Sleep deprivation is TORTURE!
No Baby Sleep Makes Mommy Go Crazy!*
Are you severely sleep deprived and desperate to get your bundle of, not so much at the moment, joy to snoozeville so you can too? I’m going to share all my tricks to get your baby to sleep so you can get more beauty sleep! (I know, who cares about “beauty” sleep. You just want sleep! Period!)
Important Details
Okay, so before we get to my tips, there are a few really IMPORTANT things to consider if you haven’t yet (I missed some of these when I was a new mom);
- Is the baby hungry, maybe even hangry?
- Does the baby’s diaper need changing?
- Is the baby sick or in pain? (I read a story about a dad who was beside himself because he couldn’t figure out why his baby was wailing and not sleeping. It turns out his baby had a hair wrapped and his itty bitty toe that was cutting off circulation!)
- Is it too bright in the room? (My kid wouldn’t sleep unless it was pitch black.)
- Is the baby too hot or cold?
All Clear?
You’ve got to figure the above out before you go down to the list below because ain’t no amount of shushing going to work on a hangry baby! If all the above is all clear then here’s the list to get your baby to sleep already! I’ll go into more detail after the list.
- Shush loudly in ear
- Swaddle
- Rock
- Bounce on an exercise ball
- Sway/Swing and bounce
- Wear them in a carrier
- Drive around in a car
- Sing a song
- Get a noise machine
- Remove all other distractions – Did you darken the room? Did you turn on a white noise machine? Did you remove funky smells? Are they comfortable, not too cold or hot
The 9 Ways to Get Your Baby to Sleep in More Detail and the Gear We Used
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Shush
If you’re a new parent like I was, you may not have heard about “shushing” or “shooshing.” (It’s been popularized by many baby sleep experts. I think it was mentioned in every book I read.) You basically “sh” in your baby’s ear while the baby is screaming their head off. This never worked for my kid. I even shushed louder in their ear than they were screaming (apparently that’s the trick). I’m pretty sure that only ticked him off more. So after going blue in the face many times (me, not him), I gave up on the shushing. I even tried a shushing machine but he wasn’t a fan. I’ve seen shushing work too many times on other children to not include it in this list though.
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Swaddle
Swaddling is the fine art of wrapping your baby like a burrito. Some babies like to be wrapped up as tight as you can get it, and others like it to be a little loose so they can wriggle an arm out. I loved the SwaddleMe swaddles for infanthood and then the Halo Sleep Sacks when he got too strong and easily busted out of the swaddles.
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Rock
Who doesn’t love sitting in a rocking chair with a newborn? It’s the classic picture! But it can get tiresome after several weeks when the baby insists on constant rocking and you’ve become a prisoner to the chair.
That’s when we moved on to the Rock n’ Play by Fisher-Price. It worked fairly well in getting him to settle into a nap. The Rock n’ Play made him sweat profusely though. I had to wipe down the plastic underneath the lining almost after every nap! Our baby didn’t like it as much as the bouncing Hushamok (see below). Unfortunately, it’s really hard to tell what your baby will like until they’re in it. And even then, they change their minds.
Which brings me to how we ended up with a Mamaroo Swing. He liked that for about a day. The Mamaroo is pretty fancy with all the different types of swinging and sound options. Unfortunately, he would scream bloody murder every time we put him in it. I really wanted him to like it because it was expensive, super cool looking, and portably light.
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Bounce
If your baby is like mine was, using an exercise ball will save your body! My kid insisted that we jump fast and high. He was basically a little drill sergeant! I’ve never heard of breaking a sweat bouncing a child, but that’s what he made us do! We broke a sweat bouncing this kid all over the place before wising up and using an exercise ball.
So one particularly bad night of being sleep deprived and desperate, we sprung for this super expensive, but worth every penny for the hours of blissful sleep in gave back to us, bouncing baby hammock – The Hushamok Baby Hammock. It looks sleek and modern but takes up quite a bit of space; although, no more than a crib. It’s kind of awesome though. We could transition him from bouncing in our arms to bouncing in the hammock or just putting him in the hammock in the first place and bouncing him in there. Always with the bouncing though! It took but a finger to pull down on the hammock to bounce him to sleep.
In hindsight, I should’ve sewn a string to the bottom of the hammock and it would’ve made things even easier. Unfortunately, he grew to not need it at about the 7 month mark (we think his GERD went away) – and I think he even grew too big for it (my memory is a little fuzzy about that time in our lives from the lack of sleep). But for a few months there, it worked like a dream to make him fall asleep.
(Note: The Rock n’ Play, Mamaroo, and Hushamok are inclined so that the head is slightly higher than the feet. This was great for our little guy with GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease).
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Sway/Swing & Bounce
Swaying and bouncing seems to be an experienced mother’s go-to move. You’ll see this in action with most grandmas. And my kid’s grandma is no exception. She’s a total pro at pacing a room while swaying and bouncing. This worked great for the first few weeks. But then he demanded more bouncing than she could do.
We also tried the Fisher-Price Cradle and Swing. Even though it worked sometimes to calm him down, it was too distracting for him and he wouldn’t fall asleep.
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Wear
There’s this huge movement to “wear” your baby everywhere. It’s so much easier to get things done while wearing the baby in a carrier. You can even go to the bathroom while wearing your baby! (It can be tricky at first but you’ll get the hang of it.)
If my baby hadn’t been such a heatbox I would’ve worn him more. He didn’t like it at first and I just kept having to try it and see if he’d be in the mood on that particular day. I liked our Baby K’Tan and so did my husband because of the ease of use. When he got a bit larger, I used the Ergobaby carrier.
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Drive
Many parents swear by this. And to this day, I still get drowsy in a moving car if I’m not the one driving. But my kid, not so much. He has almost never fallen asleep in the car. I think there’s just too much for him to look at (see number 10 below). Even though he wouldn’t fall asleep, at least he’d stop screaming in a moving car. It’d be great until we had to stop.
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Sing
I don’t know if it’s the cyclical notes of lullabies, the soft tones, or warm breath in their ear that works but who cares as long as it works. I can’t say it worked all the time but enough so that it deserves to be on this list. Singing worked to put the baby to sleep when he was already calm. If he wasn’t calm, we’d go straight to bouncing!
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Sound Machine
A noise machine will help drown out ambient sounds of life going on in the house and recreates sounds they heard in the womb (if it’s white noise or ocean sounds that is). I love our sound machine for our kid. It drowns out our whiny kitties and even muffles out our dog barking. You have to get a noise machine that isn’t specifically for babies though because it probably won’t be loud enough depending on what you’ve got going on in the house.
I got the Marpac DOHM-DS, Natural White Noise Sound Machine first. It just sounds like a loud fan and it was definitely not loud enough to drown out the noises of our house goings-on. My husband used it though for himself until it started rattling about a year later. But we might’ve just gotten a defective one because one of my friends insists that it worked great for her baby and they still use it 4 years later.
Then we got a Munchkin Nursery Projector and Sound System because it was relatively cheap. It has several sound options (although they all sound kind-of tinny) and a cute light projector, plus a nightlight. This is geared toward being for children so it is not as loud as other sound machines. But it worked great until when we had company over, the dog barked, or if the doorbell rang.
The Best Sound Machine Ever!
That’s how I finally got the Sound Sleep Mini Therapy. And I ♥ it! The sound is much more natural and there’s a ton of options (no projector or nightlight though, which I don’t even miss).
(Note: Be sure not to have it too loud because you don’t want to damage those little ear drums. They have a lifetime of concerts and headphone usage for that!)
You’ve probably caught on by now that the theme in these tips to get your baby to sleep, is movement, snugness, and gentle sound. We’re trying to mimic what their environment was like in the womb where it was all warm and safe and all they’ve known before now. If you’ve tried all the above and still no dice, maybe it’s about subtracting things instead of adding things….
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Remove distractions
Is your baby easily distracted? Are they sensitive to light, sound, temperature, or smell? These are things to consider when you’re baby won’t seem to settle into sleep.
Our baby had ridiculously sensitive hearing. I mean, he heard things outside that we couldn’t even hear! Only he and the dog would go berserk!
Also, we used to have super cute curtains in his nursery that he would just stare and stare at and not fall asleep. They were black and white and of course, black and white actually stimulates brain activity for them! So just do yourself a favor and use black out blinds/curtains. I use both!
The Shotgun Approach
Don’t be surprised if you have to use more than one of the things on the list AND if you need to do it in a certain order. Babies are at times like combination locks and you just have to get it in the right order to make something click. If one thing doesn’t work, try them all! Although I wouldn’t recommend wearing them while driving! That seems like a mistake only a celebrity would make! 😉
Personally, I would go to his room, draw the curtains and blinds shut, turn out the lights, close the door, turn on the noise machine on and bounce him in the dark before carefully placing him in his hammock or Rock n’ Play, and eventually his crib. Then I would tip toe with ninja stealth out the door and hope he didn’t wake up.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of trial and error…at least, there was for me. But hopefully there won’t be for you! What did you try and did it work? Was there anything that worked that wasn’t on this list? Share it below and maybe I’ll add it to the list!
*Did you catch the reference to “The Shining?” Maybe he wasn’t being haunted by ghosts. Maybe he just needed a good night’s rest!
