One of the very first things that people say when they find out that we had two babies in one year "Oh my goodness, but how did you get any sleep?!"
And I have to admit, it was something that concerned me when I was pregnant with Sailor...we'd been very fortunate with Noah as he was a calm baby who slept through from early on, but Tyne had been the complete opposite and so we worried about how we'd manage if the new baby didn't sleep well....what if he disturbed Noah's fantastic sleep routine and we ended up with two tired, grouchy babies awake all night, every night?!
When Sailor arrived, it seemed as though our fears had come true...he was anything but settled. He suffered quite badly with reflux initially, and he found it difficult to settle down and sleep.
One night, after a particularly unsettled evening spent pacing the living room, rocking him, wearing him in a sling, and doing everything else I could possibly think of to soothe him - I took to Google and searched "How to get a baby to sleep" in absolute desperation!
The first thing that popped up was "White noise"...I had heard of this before but it was something I had tried...a quick read on Google told me that this was the practice of playing soothing sleep sounds for baby such as water running, hoovers and hairdryers, or nature sounds etc to help soothe them.
The womb is, after all, a very noisy environment and so to go from this to the quiet of the new world Sailor had found himself in was probably quite unsettling - I was keen to give it a try, and so I took to iTunes and searched "white noise for baby sleep" - plenty of options came up, but I went with the Hairdryer sounds option which I downloaded from a company called Fade Away Sleep Sounds, and it worked a treat!
What I love about Fade Away Sleep Sounds is that is does two jobs at once - as well as helping to soothe and settle your baby with calming white noise sounds, it also helps to wean your baby slowly off them too as the tracks fade out so slowly that you can't even tell they're fading...meaning that baby will remain calm and sleeping, without having noticed that the white noise has stopped. This will then help to gradually reduce their need for white noise as a soothing technique.
We found that after a month or so of using white noise, Sailor was settled into a calm bedtime routine and falling asleep without any trouble - whenever we are away from home and he is finding it difficult to settle, we revert back to using the white noise tracks and they work their magic again every time - perfect!
The ability to stream these tracks through our phones via iTunes and other streaming sites helps a lot too, as it means that they're available wherever we are - without the need to carry out anything extra!
I highly recommend using white noise for baby sleep if your child is struggling to settle, it really has been invaluable to us.
To find out more, please take a look at the video below
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