What was your wonder product to help your new baby be a good sleeper

[Freyfreysmum]

We are preparing for baby2 yay, and wanted your advice.
Our lovely daughter, now 19m was never a good sleeper for the first year, and only ever settled on the bottle or in the car.

What products/tips can you recommend thinking back that you think started your child off towards self soothing.

Ie cot mobile, nightlight, swaddling, specifics please I am in shopping mode !
x FFM

A MAM dummy because it has a big teat and fell out less

A book called "No cry sleep solution" by Elizabeth Pantsey.

www.amazon.co.uk/No-Cry-Sleep-Solution-Through-Foreword/dp/0071381392

It tells you what is realistic to expect and how to gently encourage good habits without tears.

With my daughter I play her the natal hypnotheraphy relaxing birth music CD in the evening to help wind her down. I also used the natal hypnotheraphy CDs in pregnancy for me. I think this helped her as she got used to the cheesey music.

My daughter is 10 weeks old and typically she goes down at 8.30pm has a feed at about 2am and wakes again at 6am. We have a side cot arrangement as my daughter hated the moses basket.

I found mobiles, nightlights, music things detrimental to sleep here - too distracting.

Strongly agree on dummy, but they're obviously not everyone's cup of tea.

Breastmilk.

genetics

honestly though?

not trying.

letting him stay downstairs every night and pop on and off the boob and not even thinking aboout getting him into the cot.

he's 4.5 months and now voluntarily goes down by himself at 8/8.30 and sleeps through most night.

wish someone had told me to relax when i had dd and ds1 and i might have avoided 2 years of hellish evenings apiece!

A Kiddopotamus swaddling blanket and Dr Harvey Karp's book Baby Bliss
From about 6 months we play Debussy Clair De Lune quietly in the background at bed time and as DS's drop off to sleep.

MaybeAfterBreakfast what is your bedtime routine?

When you have two children it is not an option to allow the second child to scream themselves to sleep aka Gina Ford style.

I think its important to put a child to bed awake, but that doesn't mean allowing them to be hysterial. My daughter is very sleepy when I put her in her cot, but not unconcious.

There aren't many breastfed babies that sleep through the night at 10 weeks, especially in a heat wave.

Amby Natures Nest Hammock and now a travel cot, he is a very restless sleeper so anythig with soft sides so that he doesn't wake up.

kiddopotamous swaddling blanket here too.

Grobags when a bit older.

We just put dd1 down as usual, then breastfed dd2 to sleep and put her down on mat on floor!
Carried her up when we went up, breastfed again then into her basket.

Just try and relax. It all works better when you're not trying too hard imo.

Music and noise may help some but a dark room and no sound always worked for us once they were older.

They're great, arne't they trixy? I always buy one as a "new baby" gift for friends.

dark, quiet room and routine. Full stomach. No wonder products I'm afraid.

Bedside cot, allowing me to co-sleep totally safely

Not expecting anything really before 6 months and only thinking about tweaking then if the baby is waking up habitually at the same time and you've got a bit of a daytime routine going on with naps.

Fwiw I also think its much harder to get them to sleep through if you havent made any attempt by a year as they seem to get loads more stubborn but I know thats an unpopular view on here.

My dd would not go into a moses basket or sleep anywhere but in my arms or right beside me when she was very tiny. I used to envy those mums wheeling their sleeping newborn around! The sling was so useful for me though, I used to email friends and talk to my mum in the phone while she slept in it.

Then at the age of 3 months she became a fab sleeper and self-settler, which is probably due to genetics as another poster has said, but I can still tell you what we did just in case it helps!!

Apart from the MAM dummy, on a more serious note the other thing I found invaluable was our bedside cot from Mothercare. Have you heard of co-sleeper cots? I found when she was teeny tiny sleeping beside me was very comforting to her and in a way it helped her with self-soothing later because she wasn't in a moses basket where she couldn't stare at me until she nodded off. Then we progressed to short periods out of my arms and in her pram during the day, which became longer periods. Swaddling her in a bedsheet helped a lot with the transition from mummy's arms and she found it very relaxing.

I found any music or mobiles or anything "stimulating" had to be removed or else there was no way she'd sleep, so no cds or toys. In fact I had to cover the hood of the pram with a sheet or park her facing the corner of the living room so she couldn't see anything interesting at all! I found the Baby Whisperer book very useful for understanding that babies need to sleep very often during the day and become overstimulated very easily - my dd did anyway! Any time there was a peep of discontent from her, I declared "Right, down for a nap", lol!

Anyway, it either worked or I was just lucky and have a good sleeper! She did go from not sleeping out of my arms at all to sleeping wonderfully in her cot and pram, but then the dummy did have a lot to do with it too!

breastmilk

vibrating bouncy chair

as cherry choc says bedside cot and if ff then milk stuff prepared and by bed for night feeding. feeding in the dark and very little stimulation when night feeding. Dont change the nappy unless you have to. worked for mine anyway

in those initial days when baby won't settle in a moses basket/carry cot we found a sheepskin invaluable - mum sleeps on it first to transfer her 'smell' then put it in the moses basket and because it's so warm and snuggly and smells of you it may help baby to sleep.

Routine helped us enormously too - imo babies like to know what's coming next and they pick this up from a very early age. My dd at 8 months is a great sleeper.

I agree with nellie12 - routine, good feeds and dark room! My first was hopeless at going to sleep, I knew nothing then about routine or blackout, but with the second I learnt that the combination of routine and very dark bedroom ( easyblinds are fab ) worked a treat. I started at around 2 1/2 months to get organised, and it all fell in to place - a few hiccups naturally, but on the whole it works. Good luck.

comfort blanket toy thing and mobile - did trick with DS2 - DS1 was a terrible sleeper. You've just got to find what works for your baby.

There are no solutions in my opinion. They are either good sleepers or they are not. That conclusion is drawn from my extensive research of three babies and what I wanted to scream at all those 'helpful' people who suggested all sorts of ways to help DS2 sleep - all of which I had tried and none of which worked!

boobs, co sleeping, going with the flow, and knowing that little babies need to feed frequently.

I don't do routine, and DS will sleep anywhere (dark or not) and like a log.

I agree that if past 6 months or so you feel the need to do something the NCSS is great

I think the NCSS is great for a newborn. It told me what is normal and how to encourage a good sleep pattern without tears. Its nice to have a book that does not see having a child sleeping for a solid 10 hours at 10 weeks the most important thing in the world.

My dd is much like CMOTdibbler ds. Its essential that second borns learn to be flexible to fit in with the needs of older children.

Babies are babies for such a short period of time. The first twelve weeks are really hard, but it doesn't last forever.

I agree with likesunshine that you have to see what works for your baby.