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How To Get Baby To Sleep Best Tips and Tricks
New parents face one issue that matters more than all of the others: How to get a baby to sleep.
Mastering the parenting skill of putting a baby to sleep is one of the most important, and the trickiest. Fortunately, there is plenty of parenting advice out there for how to get a baby to stop crying and fall asleep. Unfortunately, much of it is not very helpful for Moms and Dads looking for a usable answer.
Parenting Books Advice on Baby Sleep
There are literally thousands of books out there with advice for parents. Whether first time parents, or parents with previous children, there is a top parenting advice book out there waiting to be snatched off the bookstore shelf. Some of them are very authoritative sounding. They are written by doctors or they bear the names of well respected medical institutions like Children’s Hospitals or doctors groups like the American Medical Association (AMA) or the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
Other books are more “friendly” sounding. The bestselling parenting books
Regardless of which of these books you choose to read, they all say pretty much the same thing. While each particular book will have its own add-on steps, or a differing rationale about why their plan is the best way to get a baby to fall asleep, the core solution is always the same: using a pattern that leads up to nighttime or naptime to make it easier for baby to fall asleep.
(I will be deliberately avoiding the use of the “R” word here for those poor souls who are looking for the information contained in this article and try to find it by excluding pages that have the R word. — If you are wondering what the R word is, you haven’t read very much about sleeping babies yet 
The idea is that by performing the same activities in order each time you put baby to sleep, the baby will grow accustomed to the pattern and then fall easily asleep in a peaceful no cry manner.
While the suggested events to execute this plan differ from book to book or parent advice column, the overall concept is the same. Dim the lights, minimize stimulation, read one book, sing two songs, and place the baby gently into the crib while they are drowsy, but still awake so that they can quickly soothe themselves off to dreamland. Once you’ve done this a few times, your baby will practically put themselves to sleep.
This is the kind of sleeping solution that only an academic or clinician could love. It is very true. This procedure does, in fact, work to help all babies fall asleep faster and easier. So, why then is this advice so utterly worthless?
Parenting Tips for Reality – Welcome to the Nursery of the Real World
What could be simpler than establishing a repeating pattern for baby’s nighttime?
Steps To Get Baby To Sleep Easy and Fast
- Give your baby a kiss.
- Change baby’s diaper and clothes.
- Sing baby a song.
- Read baby a book.
- Sing baby another song.
- Place baby gently in the crib.
- Say Goodnight to baby.
- Walk out of room.
- Baby falls asleep.
- Repeat.
Anyone see the catch?
The problem with the above system is that #9 has to happen BEFORE this plan can work. How can a reasonable solution include having the problem already solved as one of its steps? Just because a Top 10 Parenting Book says that establishing a nighttime ritual is the smartest parenting strategy for getting baby to sleep doesn’t mean that baby know it!
In the real nurseries and baby’s rooms of the world, little baby boys and little baby girls don’t know what comes after Step 8 (or any other step for that matter). Try the above procedure with a baby that has trouble sleeping and you’ll get a new Step #10 – Baby cries! Unfortunately, this plan has the same last step.
BEFORE you can establish any sort of sleeping ritual, you have to be able to make baby fall asleep. THEN establishing a repetative pattern can help make the process of putting baby to bed easier. But, until then, the above plan is worthless with a capital ‘W’.
What parents need is a real world method of Best Tips To Get Baby to Sleep and Top Tricks Parents Use For Sleeping Babies. These methods include ways to make baby sleep NOW, not after you’ve established some mythical sleep formula. When a baby is screaming in your face, the last thing a parent needs is a high-handed lecture about what will be the best long-term sleeping solution. They especially do not need to be told that the way that Mom and Dad have been putting baby to sleep before reading this enlightened version was all wrong, and frankly, is the cause of baby sleep problems they are having now.
The real world, tested in my own home with two babies, including one who has colic, strategies are coming soon in the Undefeated Daddy plan for Getting Baby to Sleep.
Babies Toddlers Dads and Rechargeable Batteries
Being a Dad is not about saving money. Let’s face it, kids cost you more money than not in pretty much every way. Not that it matters. The look on my daughter’s face and the sweetness in her voice when she heads off to another room then decides she wants Dad to come along and turns around and says “Come to?” is worth more money than is in all the 401(k)s combined.
Still, if there is a way to make your child’s needs a little cheaper along the way, then do it! One way to save a little dough is with rechargeable batteries. As an added bonus, it can also save you some tears.
Depending on your philosophy, you kids may have dozens (or more) of toys that use batteries. Everything from the cute puppy that barks when squeezed to the train that drives itself across the floor singing (What color animals do you see? The monkey’s brown, and the crocodile’s green) takes batteries. The worst part is that your little one has no concept of batteries and can only wonder what the problem is as those batteries wind down and die. With rechargeable batteries, you can keep reusing them instead of constantly throwing them away and hoping you have new ones.
Smart Rechargeable Battery Strategy
Yes, rechargeable batteries are more expensive, so you want to buy them on sale. I’ve found that the drugstores Wallgreens and Rite Aid seem to put rechargeable batteries on sale pretty often, and usually for good prices. Watch your ads for sales and when they pop up, buy what you need plus a few more. Most toddler toys take AA batteries. The bigger ones will take C and D batteries.
As a way to save even more, get a hold of the plastic adapters
Rechargeable D Batteries are a SCAM!
In a shameful and very deceptive marketing strategy, the major battery companies (yes both of them) cheat customers by pretending that the rechargeable D batteries are just as powerful as the non-rechargeable D batteries, but they aren’t. Battery power is measured in mAh. That stands for milli-amp hours, but don’t worry about that. A rechargeable AA battery has 2500 mAh. The rechargeable D battery? 2500 mAh. What?
Yep, it is a big fat scam. This way when your rechargeable D batteries die fast, you will say, that rechargeables don’t last as long and go back to buying non-rechargeable batteries so that the battery company can keep making a profit off of you. If you use rechargeable batteries then you don’t have to buy them so often and their profits go down.
In fact, if you cut open a rechargeable D battery, you will find a rechargeable AA battery inside a container, just like your adapter. So, do not pay more for those rechargeable D batteries. Get the adapters instead.
Now, when you hear a toy running down or it just dies, pop in your ready to go rechargeables and put the ones you took out on the charger. Then you’ll be ready for the next time little Bobby’s favorite toy, “Sound funny.”
Dad Kids and the Public Library
If the last time you were in a public library you were doing research for a paper on the Civil War, it might be time to take another visit. Most cities larger than a bread box have upgraded the way their libraries look and feel as well as having dramatically increased their collections for children.
Undefeated Daddy Loves the Library
I took my daughter to the library in order to give her a new place to see and do things. As a work from home father, my daughter doesn’t go to daycare or see a nanny. So, in order to keep it fresh we frequently go places. One day I decided I would take her to the library, because she loves her books.
I was surprised at what the library had become. Tight budgets in our town have caused some cuts in the library system, but instead of cutting back on things like books, they cut back hours. Our libraries are closed one day per week, but not all libraries on the same day. So, in theory, there is always a library open nearby, if not the closest one.
The first library we went to was the main branch. I figured it would be the best. I remembered the library, like a lot of others in their 30s and 40s, from the days of high school. I remember beige metal shelves, threadbare carpet, and dusty old books published at least 10 years ago. I was in for a surprise.
The library has a HUGE children’s area. As a double bonus, that means that there aren’t any adults around to look peevish if my little one decides to squeal with excitement or voice a little frustration. The main library has a couple of children’s tables, games, puzzles, stuffed animals, and computers. Even better, it has rows and rows of books for my toddler to run up and down. There is an enormous amount of safety relief in watching your daughter run down a corridor. There is no way for her to veer dangerously off course, and if anyone is coming the other direction, you can see them far in advance.
The Toddler and Books
As an added bonus, my daughter associates the library with fun. Our smaller neighborhood library has a table with those beads on wires that form a maze. When I say the word “library” my daughter says, “beads.” If we are going to a different branch, I just tell her what is there. Another common visit has shelf full of teddy bears. “No, not beads, the other one.” She pauses for a second and says, “bears.”
Everyone wants their kids to read. Making the environment of books fun is the first step. Mission accomplished there. The next step is to actually get interesting books. This is where the library shines. Any child gets bored of the same thing again and again. On the other hand, every child also develops favorites. My girl had plenty of books she loved and of course I got her more books that were similar and she loved them. One day at the library we came across a book with flaps that open. I showed her a flap and she sat mesmerized for the rest of the time opening the flaps. Needless to say, I found a few more. Now, I know she likes books with flaps. (But not pop-up books – I don’t think it registers enough that opening the page makes something happen. I think she just thinks the pages are always like that.)
The library is great for me too. Gone are the days of 5 or 10 year old books. New editions of computer books for Dreamweaver CS3 line the shelves; same thing for Ruby on Rails and others. The really great part is that the card catalog is online so I can look in advance and know exactly where I’m going so as to not spend too much time boring my daughter before we go to the kid’s section. Even better, books can be reserved online and you tell them which branch you want to pick them up at and they’ll be waiting for you at the desk.
Do yourself a favor and check out your local library. It just might be a cool FREE place to take your youngster.
Digital Cameras and New Dads
Here is the short version: Go buy a good, new, digital camera and spend a lot of money on it.
Easy Advice from Dad
When my wife was pregnant with my daughter, I began to wonder about buying a new digital camera. We had a digital camera. We had taken it all over Europe and other places on vacation and never once complained about our pictures. It was small and easy to carry and frankly it go the job done. Our pictures looked pretty good and I think for the most part we were happy with it.
There were a couple of concerns though. The first concern was that when sightseeing on vacation you take a lot of pictures of things that don’t move: paintings, statues, buildings, rivers, bridges, landscapes. The second concern is that you never really blow-up your vacation pictures into something bigger. A 4×6 of the Louvre in your photo album is great. I’ve never really wanted an 8×10 on the wall. The last concern was with speed and function. Our night pictures of the city lights were fine, but the picture of my wife in front of a lit up Pompidou, wasn’t so good. Plus, all that red eye, and the colors in pictures with the flash were never quite right.
Digital Cameras + Internet Research = Ahhh! My Camera is Worthless!
I’m the kind of guy who believes in research. I figure that if I can get my hands on enough data, then I can make an informed decision. One of the keys, however, to research is knowing the difference between what matters to the passionate experts, and what matters to the average person. Photography is one area where it is hard to get a grip on what really matters.
After just minutes online I was convinced that my camera was junk. I didn’t know what all those numbers in the camera specs meant, but I knew that mine were not the ones I was supposed to have. I did get good answers to the redeye problem (the flash is too close to the lens which makes the light from the flash bounce off the back of the eye directly back into the camera.) I also got good information about the colors (the flash is not like natural light) and some of our lighting problems (the camera “meters” by averaging the overall brightness of a scene, so bright window + darker wife = picture with detail of what is outside the window, and silhouette of the wife.) What’s more, is that I knew that better cameras had ways to deal with these problems.
However, I was more confused than when I started. I knew that something better than my $100 digital camera was in order, but how much more? A $4,000 super-high end Canon or Nikon was out. But, where in between $100 and $4,000 was the right camera for me.
Dad Knows Stuff
Over the next several days (Who am I kidding? It was weeks.) I began to narrow down the choices. In the end, I was left with an $800 Canon Rebel XT (they are cheaper now), and another camera, much closer to the $300 price point. The Rebel was obviously the better camera, but what I couldn’t answer was whether it was better in a way that I would want and need, or if I was just another American consumer being blinded into buying something more luxurious than I actually needed. Besides, another trip through the photo album showed the old camera worked just fine most of the time.
Confused, I turned to my father. My dad is a research testing guy at a major computer manufacturer, so he knows a thing or two about electronics and technology. I figured maybe he could help me sort through the megapixels and apertures and speeds. But, he didn’t. He didn’t help me one bit with my camera technology questions. Instead, he just said one thing.
“Ask me if I would pay $800 for just 50 more great pictures of you and your sister when you were younger.”
Wow! Advice doesn’t come much better and easier to follow than this. I got back online and researched prices. Eventually I ordered the Canon Rebel XT from Butterflyphoto online. I had read that they offered super cheap prices, but then called back to “confirm your order,” and then tried to sell you overpriced accessories in order to make their profit. Sure enough, a guy called to confirm my order. I played dumb and confirmed all the details and then when he said that I needed a memory card because one doesn’t come with the camera, I said “No, thanks.” He persisted, so I said, “Well, I don’t really know much about this stuff, I have a friend who helped me with the camera. I’ll have to talk to him first.” Mission accomplished. The guy gave me his number and we were done.
Worth It
Was it worth it? The camera is so good that it sparked a whole interest in photography. I’m already in the middle of getting the first business I quit my day job for running, or I’d be starting a photography business right now. I’ve read books and websites and practiced. I’ve bought new lenses and a real flash and even some backgrounds so I can take portraits. Our pictures? Wonderful!
Some of the greatest shots of our daughters are candids. Quick moments that were there and gone, but because of the speed of the camera and its much more sophisticated automatic features, those pictures are great. When I have the time, I can use the wide array of manual settings or other features to create really perfect pictures. Most importantly is the ability to show in RAW mode which allows you to make HUGE corrections or changes in pictures once they are on your computer. The bright window and shadowy wife? No problem. I can lighten her up while darkening the window, or maybe cropping it out all together. If the colors aren’t right, I adjust the white balance. My biggest problem now is trying to get my pictures printed before six months has passed.
Ask your dad, “Would he pay $500 for more great pictures of you as a child?” I bet he says yes.
Go buy your camera. Your wife won’t mind as much as you think. After all, I bet your mom would say, “Yes,” too.
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