Tricks That Can Help Put Your Baby to Sleep (A Personal Experience)

 

Diary of a first time Dad

I’ve been thinking about how to start this article to the point the time used for thinking is far more than the time used for writing it. So here I go, I am starting. Whew!

So, I had an experience as a first-time dad and I thought it would be good to share it with every other dad who probably doesn’t know how it works to be a first-time dad like me. One of my greatest strength is my keen eye for catching details and good observation skill. I guess I can say that I have a superpower and it is observing and learning from everything around me and as such, I am able to adjust to seemingly tough situations faster than most. I’m proud to say that I have been able to bag more nights of longer hours of sweet sleep just because of being observant.

Please note that this trick doesn’t get you the whole night of sleep. Especially if your baby is not up to a year old yet.

So, scratch that off your brain biko. There is no way your baby is letting you sleep the whole night because they need food every two to three hours and by default a baby will naturally respond to any form of discomfort with a loud cry, and that’s something no parent can ignore, no matter how tired and how badly you need the sleep. (except you are a beast)

Anyway, before I digress and start talking about something totally different, let me just get back to the topic of the matter.

So, as I was saying, to help put your baby to sleep, this is what I learned. Let me give a little back story to help you have a better understanding.

It was a beautiful and serene night. The regular car noise was not that much because it was a Sunday and people don’t usually, go out that much. The night seems to have started out really nicely, my little girl is bathed by her mom, fed by me (dada) and off to bed at about 9:35pm.

Normally, when she sleeps by that time, The next time she’ll wake up would be around 12midnight or 1:00am which is usually due to hunger. We try not to let her cry for long before feeding her because the more she cries, the more difficult it usually is to put her back to sleep.

This knowledge gave us an attitude of adjustment of quickly jumping off the bed at the slightest sound of a cry. So at the slightest sound, her mother feeds her and back to bed she goes.

But on this unique night…we didn’t know that play was on the menu. After she was fed at past 12am, my Lil-Pookie started playing. She just won’t go back to sleep no matter how we cradled her. Boy did I really need that sleep (as much as my wife did too). The long and short of it is that she kept us up till 5:00am.

This wasn’t funny anymore. Every time she closes her eyes and it feels as though she is asleep and you try laying her on the bed, she is back awake again. What!

The thing don pain me.

PUTTING HER TO SLEEP

At this time, my wife won’t keep the watch with me anymore, so she left me with our daughter and went to sleep. My eyes were beginning to feel like I had someone pour a handful of beach sand in my eyes. That was a sign that I’ve been sleep deprived and need to get some. I was getting really frustrated but had to keep my cool and patiently tried rocking her back to sleep, but failed.

I carried her upright, placed her head on my chest with one hand supporting her weight from her bum and the other hand half wrapped around her while holding her head to my chest. I trust my daughter, she can move a lot and if I let her keep moving, she’ll be too distracted to sleep. I literally restricted her movements as much as I could. I held her with a little tighter grip than usual, this was to keep her stationed while I rocked from side to side and hummed a song.

Less than three minutes into it, she already yawned. Oh, yes that’s a good sign! I continued and in less than 5 minutes she was asleep. I placed her on the bed and this time she was fast asleep for real…no more tricks.

Took a deep breath, smiled a little and went to bed too. Boy did I feel proud of myself! What my wife couldn’t do, I did it (within 5 minutes).

Do you know what that means? Don’t even let me start with that. Anyway, I was proud of myself. LOL

I wanted to prove that my technique wasn’t a fluke before writing this article. So I waited for her to try it again. This time, I didn’t wait for her to take the whole night. During the first thirty minutes of observing her, I tried the technique again. Had her movement restricted her movements, rocked from side to side as I hummed a slow song. Each time she tries to drift into sleep, it is like she is suddenly interrupted. So she struggled and cried a bit. I wasn’t sure until I spent 30 minutes trying to put her to sleep with the same technique that had initially worked. I knew something wasn’t right so I checked her diaper. Alas, she had pooped and was feeling uncomfortable. That was why she cried several times and couldn’t sleep. Had her diaper changed and in less than five minutes of using the same technique again, she fell asleep.

After that, I have tried it several more times and it has been working. I am sure that there is someone out there who's baby will react like mine to this technique. So try, if it works for you, great! If it doesn’t just pass the info to someone you know who might need it.

NOTE: When babies act up in the night or cry when they are supposed to be sleeping, it’s usually because something is not right. It’s either they are hungry, they need a change of diaper, they are tasty, or just generally uncomfortable.

BABY RULE: If you want to have your sleep, then you must do for them what they want…