4 Tips for a Happy & Rested Baby

“A good night’s sleep for baby means a good night’s sleep for mommy and daddy, enabling all to wake up well rested and ready to conquer their dreams.” —Pampers, with swimmer Dana Vollmer, for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games

As a first time mom I feel like I’m sharing a lot lately which I never did before…  I am finally at a point where I can write and blog and not feel so over-whelmed.  Life is definitely in a busy season for us! Which isn’t a bad thing, right?  Just makes it crazy-hectic-fun and all of the above!

One of the tips I get asked most about from my friends who are in the same season of life is…sleep?!?!?!  Not only for mama but scheduling the baby.  So today I want to share from personal experience what has worked for us.  This does NOT mean it’s what everyone needs to do, nor what will work for everyone.  I commend any mama and know being a mama is hard work, so do your best and don’t be afraid to do what’s best for you and your baby, a mothers intuition is priceless and far better than a blog post!

First of all, I always thought I would be this crazy person who was a stickler for scheduling my baby.  I am such a structured/organized/scheduled person myself!  Well the more I read and listened to others from their first hand experience and the more I realized real life…it just didn’t work for me!

What did work for me…and hopefully you can take a gem or two away from this read.  Because through these months of doing this advice we now have a happy 11 month old who is rested.  We get quite a few compliments on how happy she is and most attribute it to her healthy sleep patterns, for which I am grateful.

—> new mamas you know the feeling of advice…advice…advice…and you have to process it…take some and throw some…but here’s my most valuable advice I can pass on thanks to wise mamas and friends!

1- The first piece of advice from one friend…don’t worry about scheduling, they will schedule themselves, just pay attention and “listen”.  So that I did…

and now we have a schedule…she’s predictable and I know what times I need to be home for nap time!  Makes a happy baby and happy mama!

2- because… the next piece of advice from my mama was…as soon as you get a schedule or pattern they are changing and going through a growth spurt and that schedule is out the door.  Yep…that happened, for sure.

3- Onto the next piece of advice from other mama friends who I look up to…here’s the pattern you want to aim for.  Sleep, eat, wake (babywise method, but not the hard core method just mainly the advice to get this pattern!!!)  Which led into…

4- the next piece of advice… from my sister who is a mama of 3…sleep patterns and helping them learn to fall asleep on their own is invaluable.  When they start showing signs of being sleepy (i.e. rubbing eyes, yawning, fussy or hiccups) let them go to sleep and lay them down…although you can rock them, cuddle them etc but don’t let them fall asleep on you, rather teach them to learn to fall asleep on their own.  In my mind, I thought how in the world?!?! So that I did because I wanted to cuddle my baby and rock her…and the routine now is…we turn on our white noise machine- THANK THE LORD for that!!!!!!!!… then we sing Jesus Loves me…one verse, two verses, whatever we feel like…then I lay her down with her pacie in her mouth and she has to have one in her hand…and in a matter of minutes she’s gone.  She learned to fall asleep on her own.

Because of all of the above we have such a good sleeper on our hands.  Her naps during the day have dropped to mostly two naps a day and they are lengthening each day.  Usually at least an hour and a half each time and at night she’s generally in bed between 7:30-8:00 and sleeps 11-12 hours….straight!!!!!!!  Because if she wakes up, she knows to find her pacies and how to get herself back to sleep without me doing something…(hence tip #4 is so important the older they get!!)  She wasn’t used to nursing (or a bottle if you are bottle feeding) to fall asleep, she wasn’t used to me rocking her to get her back to sleep, she has learned.

“This post and giveaway were made possible by iConnect and Pampers. I was compensated for my participation in this campaign, but all opinions are 100% mine.”

Want to WIN a $50 Babies R Us Gift Card and Pampers Diapers?

Simply leave a comment telling me your favorite parenting advice you’ve gotten!!!  Winner will be emailed (so leave the email address you check frequently!) by July 3rd!

BONUS!!!!!!

#PampersDreams Instagram Contest Details:

The #PampersDreams Instagram Contest will take place from June 20^th to June 30^th. Winner will receive a $400 AMEX gift card!

Rules:

1. Post a picture of your little one sleeping and caption it with a big dream that either they have or that you have for them using #PampersDreams
2. 2. Follow Pampers on Instagram

PS if you follow me on Instagram I’ll post a reminder about this here in a couple of days!

“Entrants are only eligible to win one #PampersDreams prize package from participating bloggers.”

Hi I’m Erin a Southern girl from South Mississippi, owner and chief editor of Sixth Bloom a blog helping mom-tographers as well as up and coming photographers  become successful!  You will find me living life to the fullest with my mister (aka husband) and our new little addition Miss Elle in our 500+ sq foot cottage as we build our dream house on our two acres!  We are blessed beyond measure, love to travel, involved in ministry at our church and in between all of that I run three successful businesses!

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