hush little baby (Your Baby and Sleep in general)

Member Name: STACEY0526

Product:	Your Baby and Sleep in general
Date:	29/03/09 (163 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: when you get there you will be a much happier person

Disadvantages: may take a while what works for one may not work for another

I have been quite lucky as far as sleeping goes with my little boy I only had a couple of weeks worth of sleepless nights before he started to sleep through the night and by sleeping through the night I mean for at least 12 hrs each night, not that I could say the same about me, I was always worrying and checking up on him every hour or every couple of hours.

Just before I had my little boy I knew that I would have to go back to work once my maternity leave ran out so my main thought was that getting the little man into a routine as soon as possible was essential. I didn't go to antenatal classes as I thought doing it on my own would be very embarrassing (my other half made it clear that he didn't want to go and I knew the reasons behind this which I accepted) So I phoned a lady up from baby dolly who came around to the house for a 1-1 session, She really was great and worth the money. It wasn't antenatal classes she gave it was more information on anything that you wanted to know both facts and advise from her own personal experiences, the whole session was focused on what I needed to know as an individual. During this visit she gave me some of what I would consider the best advice I'd had. One bit of advice that she gave me and I would offer anyone else was about sleeping and it was one piece of advice that me and my partner had decided straight away was definitely worth a try. She advised that you may wish to have 1 cot/ mosses basket down stairs and 1 cot upstairs this will then distinguish day time naps and night time sleeps, when down stairs and your baby is in the cot they can have all the attention you/ they want but upstairs is a place for sleep and not play, I don't mean you leave them there to cry but gently start setting you boundaries when they cry attend to their needs and place them straight back into the cot. I found this worked miracles for me.

The next thing that I would recommend is more common sense than anything else but always change your little one when they get up and before they go to bed this too I found distinguishes night from day. I didn't implicate any more routines than this at first and as I said I was very lucky he seemed to sleep through the night very quick.

I still have no problems with him sleeping through the night earliest he will get up is 9.30 and im lucky if he is out of bed before 11.00 unless I get him out and I still find that a bath before bed works wonders even if I do struggle getting him out most of the time working shifts does sometimes disrupt his routine no matter how much I try not to so anything that will help implement a routine I will do.

A few other tips I picked up a long the way was if you think your child is hungry through the night first give them some baby rice before bed and when they are a little older break part of a Rusk up (the amount depends on the age of the child) in a warm bottle and this will fill them up a bit - I also found this one very useful as little man was a right gannet.

When the little one was first going into a cot he really didn't like it so I placed him into his mosses basket and then placed the mosses basket into the cot, this only took a couple of nights and then he started to go to sleep in the cot, the security of the confined space in the mosses basket made him feel secure while getting used to the sites around the cot. Anything different is unsettling for a child so if there is anything you can doo to make this easier it will make your life easier too.

He was about 6 months when I put him in his own room; this was a pretty easy step some unsettling times throughout the first few nights but over all he seemed to take to it quite well. It was only when I put him into a big bed that he decided that he preferred our room, so I bought him a Disney cars make over kit for his bedroom I also took him to B&Q where he chose his own bob the builder stickers for his bedroom, I painted his walls blue at the top for sky, yellow at the bottom for sand I drew a road around as a border and we then stuck the cars on one side of his room and the bob stickers on the other, we made a cars bed (thank god for the other half and his farther) and he now loves his room and is quite happy to be in there.

From personal experience I would not recommend letting your child sleep in your bed it is great to have them their with you but at some point you will have to start at the beginning again getting them to sleep in their own bed

Every child is different you just need to find the best way for you and your child, perseverance is the key and giving into your child is the undoing of all your hard work hope this helps it did for me.

Summary: a few tips that helped me