How I Tricked My Baby Into Sleeping In Her Own Bed
Trying every trick in the book finally got my baby to sleep.
I like to think of myself as “The Accidental Co-Sleeper”. Allow me to explain.
Before having a baby I had grand schemes for what our sleep routine would entail. We had planned to use a co-sleeper for a few weeks max and then we would transition Fern into her own room where she would sleep on her Montessori style floor bed. In this dream-land alternate universe, I also had a baby who slept 12 hours every night and I awoke to little birds who would dress me each morning a’la Cinderella.
Needless to say I had delusions of grandeur.
The reality is that Fern has slept in our bed since day one. It was a lot easier for nursing purposes, but I quickly realized that sharing a bed with a husband and a newborn isn’t the most conducive for getting sleep. Every night I found myself waking up curled up strangely with no blankets and appendages that had fallen asleep due to the awkward positions they’d been contorted in. It was obvious that it was time to try out the co-sleeper next to our bed rather than co-sleeping in the same bed.
The only problem? Fern hated her co-sleeper.
Find out how I tricked her into sleeping in her own bed after the jump!
Each night I’d nurse Fern and get her into what I thought was a sound state of sleep and then ever-so-carefully place her in her co-sleeper, only to be awoken 40 minutes later by a sad, crying baby. And instead of trying again, I did what any sleep-deprived parent in my situation would do…I let her sleep in our bed where I was then rewarded with 3-4 hours of terribly uncomfortable sleep, but it was sleep nonetheless.
We started swaddling, thinking that might work, but it was a total fail. Then we tried giving her a pacifier – also a fail. We even tried putting one of my sweaters in there with her so she would be comforted by my smell, but it was no use.
Just when I thought we might all still be sharing a bed when Fern was in high school, the heavens opened up and a beam of light shone down. WHITE NOISE! White noise was the answer! Once we provided Fern with the sweet sounds of studio created rain (in addition to swaddling, pacifying, and cozying her up in my sweater) she slept like a baby – both literally and figuratively – for four-and-a-half hours! I was so happy I could cry.
Of course, it hasn’t worked out so well to get her to fall back to sleep in the co-sleeper in the middle of the night, but we’re working on it. For now I’ll take the little victories as they come.
What is your sleep routine with your baby?
Do you co-sleep?
•Lauren Hartmann is the founder of The Little Things We Do, a blog about life and adventures in Portland Oregon. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook, or catch up on all of her posts here on Babble.
Way to go Fern!! I am so glad to her that she is sleeping more, which means more rest for momma! At such a young age, she is already a true Oregonian, in love with the sound of rain.
ive thought the same thing, just using a blanket bc thats what i saw my mother use.
if you haven’t, try a sleep sack swaddle. no matter how tightly you can wrap a receiving blanket, these things trump that. and they’re super easy to nurse in.
I’m an accidental co-sleeper too. I think a lot of breastfeeding moms secretly are. We didn’t plan it, in fact, I was afraid of it because of all the warnings, but it worked great for us for the first 6 weeks. Our bedtime routine is usually a diaper change, swaddle just her legs (the sleep sack kind mentioned by Megan), start nursing, she falls asleep, I swaddle her arms tight, maybe nurse a bit more if she wakes up from swaddling, then turn on the white noise machine and put her to bed. Sometimes while I’m nursing, I need to walk around or bounce on a yoga ball, so I guess rocking motion is part of the routine too.
I am in the same boat. I bought an arms reach cosleeper and planned on using it until 6 months old tops. He would sleep in the cosleeper next to my bed, then move to the crib in his room. Well that didn’t work out the way I planned. At 13 months he still was sleeping in our bed. And too big for the cosleeper. So I moved his crib to our room, a few feet from my bed. Only to realize I am far too short to actually get him to sleep and lay him in the crib without waking him up. So I turned his crib into a toddler bed (and am ordering a real toddler bed that isn’t the monstrosity of size that the crib is next week). I lay in his toddler bed with him and nurse him to sleep. And he would sleep for maybe an hour in it. So then I got a sleep sack in his size and put him in that. And he slept for four hours in the toddler bed. But what is the cruelest problem of all? I can’t sleep without him in the bed. So now I lay awake until 2-4am when he wakes up and then put him in the bed with me and go to sleep.
We have been having the same problem
I planned on her sleeping in a bassinet in our room and then transitioning to her crib… 7 weeks later and she has been in our bed since day 1 (literally she was born in our bedroom haha) She hates to be swaddled, won’t take a paci, and her white noise sleep sheep doesn’t have any effect. Her bassinet vibrates and sometimes that will put her to sleep at nap time but never at night. The only way she likes to sleep is on top of me! The last few nights I’ve been nursing her to sleep in the rocking chair and putting her down instead of nursing her in bed and trying to take her out and put her in the bassinet once shes asleep. When she wakes up we go back in the rocker until shes asleep again. So far it seems to be working!
I was an accidental co-sleeper as well. Still am. My LO is almost 14 months. I have been able to get her to self soothe. Now I can do a routine and lay her down in the PNP (which is still in our room) and she will roll over and go to sleep. The last 2 nights she’s slept from 8p-12a, woke to eat, then went right back to bed for the rest of the evening. If she wakes up in the MOTN, I normally bring her to bed and feed her. About an hour later when she starts tossing and turning and kicking, I end up waking up and put her back in the PNP. And there she stays. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m very happy that she’s content sleeping on her own. Now if she’d just sleep thru the night.
My baby adores white noise. We would be lost without it.