A sleeping baby is an angel. And the silence, heaven. Knowing how to put babies to sleep, however, is a bit of a challenge. For some, it’s a whole lot of challenges. Most of the time, it leaves us sleepless.
But you don’t have to stay up all night just sending your little ones to dreamland.
In this post, I share some of the techniques I personally tried with my baby. I am not sure they are scientifically proven or studied by anyone, but they worked for me, so I am letting you know about it.
3 ways to put babies to sleep
Swaddle your baby
Using a baby blanket, snugly wrap your little one entire body except for the head. Be careful not to make it too tight that you’ll damage her delicate cartilage.
To do it properly, follow these steps:
- First, look for a flat surface where you can place the blanket. Then place the blanket on the surface. It should be laid like a diamond, then the top corner about 6 inches.
- Place your baby on his back on the blanket. The folded corner should be levelled at his shoulder.
- Fold the bottom part of the blanket to your baby’s stomach or chest. Make sure her hips and legs can still move easily.
- Bring your baby’s arms down. Pull the left side of the blanket, wrap it over her left arm and chest, under the right arm, and tuck it under the back. Please do the same thing for the right side of the blanket, except that you don’t have to tuck it under her left arm.
I bought my original Swaddling blanket from Mothercare, which was perfect and easy to use. You can grab Mothercare discount offers if you want to check them out.
Why this works
Babies, mine, in particular, get startled easily, be it a barking dog, chattering people, and even closing or opening the rickety door.
When she’s startled, she would suddenly raise her arms and legs. This action would then wake her up, and she’d end up crying.
When my baby is swaddled, her startle reflex is restricted. Therefore, she can’t make big movements with her arms and legs. So sleep continues.
Also, being swaddled makes your little one feel warm and secure, just like when she was in the womb. This feeling makes her sleep more soundly.
Note though that your room temperature should be optimal so your baby won’t be sweating too much.
Use a hammock for babies
I was fortunate enough to be given a hammock during my baby shower. I thought I would never use it because I was scared my baby would fall. Boy, was I wrong? It’s one of the best shower gifts I ever received.
To use it, do the following:
- First, make sure it’s comfortable enough for your baby to sleep in. Put sheets, blankets, and pillows where necessary.
- Next, make sure the hammock is attached to a sturdy holder. Push the hammock down gently with your hands to make sure it can carry your baby’s weight.
- Place baby in the middle to make sure she won’t fall off of it.
Why this works
Our babies love to be swayed and cradled to fall asleep. And when they wake up, they want us to do the same thing so they’d get back to their dreamland.
Although we can do this manually with our own arms, we all know we won’t last all night. The hammock then rescues us from the body strain of swaying back and forth.
The good thing about it is we can sway our babies even when we’re half asleep.
Play lullabies before and during sleep
My father-in-law gave my daughter a CD of lullabies. At first I thought it would not work knowing how sensitive my baby is to sound. But then I find out my method was just wrong.
The technique I found working was to play the songs while putting her to sleep and let them play all throughout her sleeping time.
Why this works
While my daughter is sensitive to sounds, playing music in the background while sleeping masked the random sounds or noise she would hear.
Her ears became accustomed to hearing something that when the noise would pop up out of nowhere, she wouldn’t notice it. Of course, it’s different when the noise is deafening that even adults would be stunned.
Summing it all up
Knowing how to put our babies to sleep, may indeed require experimenting from us like it was rocket science.
The methods I listed above were the results of my own experiments in the bedroom lab. If you haven’t tried them before, it’s about time to see if they’d also work for your little one or not. For extra fussy babies, try doing all these methods at the same time.
However, these methods are only for infants 0-3 months old, those who do not know how to change sleeping position by themselves.
