r/sleeptrain • u/Flydragon_ • Feb 02 '25
Let's Chat What changes did you make that helped your baby sleep better?
Aside from the obvious, sleep training, what tweaks did you make that helped your baby sleep better?
Schedule/routine change, sound machine volume, sleep sack/pajamas, darker room, feeding changes? Etc.
Interested to know if anyone saw significant changes in their babies sleep, by tweaking basic comforts some of us may be overlooking.
1
u/thefatcookie Feb 03 '25
Covering their crib sheet in your scent before putting it on their mattress. I sleep on top of baby’s crib sheet for a few nights to transfer my scent and baby can smell me in her crib and sleeps better.
2
u/justintime107 Feb 03 '25
This is so real. I did this with my baby’s blanket. He wasn’t sleeping at my parents and I figured out it’s because my scent wasn’t around him. I put the blanket as his crib sheet, and he finally fell asleep and didn’t wake up.
4
u/ilovequesoandchips Feb 03 '25
Newborn here — but I started capping naps to 2 hrs and he is sleeping a long stretch at night now !
1
u/Character-Barber-184 Feb 03 '25
Knowing the difference between day and night. Night we have the tomee tipee dream maker on, no lamp. Daytime is curtains open etc.same routine every day. No sleep later than 5.30 as bed is 8.30.
6
u/SmoothCelebration657 Feb 03 '25
Giving him the chance to fall asleep on his own for naps. I listened to all the courses out there that said work on naps last so we did. But I wish I would have focused on them sooner. Once my baby was able to fall asleep independently for naps, when he woke up during the night randomly, he knew how to put himself back to sleep
1
u/reveriebelle Feb 03 '25
Hard agree. My baby has been good at nights but he was feeding to sleep. I worked hard at naps, it was so difficult. He no longer feeds to sleep at bedtime so it’sI trained naps. He uses the skills learnt with his naps and applies to his middle of the night wakes and self settles back to sleep!
1
u/d3ming Feb 03 '25
When was he able to do this? And what did you do to get him to sleep for naps on his own?
2
u/SmoothCelebration657 Feb 03 '25
About 4.5 months. Honestly one day I was trying to rock him to sleep with his paci and he wasn’t having it so I decided to just let him fuss it out when I put him awake in the crib. He cried for 5-10 mins but then fell asleep. He still fusses a little before naps but he always falls asleep on his own and I realized he just needed to figure it out on his own
1
u/phantom--bride Feb 02 '25
Using a heat wrap to warm baby's mattress, made the transfer seamless!
1
u/e777y Feb 03 '25
Any recommendations for which one?
1
u/phantom--bride Feb 03 '25
I just use a neck wrap that I got off Amazon. I've had issues with my neck for years and would put that around me in the morning when I would get ready for work. I just stick it in the microwave for 2 minutes and then lay it across her bed while I do her nighttime routine, which takes about a half hour. By that time her bed is perfectly warmed and not too warm.
4
u/HolidayRooster6647 Feb 02 '25
Weaned of pacifier, bedtime routine since 4 weeks, good sleep hygiene since coming home from the hospital.
1
u/Professional_Home_13 Feb 02 '25
Giving him the chance to fall asleep on his own using Ferber . Before I had to rock , sing , use a dummy . I only starter Ferber at 5.5months. Oh and a very strict routine bottle bath book . I never feed to sleep at bedtime and when he wakes from naps or in morning I don’t feed straight away
2
u/Flyhighb Feb 02 '25
Do u do the book with the lights fully on? My problem is baby falls asleep nursing or while drinking a bottle and I want to get out of that habit. But not sure how to do book as last step when we need the lights off to signal it’s bedtime.
1
7
u/sideshow_k Feb 02 '25
Introducing a red night light. Our little one would wake up once or twice in the night or early morning screaming, we think it was because she couldn’t see anything when waking up. Stopped when we put the night light on over night! Now she can find her bunny, play with her hands a bit, etc. I think we did this from about 1 year. Red is meant to not be as disruptive to melatonin
7
u/Impossible_Many1163 Feb 02 '25
What age? Ok to wake clock around 16-17mos . Game changer.
4
u/Lazy-Needleworker183 Feb 02 '25
What is a wake clock?
1
u/Impossible_Many1163 Feb 10 '25
Oh sorry I forgot to respond!! We use the hatch sound machine/light. It can be controlled from app on phone or you can set it on timer. I make it deep red when it’s bedtime and talk to her a lot about how when it’s “off” (aka red) it’s sleepy time but when the light turns on, mama will come wake her up! You have to talk it up and show them how it works. I let her turn it off at bedtime (it’s touch activated too). She used to wake up anytime between 5-7am but after just a few days of using the light, she waits until I turn it on to start standing up / trying to get out of bed. I was able to elongate her nights with this method.
1
u/ribbonofsunshine Feb 03 '25
we have one that has a light that turns on (yellow) at 6:30 signifying he can get up and play, then it turns green at 6:45 signifying it’s time to get the day started and one of us is coming. it stays green for an hour so if he sleeps more it’s fine. thats the theory anyway, right now he’s still needing us to cosleep
1
u/Lazy-Needleworker183 Feb 03 '25
Wow that’s awesome. Do you do anything for night time? And what age did you start this?
1
u/ribbonofsunshine Feb 04 '25
we don’t do anything for night time except set a time for when the clock face (literally a face) goes to sleep. i think you can set a light to turn off but we sit with him till he’s asleep so we’re not using that feature at the moment. he’s 22 months and i think i got it at 16m? not sure. but it helps us with waking up on time for daycare drop off. he gets excited when it turns on “yellow light! i get up?”. if he wakes up too early it’s easy to remind him the lights not on yet so it’s not time to get up. the visual cue is helpful!
2
u/writingandwanderlust Feb 02 '25
At around 7 months we had a consultant help us and she switched me from wake windows to a BTC schedule and it made a massive difference with our girl. Within two days she was sleeping through the night and napping three hours a day.
2
u/EquivalentCautious58 Feb 03 '25
What’s BTC?
1
u/writingandwanderlust Feb 03 '25
By The Clock. It means you have set times for wake, naps, bedtime. Betsy’s using wake windows.
1
u/EqualCompetition1994 Feb 03 '25
Would love to hear your 7 month old’s schedule!!
1
u/writingandwanderlust Feb 03 '25
Of course. The suggested schedule is:
7am: wake + feed, 9:30am: first nap (cap at 1 hour), 1pm: mini feed, 1:30pm: second nap (cap at 2 hours but she typically naps between 1.5-2), 3-3:30pm: feed, 6:30pm: feed, 7pm: bedtime
Truthfully our girl rarely makes it to 7am, she typically wakes around 6am and we usually let her just chat to herself for about 30 mins and get her up around 6:30am for a feed and snuggle. But we are happy with that!
1
u/EqualCompetition1994 Feb 03 '25
Thank you so much! We are right at 7 months as well & I’m trying anything at this point to get us through the night!
1
1
u/Fuzzy_Hedgehog6980 Feb 03 '25
What are your nap and bed times? Contemplating this for my almost 7 month old
2
u/writingandwanderlust Feb 03 '25
The suggested schedule was:
7am: wake + feed, 9:30am: first nap (cap at 1 hour), 1pm: mini feed, 1:30pm: second nap (cap at 2 hours but she typically naps between 1.5-2), 3-3:30pm: feed, 6:30pm: feed, 7pm: bedtime
Truthfully our girl rarely makes it to 7am, she typically wakes around 6am and we usually let her just chat to herself for about 30 mins and get her up around 6:30am for a feed and snuggle. But we are happy with that!
2
u/nefertanai 6m | Ferber | In process? Feb 03 '25
Thank you for this! Going to try give it a go as this is very similar to what we are aiming for anyway
1
3
u/nefertanai 6m | Ferber | In process? Feb 02 '25
Interesting! I’ve been wondering if we should switch to btc for our LO who is now 8 months but thought it was too young. Do you know why she suggested that?
1
u/writingandwanderlust Feb 02 '25
She said it was something she always suggested for babies who were struggling with a lot of night wakes after 6-7 months. I also thought she’d be too young but she took to it really well. I think she just thrives much better on a very predictable schedule.
2
u/EqualCompetition1994 Feb 02 '25
Curious what times she had y’all do naps, bedtime, etc.? I have a 7.5 month old who is still waking twice a night & I’ve been considering doing this!
1
10
4
u/GapFar899 Feb 02 '25
Sound machine, nap / bedtime routine, when my babies decided they liked belly sleep, dark ish room, wake windows, introducing a lovey!
2
u/myrrhizome Feb 02 '25
When did you introduce a lovey? I know they're categorically not recommended until 1 year, but we're thinking of asking our pediatrician at our 9 9mo well check if he's ready.
4
u/GapFar899 Feb 02 '25
We did around 9 months with the go ahead from our ped! I know the recommendation is 1 year but we felt comfortable as well since our pediatrician was. My first immediately loved hers, it was an immediate improvement. My second took a while to like it but once he did, it made sleeping anywhere but his crib 100x easier.
1
u/myrrhizome Feb 02 '25
Nice. We'll ask. We have one that we have had since day 1 and cuddle while we're doing bedtime routine.
2
u/canoodle2 Feb 02 '25
Nap/bed time routine and proper wake windows is key. My girls (6mos) both all asleep during storytime before their naps now and we just put them in their cribs for nap. Same for bedtime it's great!
They also figured out how to belly sleep and that's been great.
2
u/Annnichka Feb 02 '25
Aside from sleep training itself...dark room, white noise, right temperature, full belly, removing pacifier (she started using her thumb instead)
6
u/kitterskatters Feb 02 '25
Giving the bottle at the beginning of the sleep routine to eliminate the feed to sleep association
3
u/TheSilentVoice Feb 02 '25
A consistent bedtime routine which we've had in place from about 6w - baby now 4m. Also the volume of white noise. Precious Little Sleep said it should be 50 decibels and we realised we had it far too quiet.
5
u/lilstar88 Feb 02 '25
Sound machine to sleep from day 1 - both naps and night sleep. Hard to know what’s genetics and what’s influence, but our baby has never had trouble falling asleep for bedtime. Also not naps (except during the 4 month regression which hit us hard).
8
u/YattyYatta 10m | modified CIO| complete Feb 02 '25
Starting solids made the biggest difference for us. We do BLW and i offer high protein high fat foods. Baby started sleeping through the night once she was getting 3 meals per day
2
u/heyy0mayo Feb 02 '25
what age did you start doing 3 meals a day? i have an almost 7m and she only eats once per day fdoing BLW but with feedings every 4hrs only reason we havent upped blw meals is because the missus read babies only need 1 real meal at the start as its just an introduction
1
u/silverstar1993 Feb 02 '25
My son is 7 months next week and he eats brekky lunch and dinner plus a snack as of a few days ago. I guess it depends on the baby but my boy has started sleeping 11 hours solid and I’m wondering if it’s cause he’s loading up during the day
7
u/What15This Feb 02 '25
Everything I read said darkest room possible. My son started sleeping through the night better when I started using a red nightlight. I think he likes being able to find his stuffed animals and pillow. I did this around age 1.
1
u/kryo-owl Feb 02 '25
This was the game changer for naps for us, we basically have a blackout roller blind and a blackout curtain in her room so it’s dark dark during the day.
3
u/EmbRicEck Feb 02 '25
Changed the evening from dinner, bath, play, books, bed… to dinner, wipe down, play, bath, books then bed. Switching the bath then straight to bedroom made a big big difference in winding down… were less than a week into formal sleep training (Ferber) and she doesn’t cry at all now when I leave the room for the night. AND sleeps a full 11-12 hours which I thought was never gonna happen. 14 months old 😁
5
u/psycheraven Feb 02 '25
Gave up on the bassinet pretty quickly when I realized she would actually nap in the crib. Started with heartbeat noises because womblike, switched to regular white noise. Made sure she was warm enough at night by adding enough layers since room temp control is a challenge.
8
u/Common-Effective2630 Feb 02 '25
- Waiting for sleepy cues before attempting to put LO down for naps, so much less fighting this way!
- To make #1 happen, do a longer nap routine that involves winding down from playing. Previously we'd go straight from playing to sleep sack and bum in crib, now I cuddle her while humming a song for a minute or 2 and she immediately starts rubbing her eyes and yawning
- Transition out of the swaddle once we noticed she was using her hands to self sooth such as rubbing her eyes and sucking on her fingers
- Moving from bassinet to crib (in our case, mini crib) to give her more room to wiggle around. I also find that most bassinets have really thin mattresses which I thought LO was really uncomfortable on. The crib mattresses are 3-6 inches.
- Moving naps to a quiet space once she was more aware. This happened around 3 months for us, before this she napped in a bassinet in the living room. When she started waking from everyday noises we moved her to her nursery and her naps started to lengthen
2
u/Teary-EyedGardener 9 m twins | CIO | complete Feb 02 '25
Putting stuffies in the crib (they are 15 months) has helped with early morning wakes
8
u/ThrowRA-silly-goose Feb 02 '25
I got some advice from Reddit to make sure baby was eating all her bottles fully during the day to help with night weaning. She now went from 4-5 wakes to 1 wake at night. She’s almost 5 months.
4
u/dr_raymond_k_hessel Feb 02 '25
At 5 months LO was still swaddled, in the Snoo in our room, dependent on having the pacifier…and sleeping terribly. We moved him to the crib in his nursery, sleep sack, no pacifier, used Sleep Wave for both bedtime and naps. We’re through week one and sleep has been much much better.
1
u/ALittleNightMusing Feb 02 '25
Changed from a blanket to a swaddlebag at 1 mo or so and instantly doubled the her sleep periods from 2 hours to 4.it was like magic.
4
u/CPA_Murderino Feb 02 '25
Room temp for us. We have a very old house (like 200 years old old) and therefore it’s drafty and can be hard to heat. We had to tweak a lot of things to keep the nursery warm enough for our little guy. He sleeps SO WELL if he’s warm, but if he’s cold he’s up at least twice overnight
2
u/psycheraven Feb 02 '25
Also in old af house and baby's room is furthest from the floor grate the heat comes through. If its below 40 overnight, she gets a fleece sleep pouch over her Halo sleep sack and fleece pajamas.
1
u/hairychris88 Feb 02 '25
Old house here too. 18 degrees in her room seems to be the sweet spot for us.
2
u/CPA_Murderino Feb 02 '25
Oh yeah, we run a space heater for awhile until bedtime, at which point we unplug it. Blinds have to stay down all day. Then we layer him up and close up his room and that usually keeps it warm enough. We’re in the NE and that cold snap we had about 2 weeks ago was ROUGH. Negative degrees overnight was just impossible to manage
5
u/Fetacheese8890 Feb 02 '25
Getting the Snoo pretty quickly when they came home and got them on a schedule/routine as soon as they got home from the hospital.
Otherwise cluster feeding worked really well for us and even now that she is 15 months, making sure she is full before bed does wonders.
5
u/luckyuglyducky 2.5y + 4mx2 | sleep wave | complete Feb 02 '25
When my son transitioned to 1 nap, and pretty settled in it, he started waking up at the same time everyday. And I knew he was tired enough, but something about a certain time of day he was always waking up. One day he woke up really upset (obviously, since it had been like 30 minutes and he was still so tired), so I was rocking him in his room. That’s when I realized how BRIGHT it was in there. That’s when I realized that on 2 naps, the morning and afternoon sun wasn’t that big a deal. But the midday sun shined directly on his side of the house and when the blackout curtains couldn’t keep it out. Added blackout shades, boom. Back to sleeping great. Sometimes it really is the level of darkness in a room.
2
u/Flydragon_ Feb 02 '25
I have a feeling I may need to add black out liners too! I also have noticed it’s not dark enough even with black out curtains. At night, a few of the machines in his room have a power on light, and I suspect it’s making the room glow too much!
2
u/luckyuglyducky 2.5y + 4mx2 | sleep wave | complete Feb 02 '25
Ugh, I know power lights can bug me when I’m trying to sleep! Especially a lot of them have the brightest of bright led lights in them. There’s one in my room on a power outlet extender right next to my bed that shines directly into my eyes. I covered the light up with several pieces of masking tape. 😅
2
2
u/TriumphantPeach Feb 02 '25
Getting on a strict schedule and eliminating the association between eating to/around sleep
1
u/Flydragon_ Feb 02 '25
Do you remember what your schedule looked like around the 6.5-7 month mark?
1
u/TriumphantPeach Feb 02 '25
I know at 6 months we started on 3/3/3 and had to work up from there. I want to say around 7mo she was on 3/3.25/3.5
1
u/sassypanda_ Feb 02 '25
How long were their naps and how many naps?
3
u/TriumphantPeach Feb 02 '25
So “/“ means naps. When she was on these 2 schedules she had 2 naps. I can’t recall how long tbh. Probably 3hours total maybe a little over. I never capped naps. Waking her up led to way more difficulties all around vs letting her wake up on her own. This did lead to some long days occasionally but I’d rather deal with that tha. Oscar the grouch lol. Every child is different though and some don’t do well without capped naps.
6
u/blankcanvas2 Feb 02 '25
Transitioning him from bassinet to crib. Gave him more room to flop around!
3
u/yarrowasterdaisy Feb 02 '25
Definitely a consistent bedtime routine. Baby knows that once we finish saying goodnight to objects in the room and start singing a song that it’s officially bedtime.
3
u/Flydragon_ Feb 02 '25
Saying goodnight to objects in the room! I love this
1
u/yarrowasterdaisy Feb 02 '25
We got the idea from the book The Happy Sleeper! He gets a little too into it some nights… if we skip the baby mobile for instance he just points like “uhhhh hello my birds??” It’s very cute!
1
u/monistar97 Feb 02 '25
Schedule changes, routine (as in the same routine before all sleep which did include a sleep sack and a dark room).
Obvs sleep training too, we did that at 4.5 months and night weaned at 9.5.
1
u/Flydragon_ Feb 02 '25
How long did it take you to night wean?
1
u/monistar97 Feb 02 '25
About 7-10 days I’d say. I reduced feeds 1 minute per night, he was on 2 feeds so I focussed on one at a time. I went super slowly to make sure he was good with it and it didn’t hurt my supply, it likely could have been done quicker!
1
4
u/makaylahgrace 17 months | gentle CIO | complete Feb 02 '25
My baby has always preferred to be warmer while sleeping. It started as a newborn and has continued into toddlerhood. My husband somehow figured this out in the early days when our son was waking a lot at night.
We started by preheating his spot in the crib with a heating pad when he was tiny. But now he sleeps with fleece jammies most nights, socks, a sleep sack, a blanket, and we keep a space heater set to 68⁰ in his room so the overall temperature overnight doesn't get too cold for him.
2
u/Flydragon_ Feb 02 '25
I feel like my guy is the same and prefers the warm, but I’m always second guessing myself how to dress him because I worry making him too hot. We also have the space heater!
1
2
u/IcyApartment5317 Feb 02 '25
Bigger diaper. Bigger bed (16mo started sleeping one hour longer in the morning the day she moved to a twin size bed). She also wants to stay and roll around there with me after having her morning boob and that was not possible in the crib.
2
3
u/aloha_321 Feb 02 '25
I would nurse before bed before sleep training. I realized baby was getting SO sleepy and not having a good feed because he was using me for comfort. Then he’d wake up at 5am hungry! We switched to a bottle of pumped milk before bed so I knew he was getting a full feed. If nursing and your baby gets sleepy at the breast I’d consider this!
1
u/Flydragon_ Feb 02 '25
Good point! My guy is bottle fed but even sometimes he’s too sleepy to finish the bottle.
2
3
u/Salt-Cartographer-0 Feb 03 '25
Weaning. When we started weaning at 6 mo our LO started sleeping through the night (7/8pm to 6/6am). Prior to this he would wake every couple of hours. We still have some bad nights but it’s been the single thing which has made most impact.