We have never been able to traditionally sleep train our children. We are not against it, we just have ended up creating our own mash up of tools and methods that work for our babies. So whether you're sleep training, co-sleeping, winging it, or something in between, I think the key is just knowing our own babies and doing whatever is best for them, ourselves and our families.
Here are few things that have been essential for us, because sometimes you're on the hunt for solutions and you just need some ideas. :)
My Kiddos
Joslynne
has never been a good sleeper. She has been busy, adventurous, and known exactly what she wants from the beginning. As a baby, she napped for 15-30 minutes at the most and not making up for it with extra naps or sleeping in! Cue the mom tears! She woke up manyyy times a night, not just to eat, but to hang out for hours on end.
She was my champion nurser (who breastfed until 17 months) which made her clingy and not great at self soothing. She required rocking to sleep at the least EVERY. SINGLE. nap and at bedtime. Most times it was more like bouncing than rocking. You know the babies that require you to walk around bouncing them and scream the second you try to sit down? Ya, that's my child. Wes always said we had to do a work out to put her to bed because she really did fall asleep the easiest if we did actual squats with her! After we spent 20-30 minutes getting her to drift off, the saddest part was when she would wake up during the transfer to the crib. Once the movement stopped, no matter how carefully or quietly the transfer was made, if she was still, she was awake.
You may be wondering why we didn't let her cry it out. Well, we tried. I would 100% be an advocate of her learning self soothe-- if she would do it. That girl would just keep crying...for hours! She has the will power of an....I don't even know, but she wasn't about to throw in the towel! At some point we all gotta sleep, so bouncing/squatting/rocking it was.
We calculated that in her first 7 months of life not only did we never sleep through the night, not one time, but I spent a total of 57 entire nights awake if you string all the hours together. :( I apologize for anything I said, did, or looked like during those months. By all means that kiddo is WORTH it, and she is our world, but reinforcements were a must.
Elaina
Thank you Jesus this baby can be placed in her bed without rocking! My legs aren't quite as toned, but I'll survive. ;)She has always been a champ at falling asleep on her own. In fact, rocking keeps her awake because she thinks its social time. The biggest challenge with this babe has been her flat out refusal to breastfeed. So, that means making bottles at all hours of the night. It's really ok, but our current hurdle is getting her to sleep through the night and stop waking up for her late night snack bottle. ;)
Essentials for Baby
Crib Vibrator
Since Joslynne woke up during the transfer from bouncing to the crib,
this crib vibrator saved our lives. It just goes under the crib mattress. It vibrates the mattress for 30 minutes and gradually turns off on its own! We use it on top of the mattress too sometimes. Th vibrator helps soothe baby to sleep as well. We turn it on for Elaina too when she's feeling stubborn and crying it out is dragging on. You can find the one we have
here.
Essential Oils
When Joslynne's naps were maxing out at a whopping 30 minutes, I was ready to try anything to help her sleep better! We've all heard about
essential oils, and I didn't quite understand what they are used for. But, when I heard a friend talking about them supporting and helping with a good night's sleep in kid's and adults, I decided to look into it. I borrowed enough oils to make a sleep roller for Josy and we have seen such a difference! Now we have our own
oils and love rolling the sleepy rollers on the bottoms of our kids' feet before naps and at bedtime.
Oils need to be diluted for babies according to their ages, but here's what we put in our "Dreamy Baby" roller:
Dreamy Baby Roller
*Lavender
*Cedarwood
*Roman Chamomile
Peace and Calming
Drop in a 10 ml glass roller bottle and top off with fractionated coconut oil
*I don't use any oils on my baby's skin prior to 3 months. These are the first 3 I add when we start out out. We do just lavender first, then add a drop of each slowly. Starting with less is always best with littles! More about dilution ratios here.
We also love diffusing in our babies' bedrooms an hour before bed time. I love
this diffuser because you can set it to run for one hour. I fill it up and run it for an hour at a time several nights in a row before filling it again.
Dreamy Baby Diffuser blend
2 Drop Lavender
1 Drop Peace and Calming
1 Drop Cedarwood
One thing we just started this week is also putting Elaina's body lotion on before bed when we put PJ's on instead of in the mornings. The
Young Living Seedlings baby lotion has great calming oils like lavender in it! It's been great so far!
More about
Young Living Essential Oils and Products
Here. Feel free to message me if you have questions or would like more info too!
White Noise
I accidentally discovered that vacuum noise works wonders for soothing Joslynne when she fell asleep ON HER OWN while I was vacuuming! I literally started turning on the vacuum if she wouldn't fall asleep. Then Wes thought surely there are vacuum videos on youtube! There actually are a few of someone literally recorded themselves vacuuming. Haha! But, there is also one that is just the noise and runs for 8 hours with no ads. That has been our go-to. We just turn it on a kindle in our baby's room at bedtime. I know there are sound machines out there, but having a tablet for our kids serves other purposes. So, it's been great for us!
The video we use is
here.
Being careful with Youtube around kiddos is very important these days. We take precautions like:
Making sure the video has no ads and we've played it all the way through many times
Placing the tablet away from the baby so she can't see it
Turning off Auto Play
Using a video monitor at all times so we can hear and see what's going on in the nursery.
Blackout/Whiteout Curtains
Complete darkness is essential for helping babies fall asleep, because it helps them release Melatonin faster. That the hormone that regulates our sleep. Blackout curtains are a huge help in giving baby a dark environment no matter what time of day it is. I used to think the only light blocking curtains sold were heavy looking and dark colored. Then, we discovered blackout (sometimes called whiteout curtains) with white lining! They are thick and completely lined to block out light just like black lined ones! But, they fit a light/happy/cheery baby nursery theme a little better than dark colored curtains.
I found
these gorgeous curtains by
Pillowfort from
Target!
Sleep Sack
I've been living under a rock, but it took me a while to realize I could try a
sleep sack to help with the transition from swaddling. It seems like babies sleep better and longer if they feel cozy and snuggled up. Obviously, we can't just put blankets over them in the crib, so a sleep sack is like a little sleeping bag with arm holes. It's a safe way to keep baby warm and cozy even while he or she flips and turns during the night!
This is the one we have. :)
Essentials for Toddlers
Background Noise
Just like the vacuum white noise, Joslynne likes soothing music to fall asleep even as a toddler. We find that it helps her wind down to play classical music. We've found a video that shows coral reef fish swimming and it's put to classical music. Cue the kindle again!
For this, we made sure its not too entertaining to keep her awake, and it turns off after a time. Same safety rules apply here too!
This video has no ads. :)
Essential Oils
Like I shared above, we use
oils for our toddler similarly to what we do for babies. Our "Toddler Dreamy" roller just has more oils since they can handle more by 2 years old.
Dreamy Toddler Roller
Lavender
Cedarwood
Roman Chamomile
Peace and Calming
Frankinsense
Orange
Drop in a 10 ml glass roller bottle and top off with fractionated coconut oil
We turn on the diffuser in Joslynne's room one hour before bed time too!
Dreamy Toddler Diffuser blend
2 Drop Lavender
2 Drop Peace and Calming
2 Drops Orange
1 Drop Cedarwood
1 Drop Frankinsense
"OK to Wake" Clock
We already established our girl is a go getter, so naturally also an early riser. It was getting hard to start the morning with 2 kiddos with Joslynne up at a different time every morning ready to start adventuring! We bought her an
OK to Wake Alarm Clock and set it for 7 am. If she wakes up before then, she knows she needs to play in her room and wait to ask for milk, snacks, etc. until the green light turns on. She loves it and calls it her "bug". Sure enough, the second it turns from yellow to green, that girl is upstairs ready to go! It just helps me situate a few things in the morning before there are lots of requests flooding my way. ;) The consistency has helped Joslynne actually sleep until the same time most days now too!
There is a nap mode too and she never wakes up before 2 hours has passed now! HALLELUJAH!
My little one is all about knowing what to expect. She functions so well with routines and explanations of what's coming next. It may seem obvious, but I've found that telling her what we are doing after her nap or something exciting about the next day helps her be ready and willing for bedtime.
She also loves doing the same little routine every night before bed and each afternoon before nap time.
Where to sleep
This obviously has to be within reason, but one of the things that helped Joslynne sleep longer is letting her nap where she wants to. It has to be away from the noise of the house, but she slept twice as long when I let her nap in our room instead of the crib. (Once she could safely crawl out of my bed). She also asked one day to start sleeping in her big girl bed, and I was afraid she would be up all night if we jumped into it. But, she slept through the night better than she had been in the crib! I guess she was just ready to be a big girl!
There's no wrong answer here. It's great to listen to other people's ideas, but in the end, just listen to your mama sense and do what works for your family and your little ones. We just tried new things until our babies started snoozing! Oh, and grace, and caffeine. Give yourself lottttts of grace and caffeine as needed. ;)
This post contains amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I may earn from these links. All opinions are my own.