Friday 5 October 2012

Sleep Tips Saturday


Who am I to give sleep tips right? My kid is a terrible sleeper. And we've gotten, well, not very far really...not yet anyway. But what I do know, is that sleep is such a massive topic among parents. We are the walking sleepless a lot of the time. It can divide us, unite us, destroy us. Maybe it’s one of those things or maybe it’s all of the above at various times of the day. You can take your pick.

Sleep Tips Saturday is going to be a short Blog post each week that may highlight a gentle sleeping solution – maybe I found it online, or from talking to someone or maybe it was suggested to me by the infamous Pinky McKay (I’ve been chatting to her – so lucky!) Sometimes it will be blog posts, inspiration, words of encouragement or a cool product.

Either way Sleep Tips Saturday will hopefully be a help, or just a forum for sleepless parents to unite and share experiences. It beats those other two. For everything suggested they will work for some, and not others. That’s the beauty of babies I guess. Such individual little beings.

My first resource I have discovered is thanks to the delightful Pinky McKay.
MUSIC FOR DREAMING

My little guy has been sleeping to the sound of white noise (train tracks) on my phone app for ages. It worked well as a newborn. As soon as we played it he would instantly settle. I didn’t even think of changing it. In my head it was one thing we knew worked so we kept doing it. I had even learnt to drown out the annoying train track sound by my ear on the baby monitor. Pinky suggested we try downloading Music for Dreaming on ITunes. She said it would be better for baby and for you. I didn’t really see how it would work for me. I was so used to the train tracks I didn’t really notice.

But oh my God I did notice! When I go in his room and pick him up to rock him for the umpteenth time I now close my eyes and am surrounded by this beautiful melody. The tracks are gorgeous, lulling and calming. I have it playing on a CD on loop all night – down low. I’m so much calmer now when I’m rocking him and while I’m still tired...I haven’t been thinking “I can’t wait to put him down so I can go back to bed” I’ve just been going with it, swaying to the music. Waiting for a few tracks to end before I put him down.

A couple of other plusses of these tracks are: It’s Australian and done in collaboration with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and it’s really accessible. You can hear samples here:
http://www.musicfordreaming.com/index.html

What have you used to lull your baby to sleep? Love if you share with me and other readers here!

PS. This is NOT a sponsored post! I just loved this and am sharing it with you all 


5 comments:

  1. We have been listening to Missy Higgins on repeat every night (and afternoon) for about 12 months. Still love it...and it's very calming. Don't think I could do the train track thing.

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    1. Aww I love Missy. I always hated background noise while sleeping. I used to be one of those people burying clocks under something so I couldn't hear the ticking...it's amazing what sleep deprivation does to you. I can fall asleep through anything now haha.

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  2. I sing (very badly) whilst giving my LO his last feed - any song I remember at least half the words to... the other half I I just make up. It relaxes him and just seems to work for our little guy :) my hubby does it too, and his 'lyrics' are even more amusing than mine!

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    1. hahaha nice! I sing Clare Bowditch to my little man :-)

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  3. I remember using the City of Angels soundtrack to help LM sleep :-)

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