You guys are awesome! Your bedtime suggestions were so insightful, so thank you. I fully understand that our babies go through so many stages, but I always want to do my best to make these stages as comfortable as possible for her [and me]. For the past three nights we've tried "baby dance party" and it seems to be highly successful. I'm not sure why I never thought of this considering she LOVES super loud music in the car* when we're in "stop and go" traffic and not the freeway. It still takes a while to get her to fall asleep with this method, although not AS LONG, and she only fusses about half as much as she was doing so before. The first two nights it took her about an hour and 45 minutes to finally give up the fight, and tonight it got down to an hour and 10. That may be because we went on a pre-bedtime walk today, though.
I'm still interested in trying a bouncy ball... that is if we can find room for one in our apartment. I'm skeptical because she seems to not like anything that's typically soothing or calming. It's almost as if she needs total chaos to relax; even her white noise machine needs to be turned on at the highest volume and put right at her head in order for it to work. We keep saying we can't wait for this whole "white noise phase" to be over with so we can throw the damn thing over our balcony. Who knows though, baby dance party might only end up working for two weeks and a bouncy ball can be our ultimate savior. ;)
Thanks again! You're all the best.
P.S. As for swaddling, we learned very quickly that it DOES NOT WORK for L. It's a total bummer because I know it's a miracle worker for so many/most babies. Turns out, L's little fists were up by her head the whole time she was in the womb (I have various ultrasound pictures to prove it), so swaddling actually feels very unwomb-like to her. Now, we do a modified swaddle (arms out) while she sleeps, mostly to keep her warm and it's made a world of difference. It's a rare occurrence (which seems to be the case when it comes to many aspects of my pregnancy and EVERYTHING about this baby), but it's something to look into if your little one is also heavily resisting being swaddled.
* @Sid Don't feel bad about your choice in music. This song works like a charm for L on car rides. Hey, you've got to do what works, right?
Hello there! Have you tried (or heard of) the love me swaddle (www.lovemebaby.com.au I'm not sure if you can get them in the US but I've heard they are WONDERFUL as babies get to settle themselves with their arms up by their heads if they want. they even have transition ones (50/50) where you leave one arm out to get them used to having their arms out and transition to a sleeping bag. good luck! Lee
ReplyDeleteGlad it's getting better. I'd try anything and everything for sleeping at this age, don't worry about unusual methods! My daughter is still using white noise at 16 months but at least it's in her own room now and I actually come to find it relaxing - not only has baby been sleep trained it seems I have too :)
ReplyDeleteAwesome that the dance party is working for you! I'll definitely be adding that Roots tune to my "Soothing Sounds of Neglect" playlist for the next kid :) Another popular song on our list was "Little Lion Man" by Mumford and Sons. Thank goodness they don't start developing language skills until they're past the dance-to-sleep stage...
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