleeps is an hour. With it we're up to 3 hours at a time, it's magical.

I don't think he liked sleeping in our room at all, nothing we tried in there worked. He loves his room though, I think he knows its his and it's the one place in the house where he is happiest. We moved him into his crib around 4 weeks, maybe 5(?) and I watch him using our video monitor from my room. It scared me at first having him in a different room but the video monitor really helped.

ta78 · February 2013

I also put on a Beatles lullabye cd for DD. she seems to like it. Google rockabye baby, they have tons of artists made into soft instrumentals.

spikeinc · February 2013

This week we are trying the dream feed schedule which is working pretty well except for last night when she had some bad gas and was up until 11:30pm tooting up a storm.

We feed (I EP) approx at 5PM, 7pm and then 9pm. We try to keep her awake from 7-9pm with a bath and some playtime. Then swaddle her and give her the 9pm bottle. At the end of the bottle, we put on the hairdryer next to her ear and she goes down. We keep her there for approx 10 minutes until it looks like she is sleeping and her head will rock back. Then we walk her to her bassinet next to our bed where we have a white noise machine going. We also put a heating pad in it so that when she is transferred from us, the change in temperature is not drastic and doesn't wake her up. We rock the bassinet for a minute or two and walk away.

About 10:30-11 we do the dream feed and take a bottle to the bassinet, don't unswaddle, don't change her just give her the bottle and let her go back to sleep with it if she has woken up at all. Then she sleeps about 5-6 hours after that.

I will be happy when the white noise machine is out of our room but it is better than her being awake every couple hours. I am almost getting used to it.

nivet36 · February 2013

Before you buy a white noise machine...try a fan (that's working just fine for us)!

There are also ipod apps with white noise for baby so you could try it out and see if it works before ya buy anything

Kie310 · February 2013

Same routine every night. We go up around 10:30. Wipe him down, change his diaper & clothes, swaddle, 3oz bottle and then lay him down. Many times he is already asleep. I like when he is just really drowsy and goes to sleep on his own, but that doesn't happen every night and I can live with that. He sleeps for 6 hours from there so I'm not going to complain!

ETA: We do have white noise on once we start getting ready & it stays on all night. That could be a big part of it (for him). We have an app on an old ipod we don't use anymore that just stays by his bed.

babygirlva2013 · February 2013

I bring her to her room, change her into her sleepwear, then feed her. This makes her drowsy then I walk her around upstairs until she falls asleep, usually making loud shhh noise as the white noise. Once she is asleep I'll usually walk a bit more, maybe 10 min. Then lay her in her crib. She usually will wake up once or twice within 20 minutes before she's down for the night but when that happens I just walk and shush her. It has worked well so far. In the middle of the night this process seems to work well also.

PrideandJoy29 · February 2013

Bath, swaddled, rocking, bottle.

spainy17 · March 2013

I agree with going down way earlier. As much as I wish DD would go down later she us tired by six thirty. We start our bedtime routine by seven and she goes down at seven thirty no problem. I also second looking into something noisy... We use the vicks humidifier in her room and it makes a ton of white noise... Kills two birds with stone

mrsgaines100 · March 2013

Thanks for all your ideas!! Going to go down earlier tonight and try white noise. Or try...

How do you get baby DOWN for the night?

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