Thursday, February 20, 2014

crib sweet crib

Crew is F I N A L L Y sleeping in his crib for both naps and nighttime. I didn't think this day would ever come. While I don't necessarily regret anything we've done with him and his sleeping habits, there are definitely things we won't do for future children.

Crew slept in the Rock N Play in our bedroom for about the first 3-4 weeks. He didn't like it very much after that because he was so big, I think. We bought him a swing/glider when he was 2 weeks old and when he outgrew the RNP, we moved him to that because he slept so good in the swing. At 8-9 weeks, we thought we'd try moving him to the crib at night. Well...that didn't work obviously.  He would only sleep about 20 minutes before waking himself up from his arms flailing or something of the sort. (He was NOT a fan of the swaddle after about two weeks. He was too strong and always wriggled out of it!) So, choosing better sleep over better sleep habits, we decided to let him stay in the swing until he was "ready" for the crib. (Note: we had moved his swing into his room so he would at least he would get used to being in there and that worked great.)

Once he started sleeping 6-8 hours straight in the swing we were dreading the crib move. But he had quickly outgrown the swing. His legs would hang off the end! We decided to start trying naps in the crib first and get him used to that. This was hard because Crew sometimes has a different babysitter each day between 3 grandmas, Will and then being at work with me so everyone had different routines and different ways of doing things - None of which were wrong, just all different making a consistent sleep routine difficult. Each time we would rock him to sleep and then lay him down in the crib, he would wake instantly and get upset. (I also didn't want to get him hooked on having to be rocked to sleep every single time.)

Finally, in the back of my mind I remembered a blog I had read while pregnant. It was something I had pinned called "super top secret baby tip." I followed the link to the blog again last week, but to my dismay the post had been deleted. I emailed the blogger and she responded by basically saying that she will always use this method for her own children, it goes against what the AAP recommends so she was uncomfortable posting the advice and "how-to" on her blog.

Luckily, I had already read the blog months ago and remembered the gist of the tip. I convinced Will that this was something we needed to try and we bought a king size blanket on clearance at Target and crossed our fingers. (We had considered buying so many things to help Crew sleep better like Baby Merlin's Magic Sleepsuit, a crib mobile, a projector for the ceiling....we did buy a Halo sleep sack and a wedge to help him sleep on his side because he's always liked that.)

Will was home with Crew that next day and he tried our new method. Let me tell you that we call that clearance blanket "Crew's magic blanket" now because of how well it worked. He was asleep instantly. After that first nap in the crib, we haven't looked back to that too small swing and it's been great! He doesn't even need to be rocked anymore and can pretty much get himself to sleep! (And YAY  for not having to use the dreaded CIO method!) I didn't realize how much anxiety I had been feeling about him hating the crib until afterwards. What a weight off our chests!


I understand that this method goes against what many people recommend due to SIDS risks, but ultimately I think each parent is entitled to their own judgement of what their baby needs. Crew needed something to make him feel secure and "hugged" like he did in his swing and we found just that. His is not able to roll over because of how secure he is laying in the middle of the blanket, but even if he were, he is strong enough to hold his head up and move around. Will said that king size blanket was the best $20 he's ever spent!
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5 comments:

  1. What is he on? Just a folded up blanket? I have a friend who swore by this, too. We tried it but maybe it wasn't deep enough. Noelle still startles when she sleeps on her back and her legs flail around when her arms are swaddled. We finally got her in the crib for naps but on her side. I don't like leaving her that way overnight because I don't want her to roll over onto her belly and not have her arms free. We are slowly shifting her to her back but it's a process.

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  2. Yea for sleeping in the crib! I am with you, you gotta trust your momma gut and do whatever works for you and your kiddos. That is awesome that this trick worked so well!

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  3. Hooray for sleeping in the crib! That's amazing. I remember when my daughter was finally crib trained, such a relief!

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  4. It took forever for me to get my son to sleep comfortably in his crib! And it took him until six months to sleep through the night. My daughter slept on a shallow pillow in her bassinet for her first few months but moved to a crib easily. As long as you feel that he is safe, do what you have to do!

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  5. Peanut slept in the RNP for the first 3-4 weeks as well. He didn't necessarily grow out of it, but one morning we woke up to find that he had completely turned his head to the side and it scared us that he COULD HAVE (but did not) suffocat or something by placing his face directly up against the side. I was worried for the transition to sleeping in the play pen because he does not nap well in the one we have downstairs. (We had gotten another play pen to keep in our room.) Side story - sometimes in the mornings after Hubs went to work and Peanut had his first nursing for the day, I would put him in the middle of our bed while I got ready for the day and he slept just fine. So I started to wonder why he wouldn't sleep in the playpen. I thought that maybe the playpen was too hard - it's literally a super thin "mattress" so I took a couple blankets I had, folded them up so that they would fit into the play pen and then set Peanut in it. (The blankets were for cushion, not really to snuggle him in.) He slept for a couple hours!! Then we put together the other play pen upstairs, did the same thing with the blankets and he sleeps just fine! He's still in our room, but in the play pen/ =]

    Runt
    runtspickins@yahoo.com
    www.runtspickins.wordpress.com
    (If responding, please email or comment a blog post of mine.)

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