Tuesday, June 1, 2010

tuesday's tip for new mamas: Putting Baby to Sleep

First off, let me say...I am no pro at this, but I have learned many lessons with Baby W!  The number one rule when putting your baby down for the night is that they should still be awake! It is fine if they are about to drift off to sleep, but they need to know that they are not falling asleep in your arms...because if they happen to wake up during the night, they will expect to be where they were when they fell asleep.

Baby W asleep (8 months)

Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way.  I always nursed Baby W to sleep and he would wake up soon after...and then I would either feed him again or rock him until he went back to sleep.  So wrong!  I didn't get a chance to sleep through the night until Baby W was 6 1/2 months old!  (That was after being instructed by my pediatrician to put him down awake, cut out the night time feedings, and let him cry it out)

The cry-it-out method only took one or two nights for us, thank goodness, and now Baby W happily puts himself to sleep at night.  I give him a bottle, say a prayer, read him a book, lay him in the crib, sing "You are my Sunshine" to him twice (while he laughs at me), give him his "Night-Night" (blanket), and tell him good night.  Within the next 10 minutes he is asleep without a peep.

Baby W asleep in his crib (8 months)

I have definitely learned my lesson for whenever we decide to have another baby.  And my sister, Sweet Southern Prep, has two beautiful babies who are great sleepers, so I probably should have listened to her earlier on!  

Happy Tuesday! Yay for short weeks, and the end of the school year!  

4 comments:

Sweet Southern Prep said...

Speaking of, it's 8:30 and they're still asleep. :) Can't wait to see you soon! Good luck with the end of school, and your career as a teacher. Haha!

Anonymous said...

I wish I'd known this 5 years ago when I would rock my daughter to bed every single night. Things got scary when I didn't have the energy to do that anymore and we had a few rough nights but I let her cry it out and we were good to go. Great advice!

Baby W is beautiful!

ebeepaperie said...

Baby W is such a cutie!!

Cool Gal said...

Best advice you can give a new mom. :)

I put mine in his crib from day one and he slept through the night at 4 weeks. It was a godsend. He's a happy, healthy 12 - almost 13 -year old now. No permanent damage. LOL.

Beautiful pictures! :)