Establishing Night Vs Day

A helpful tool for me after bringing little M home, was the Baby Einstein crib aquarium. It is a plastic "pretend" aquarium that fastens securely to the side of your crib. It has 4 settings. You can (1) play the aquarium bubbling sounds, (2) play them with light so the baby can watch the fish swim to the sounds, (3) play music, or (4) play music with light and moving fish.

What we did to establish night and day, was every night when we went to bed and put her in the bassinet, we would play the aquarium bubbling sounds. This included any time at night that we put her down after she got up to feed.

This connected a sound with night time. So, every time she laid down in her bassinet and heard the sounds, she would know that it was night time, not play time. This method worked wonderful for us and at 5.5 months old, it is still working. However, I do know of babies that this did not work for. Like they say, every baby is different. Nonetheless, if you are having trouble getting your little bundle of joy to know the difference between bed time and nap time, I recommend giving this a shot.

SLEEP

SIDS

Everyone knows - "Back to sleep" for a reason. This is the number one thing you can do to help combat SIDS. Other possible helpful measures are having a fan in the room, keeping child cooler rather than warmer (the reason is most kids will wake up if they're too cold; not as likely to wake up if they're too warm), no bumpers in the cribs, no blankets in the crib, no toys in the crib, a firm mattress. 2-4 months is the most stressful window; likelihood of SIDS starts to decline around 6 months and is almost gone by 1 year old.

Co Sleeping

Obviously do not co sleep with your child if drunk or taking sleeping pills. A king size bed works best in this case. If that's not an option, kick out the animals (possibly the husband) and get as much sleep as you can. I did this for the first couple weeks Liam was home and was glad I did. But I was also glad when we put him in his cradle and now crib on a regular basis.

What to wear

L. was born heading into winter and it was chilly outside. I was worried that he would be too cold sleeping and really wanted to use blankets. I found for the first several weeks the SwaddleMe worked great. Kept him secure and warm w/out using blankets but also allowed the kicking of legs when the gas hit. After he outgrew being swaddled, we switched right over to a sleep sack and have continued to use.