If you recently had a baby, you probably have one thing on your mind: sleep. You desperately want and need to sleep, but you can’t unless your little bundle of joy is sleeping too. This makes getting your baby to sleep for longer periods of time one of your top priorities. We want you to sleep, too! That’s why we’ve put together a quick guide to not only getting your baby to fall asleep, but actually stay asleep too. With the right planning and sleep essentials, this is possible!
Expert Sleep Tips
Be Patient! It’s important to realize that your baby isn’t just a miniature adult. Your baby may sleep anywhere from 10 to 18 hours a day, for a few hours at a time. They wake up often because they are hungry. During the first 2 months, your newborn's need to eat overrules their need to sleep. There’s really nothing you can or should do regarding sleep during this newborn stage, sorry! The best advice is simply to be patient and sleep when you can. Very soon, they’ll be sleeping for longer stretches.
Develop a Bedtime Routine. Make the hour leading up to bedtime a time of security, happiness, and emotional reassurance. Everyone from babies to grown-ups need a bedtime routine. It’s what tells a person’s body and mind that it is time to prepare for sleep. A study of several hundred mothers showed that babies who followed a nightly bedtime routine went to sleep easier, slept better, and cried in the middle of the night less often. In order to develop a successful bedtime routine, put together a few calming activities and keep these activities the same and in the same order, night after night. This may involve a bath, a story, and some cuddle time. Who wouldn’t love that!
Drown out sound. Once your baby is asleep, you want them to stay asleep. Just like you, they need a sleep sanctuary that is cool, dark, and quiet. It’s probably difficult to keep your home silent, especially if they’re sleeping when others in the family are awake. This is why you’ll want a sound machine, to drown out the noise with ambient, background noise. A white-noise machine can transform a nursery into a womb-like environment. In fact, we have noise machines made especially for baby nurseries. The Yogasleep Baby Soother Sound Machine With Voice Recorder And Nightlight includes a voice recorder and nightlight. It comes with five curated sounds, womb sounds, brown noise, fan-based Dohm, ocean surf, and lullaby. The recording feature lets you calm your little one at a distance by taping your voice.
Keep midnight feedings boring. Especially within the first few months, your baby is going to wake up in the middle of the night and there’s nothing you can do about it. What you do have control over, however, is how this midnight feeding session goes. Be calm and gentle but avoid conversation and eye contact. Brain imaging research confirms that eye contact triggers busy activity in an infant’s brain. Remember, you are the single most fascinating thing in your baby’s life! Even something as mundane as quiet talk and eye contact can be very exciting for your baby. Experiments show that babies are especially attuned to their mothers’ voices. In fact, some researchers claim that babies arouse more easily in response to their mother’s voice than to a smoke alarm! Instead of turning on the light and striking up a conversation, keep the room dark and quiet during the feeding.
Baby Sleep Essentials
You want your baby’s room, stroller, and bag to be filled with the essentials needed to make sleep a priority. Let’s begin with his or her crib. We carry all of the bedding essentials you need to make their bed a space perfect for slumber. This includes a fitted crib sheet, organic cotton crib sheets, and a wool crib comforter. We also carry several options for crib mattress toppers, so their bed is just as comfy as yours!
Often, babies wake up because they’re wet. Of course, a little one is going to have accidents that sometimes seep through their diapers. In order to best protect their crib mattress, we recommend a Sleep & Beyond Waterproof Mattress Protector in crib size. This way, a quick change of their pajamas and a new set of sheets is all that is needed to put your baby back to sleep. You won’t even need to turn on the lights!
As mentioned above, a YogaSleep noise machine is a fantastic place to start. We also carry travel noise machines that can be clipped on your stroller and taken on the go. With 6-plus operating hours on a single charge, this compact white noise machine masks disruptive noises anytime, anywhere! We also carry baby pocket soothers in fun animal shapes, like a Penguin or Unicorn.
All of these baby sleep essentials, and more, are available through City Mattress. Your healthy sleep is important to us. That’s why we want your entire family to sleep well, right down to the littlest member!