Sleep. That one word is usually lost after becoming a parent. It has been accepted as part of the norm, but you can control this idea of sleep. Say what?! Yep, you can be a parent and not completely lose your sleep. There will be nights where the sleep is absent due to a child being sick, growth spurt, or the dreaded teething. My youngest was by far the worst sleeper when compared to my older two. This was until I decided to take control over this whole concept of sleep by establishing a bedtime routine.
At around 10 1/2 months, my youngest was not sleeping…seriously! She was a no napping and no sleeping sucker. I blamed myself for allowing her to co-sleep and fall asleep while nursing. I was at my breaking point. Grouchy momma makes for a no fun momma. My older two could not enjoy me because I was always so tired and was constantly fighting with my youngest in regards to sleep. Since my youngest wasn’t sleeping, she was not very happy majority of the time. Shoot, she was miserable during a lot of the day/night because she was not getting enough sleep. When I hit my breaking point, I started researching for a sleep consultant. I needed HELP and FAST!
After speaking with a sleep consultant during a consultation, my husband decided maybe we should just give it a try before getting outside help. I told him I would give us about 2 weeks, then my hands were up in the air with a white flag. Let me tell you, I had my once no napping, no sleeping 10 1/2 month old sleeping at night and napping-twice a day! It took a little over a week, but I did it. I took suggestions from sleep therapists, friends, and family; then wrapped them up to fit my family and my baby. Below is our basic routine that has worked for us! Again, each family and child is different. What worked for us may not necessarily work for you. Just give it a few tweaks to fit your family!
I also have attached a free bedtime routine spreadsheet, whoop whoop!
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Bedtime Routine
Routine is so important with babies and children. My kids are very sensitive to changes in their normal routine. Don’t get me wrong here. I am not saying you can’t go and have a random family outing or anything. I just try my best to keep a good routine during the school week and allow weekends to be a little more flexible. Our bedtime routines start with dinner. We try and eat dinner around the same time every night. When I say around the same time, I mean it is flexible up to 30 minutes. With dinner starting our bedtime routines, I don’t want to have dinner too late. After dinner is when we start the kids’ baths. Bath time is a favorite for my youngest! She is now 13 months and when you say the word ‘bath’, she takes off running to the bathroom yelling ‘Ba! Ba!’.
I gather everything I need for her bath: towel, wash cloth, and her shampoo/body wash. Oh and her rubber ducky 😉 A new item I have added to her bath time is the BabyDam. Ya’ll, this thing is Ah-Mazing!! I wish I had it when she first started taking her sweet little baths. I put it into the tub in a spot a little over half-way from the drain. It does exactly what the name says…makes a dam in the bath. I am able to fill only part of the tub with water! This saves me not only time but water. You know what I mean. You wait minutes to fill a tub up with water for a little munchkin, when in all reality you don’t even use the entire tub. The BabyDam is perfect for avoiding just that. I also am able to use the dry bath space on the other side of the BabyDam to keep her bath towel. No more reaching around on the toilet or floor to grab her towel. #momwin The BabyDam would work for even toddlers! They don’t need all that extra space in the tub. It will make cleaning up after bath time easy and fun by having them throw the toys over the BabyDam to the dry side 😉
*Note: The one important thing to note about the BabyDam is that you must have a standard size tub with rounded corners and a non-textured bath floor in order for the BabyDam to work/seal appropriately.
After bath time, we start our unwinding. This unwinding is usually reading a book of some sort. My kids love this part of our bedtime routine. Honestly, I do too! Unwinding is important before bedtime. I know I can’t go to sleep right away if I haven’t done some sort of unwinding first. Upon completion of our book reading, our youngest still takes a transition cup of milk and turn on her sound machine (another life saver in a family of 5!). We then put her straight in her bed. You heard me right, straight into her bed! She will cry for a minute or so some nights, but then falls asleep for the night.
Our bedtime routine starts around 6-6:30 (dinner) and ends around 7:30-7:45 (my youngest being put in her crib).
Sleep Training
Now for the sleep training. As I mentioned earlier, it took somewhere between 1 week and 1 1/2 weeks to get my youngest to start napping and sleeping through the night. The key factor: CONSISTENCY! The more consistent you are with their bedtime routines as well as their daily routines, the more likely they are to take up on their new sleeping routine. Again, they are creatures of habit who love a routine.
A lot may not agree with this part of my sleep training, but I did incorporate some crying it out. I knew that it was detrimental for my well-being as well as hers that she start getting the sleep she so much needed.This crying it out method only went in periods of 5 minutes, having me going into her room to lay her back down if she was standing up and then rubbing her back. I stayed consistent, and she finally caught on!
There is no time better than now to get those bedtime routines going and grabbing that concept of sleep! There is only so much coffee we can consume in a 24 hour period 😉
Interested in grabbing a BabyDam or learning more about it? Click here! BabyDam
Get your free Bedtime Routine Schedule right here! Bedtime Routine Schedule
Interesting read. That baby dam looks so good! My little one is 15 months and still doesn’t sleep through but hopefully not far off! Xx
Loving the BabyDam! Best of luck getting your little one to sleep through the night 🙂
Oh my goodness, I love the BabyDam! I’ve never seen one before! Thanks for sharing your tips with us, no one gets to sleep when the baby isn’t sleeping!!
Thank you! You are more than right, no one sleeps if baby isn’t sleeping 😉
I’ve got a little one who never liked to sleep so I feel your pain! Glad you got it sorted out 🙂
Thank you! Me too 🙂
I love the baby dam! That thing is fantastic! PS: My youngest son was almost 4 before he would sleep properly. Tips are always a blessing for mom’s struggling to get their little ones to sleep soundly and through the night. Thank you for sharing! xo
We are loving the BabyDam! And yes, the struggle can be real with little ones not sleeping. Thank you! 🙂
I would have loved to have that baby dam when my kids were little! Routine really helps a lot for them to understand it’s time to sleep.
Belle | http://www.OneAwesomeMomma.com
Yes! Routine is so important!
I so could have used that sheet when my daughter was young! She had the hardest time getting into a sleep routine 🙂
We are a big “routine” family! Both of my kids have had bed time routines from a very young age and I’m a firm believer it makes life a lot easier this way! Great tips and tricks!!
Yes! I am huge on routine…life goes much more smoothly with it! Thank you 🙂
LOVE the baby dam! Seriously such a life saver! (And money/water saver!)
Sleep training saved my sanity when my kiddos were babies!
Getting a routine setup can feel impossible. This is some great insight!
Hooray for routines. We did some kind of sleep training with both of my boys, and, yes, it involved some crying… So no judgement from me on that. They need to know you’re there, but they also need to learn to self soothe. Glad you’re all sleeping better now!
I wish I had done sleeping training earlier too! The BabysDam looks amazing!
Such great tips mama, and that BabyDam looks awesome too!
I have a unicorn for a child when it comes to sleeping, so all of my training was instinctual and not hard fought. BUT routines are now her thing and we cannot mess with them.
Great tips for sleep training! Routines are so important!
This is a nice article, thank you 🙂
I really do think that teaching babies to fall asleep on their own is life changing! Whatever method a parent can stick to and what works for their baby is the right one to use! I can recommend the method from “How to teach a baby to fall asleep alone guide” by Susan Urban (got it here: http://www.parental-love.com ). The method is easy and fast.
I sleep trained my 3 kids with this guide. After a few days they were able to fall sleep on their own (before only rocking), they stopped waking up every hour to eat at night and they started to nap longer (before training they both slept like 15 minutes and that was it – they were exhausted all day). So the method seems to works on anything related to sleeping. I’ve also recommended the guide to all my friends with kids- always success in a few days so now I know for sure that the method works great and I can share it with other parents.
So I encourage all parents to first of all try Susan Urban’s method and follow her instructions and I bet any other method especially with CIO won’t be necessary.
I’m one lucky mom to see this post! 2 days ago I got Urban’s guide and I’m loving it! A few days ago my daughter turned 9 months and the method from the guide has worked extremely well! I don’t want to speak too soon but it looks like my big girl is finally able to fall asleep on her own in her crib! niiice 🙂
Great guide with great clear instructions, thanks for sharing! haleped us a lot!
Yes! It is so good to have some sort of guide to help with sleep training! I will keep this one in mind, and pass it a long to my family and friends…thank you 🙂
The guide helped us more than I expected. The method from the guide has worked very fast and it is a gentle one. I am very pleased I have tried it. So one more recommendation for this guide from me and my family!
Got the guide, used it, love it 🙂 10 out of 10! very helpful!
Yay! I am so very glad! Thank you 🙂
Bedtime routines are so so important and I really do think that it helped me when my daughter was a baby.
The routine is so key with a little one and getting them to sleep.
It’s first time that I’m posting something in the internet but I just thought that my words can help somebody. So I also used the ‘how to teach a baby to fall asleep alone’ and I think it must be the best guide about sleep training. The main reason why is that the guide gave me really nice and clear instructions how to use the HWL method that simply works. I regret that I didn’t know about this guide with my first child.