Being constantly tired is just one of the burdens that all parents have to bear, yet there are several things you can do to improve the quality of your baby’s sleep so that between feeds you can get some better quality rest than you otherwise would.
While these tips won’t immediately cause your child to sleep perfectly through the night they should help them sleep for that bit longer between feeds helping keep you marginally more sane.
White Noise
White noise can help your baby sleep however old they are. For young babies, white noise helps simulate the noises that they are familiar with in the womb helping them feel more relaxed and at ease which allows them to quickly fall asleep.
As your baby grows older and becomes more aware of the world and sounds around them white noise helps tune out noises which may otherwise disturb their sleep helping them to stay comfortable and allowing them to sleep on regardless of the doorbell or a noisy car going past.
Nursery Soundproofing
Soundproofing your nursery may sound like an intense and expensive DIY job, but it doesn’t have to be. Simply dampening sound in your nursery can make a big difference to your babies sleep and it can all be done on a very low budget with no serious D.I.Y skills required.
Adding a thick wool rug (or carpet if you want to go the whole hog), fitting weather stripping inside your door frame and adding soft furnishings such as a bean bag or small fabric feeding sofa/armchair can help dampen sound making it appear softer and quieter.
Strictly speaking, this isn’t soundproofing as it doesn’t completely block the sound, rather this is sound dampening which helps reduce echo and make noise sound less harsh inside the nursery. Yet it may make enough of a difference for the bark of your neighbour’s annoying dog to not instantly wake your baby up!
The Dummy Trick
Many older babies use a dummy to help them sleep, it is quite common for them to wake up and cry if it falls out of their mouth and they can’t immediately find it.
One particularly enterprising mother found a great workaround to help her baby quickly get back to sleep without needing parental intervention.
She scattered ten dummies round her baby once she had fallen asleep, this meant that wherever her child rolled if she were to wake up due to the dummy falling out there was immediately one to hand which she could grab and immediately get back to suckling and sleeping again.
We hope these tricks help your baby sleep at least a little bit better, thanks for reading and good luck!