Sleeping tricks

When baby Stryker was born, the hospital was offering a class full of tips for new parents. My fabulous husband attended the class while I slept off the epidural drugs lingering in my system. When we brought the baby home he was the miracle worker who got the baby to sleep each night. He explained that the class taught him about the 5 S's found in the book Happiest Baby on the Block by Dr. Harvey Karp, a pediatrician from UCLA:

• Swaddling
• Side/stomach position
• Swinging
• Shushing
• Sucking

For us, they worked like a charm. We swaddled the baby really tight so he couldn't move, calling him Burrito Baby. Then we gently jiggled him from side to side in quick motions while shushing him loudly in the ear. (The jiggle was from left to right in front of the body). He would get quiet immediately with the shush and the motion would make him drowsy. As far as the sucking step, my baby would not take a pacifier and never has. So when all else fails and baby is inconsolable, I breastfeed him till he falls asleep. The hospital demonstrated the 5 S's for us which was very helpful. If your hospital doesn't offer this advice, try Googling the info!

When he got older he started to break free from the swaddle- he would shimmy himself down into the blanket which scared me, or he'd just kick everything off so we eventually stopped that. Then when he could fall asleep by himself in his own room, we set up white noise to play in his bed to lull him to sleep. There are white noise machines you can purchase or...there's an app for that! It is a free app called Sleepy Baby and you can select white noise to play for an indefinite period so it'll play all night. We played it pretty loud because it is suppose to resemble the womb, plus our apartment neighbors can get pretty loud.