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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.
Eliminating Stinky Diaper Pail Smells
When our daughter was first born, we got a Diaper Champ. It has a big piston-type top where you drop the diaper in, and then grab the handle and turn the lid over. The great thing about it is that means you don’t have to open it in order to put a diaper in.
Also, it doesn’t take any special (expensive) plastic bags like the Diaper Genie and assorted knock-offs do.
But, over time, either the plastic started to absorb some of the odors or the seal broke down or whatever, so we tried to replace it with another Diaper Champ. Somewhere in between the first and second one, they redesigned it with an internal plastic ring that holds the trash bag that you put inside. Whether it the plastic bag helped seal the old one, or what, I don’t know, but the new one never held the odors inside. Soon the kitchen smelled and we took it back.
Recently, I found a small brushed metal trash can with a foot pedal that opens the lid. Between the lid and the trash bag liner, it seals in even the smelliest of diaper smells. Unfortunately, when you open it, a blast of stinky air comes out.
The solution? Air fresheners.
Types of Air Fresheners
Most air fresheners are nothing more than perfumes that go into the air as the alcohol in them evaporates. That means you have a sweet smell mixed with a yucky smell. Pass.
What you actually want is not an air “freshener”, but rather an odor eliminator or odor absorber. The key is to get a deodorizer that actually absorbs the bad smells. While many air fresheners claim they absorb bad odors, many do not. The key ingredient to look for is activated charcoal.
For whatever reason, activated carbon, sometimes called activated charcoal, actually absorbs malodors. If you can find it plain, that is without a scented wax or liquid air freshener around it, it can be recharged and ready to absorb more odors just by putting it out in the sunlight. (It has to be sunlight, not just light, and through a window doesn’t seem to work, so outside is the way to go.)
Put one on the inside of the lid that opens and closes to help neutralize diaper odor when the pail is shut. Then, put another one on the outside of the trash can to help neutralize the blast of gross air that comes out. If you have your diaper pail in a closet or closed in space, one on the ceiling in there would be a good idea too. And, viola, no diaper smell leaking out and stinking up your whole house.
Finding this kind of air freshener isn’t hard, but you have to look someplace different. Apparently, Sally Housewife wants heavily perfumed flower smell in her air purifiers, so you won’t find plain activated charcoal ones in the kitchen or household sections. Instead, check the automotive, garage, laundry, or shoe odor control products. It doesn’t matter what it is “for”, you can use it as long as it isn’t the kind for water-based purposes like fish tanks, aquariums, ponds, or filtering drinking water.
The most common places you’ll find it is refrigerator odor eliminators and pet odor eliminators. Anywhere where you want to get rid of the smell 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In those applications, putting some chemical in the air to perfume it isn’t practical or desirable. You can also use cat litter, if you don’t mind. Just put some inside of a cheesecloth bag to keep it from making a mess and change it every once and a while.
If you ever find a mesh bag with plain activated carbon in it, buy it and hold onto it. When you do find them, grab 5 or 6. You’ll end up wanting them in multiple places and they always prove a little bit tough to find, so you’ll be happy to have some on hand.
Let Them Be Smart
I see so many people with their kids jumping in before their child has a chance to be smart on their own. I read a great book right after my daughter was born called “What’s Going On In There”. I highly recommend it to anyone who is curious about the mental development of their child.
The key item from the book for this purpose is that as a human brain grows, it makes pathways between neurons. This is what allows your brain to work. In an infant, a pathway grows for basically every single new experience. This creates too many pathways. So, around 3 years old, the brain starts to prune off the unused pathways to make it more efficient. However, until this happens, the toddler has the brain with extra pathways. This means that sometimes, it is physically impossible for them to process something any faster. So, although they might have the right knowledge, it seems like they don’t know because it takes three or four or five seconds for them to access the part of the brain they need correctly.
This morning, I put some Cheerios in some of the plastic Easter eggs we stumbled across. I left some empty. I set them down and she looked at them and then at me. After a few seconds, I was getting ready to move my arm and show her what to do when all of the sudden, she just “clicked” and began shaking the eggs one by one. The empty ones were placed unopened to her left. The ones with Cheerios, or “Os” in our house, were dutifully opened and the Cheerios eaten. If I hadn’t paused long enough, I would have never seen the skills she had and she would not have gotten to use them.
Don’t wait long enough for your child to get frustrated, but especially when doing a new task, or after you have just finished a long sentence or multi-part question, pause. Give your child four or five seconds to process what is going on. Don’t look like you are anxious or waiting or impatient. Act like it is perfectly natural for you to be waiting. You might be surprised at how smart your child is when they get the few extra seconds they need for those inefficient pathways to be used. Even more important, you’ll be making sure that they are using those pathways, so that they aren’t the ones that get pruned off!
Use Apple Juice to Help Baby Eat Better
It turns out that the secret to baby and toddler nutrition is apple juice. Can’t get your young one to drink enough water? Offer them apple juice. Can’t get your toddler to eat oatmeal? Make it with apple juice instead of water.
100% Pure Apple Juice
Let’s start at the beginning. You want 100% apple juice. Not apple juice drink, not apple juice beverage, 100% apple juice only. Juice manufacturers are sneaky and are constantly trying to fool parents (and others) into thinking that they are getting good high quality juice when they are not. So, the only way to be sure is to check the ingredients list. It should say Apple Juice, and nothing else. If it says grape juice, or sugar, or heaven forbid, high fructose corn syrup, put it back on the shelf and buy something else, no matter what the price difference is. Otherwise, you are buying apple flavored sugar water, and the only thing that does is start your baby on the road to fatty town.
Once you have the right juice (remember Apple Juice as the only ingredient), you are ready to implement the Apple Juice Contingency. The apple juice contingency works by using apple juice to provide a sweet and pleasant flavor for your baby in a way that does no harm to them. In the oatmeal example above, the apple juice gives the oatmeal a sweet flavor without using sugar. As for getting baby to drink, apple juice is a desired drink for most young ones. Worried about giving them too much juice? No problem. Dilute the apple juice. A 50/50 apple juice water mix will still be just fine for most young ones. Many will be happy with even weaker blends. 30/70 isn’t uncommon to be fully accepted as “juice”. The good news is that your toddler is getting plenty of water along with that juice, and at that rate of consumption you have nothing to worry about calories and sugar wise as long as we aren’t talking about 8 cups a day.
The only caution required is getting your son or daughter used to drinking only juice. You know they are getting plenty of water, but they don’t. You don’t want them getting it in their minds that they only like juice, so be sure to offer plenty of milk and water as well. In fact, insist that they drink milk and water on a regular basis.
Other Juices
This technique can be used with other juices, but apple juice is what is considered a “clear liquid". In other words, there isn’t really anything in apple juice to interfere with absorption of other food stuffs, and it won’t really fill up your baby making them full instead of eating. You know this from your own experience. If you just came in from a long bike ride on a hot day and there was no water only apple juice or orange juice, which would you choose to help your thirst? The apple juice because it is lighter and closer to water. Same thing for baby.
Object Down!
A game that I started playing with my daughter has turned into a great parenting technique. There was a commercial a while back for one of the “Buy your movie tickets online” companies in which a family was racing to get a movie. As they ran to the box office, the boy tripped and fell. His sister called out, “Man Down!” to which the mother shouted back, “Leave him!” Classic.
Anyway, I started doing the same type thing with my daughter when she was still too young to talk. “Monkey down!” when her stuffed monkey fell. By doing that, it made dropping things a game. (You must be very careful to never do this at the table, or food will be dropped constantly.) It is always good to come up with ways to let your children know that sometimes things just happen, and there is no need to worry or get upset by them.
It turns out, that this has actually become helpful to me. The other day, her shoe worked off her foot while we were in the store. I didn’t notice, and I would have eventually lost that shoe or had to go back through the whole store to find it. Instead, I heard my daughter say, “Shoe down!” (She matches the rhythm and pitch of the way my wife and I say it, it is soooo cute.) I turned to look, and sure enough, there was her shoe on the floor. Now, there are two of us looking after our stuff, and one of us isn’t even old enough to use a complete sentence. Not bad.
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