Our Fool Proof Way to Get Liliana to Sleep

When we first brought Liliana home from the hospital, she feel asleep whenever and wherever we put her.  We thought this parenting thing would be so easy!  But, alas, she had to start growing up and those tear ducts started working.  Around week 8, it started getting pretty hard to put her in bed at night.  We tried it all, but inevitably she started crying and there we were an hour later still trying to get her to sleep.  I'm not going to lie, it was frustrating.  Once she fell asleep, she slept great, but getting her to sleep was pretty tough.

We tried getting her to sleep in our arms and transferring to the crib and this made her pretty furious as she awoke when we leaned over in to the crib.  Next we tried getting her to sleep in her favorite bouncy chair, but the second that we turned off the vibration on the bouncy chair, the crying ensued.  After a couple nights of Evan falling asleep next to her crib so that her crying wouldn't disturb my studying, we both knew things had to start changing.  I had an idea of just putting her in her crib and walking away.  This usually worked for about 30 minutes, but then she realized she was alone and it upset her too much.  What were we to do?

Evan then told me about a article/ blog that he read saying their fool proof method was to look for the FIRST sign of sleepiness in your baby and then putting them to sleep.  We decided to give it a try...it couldn't be any worse than the hour and a half it was currently taking right?  This method WORKS.  Now, I know that this might not work for all parents, but if it could just help one couple, then this blog post is worth it.  Since we tried this method nearly four weeks ago, we have NEVER had to go back in to Liliana's room. 

So here is our routine to put Liliana to sleep.  This method has worked flawlessly for four weeks and I assure you we don't look like newborn parents (you know, the ones with huge bags under their eyes).  We bathe Liliana (she LOVES bath time and even loves getting water on her head which apparently is quite uncommon).  Then we put her in her pajamas and give her a bottle.  Right after that, we watch her like a HAWK.  The second that we notice her eyes getting heavy or the second after she yawns, I nearly sprint to her crib and place her in.  After that she proceeds to watch her mobile and coo for usually 20 minutes, but she has never cried and then soothes herself to sleep.  They say that you shouldn't let a baby 'cry it out' until they're four months, but if this method that we've been using for the last month keeps up, we won't even have to succumb to that.

Now another word of advice on sleeping...we ADORE the mobile we bought.  I must give credit again to the best Daddy in the world because he chose this one for her.  It projects an image on the mobile and then when she's older, you take the mobile off and it projects the images on the ceiling.  You're probably thinking I'm one of those mothers that over analyzes her child's actions and knows what she's feeling...after all, how would I know that she loves this mobile?  Let me give you a little background: whenever Liliana is sitting there cooing herself to sleep, if the mobile turns off (which it automatically does after 20 minutes) she immediately starts to cry.  That isn't so hard because we just turn it back on with the handy remote it comes with.  Now, one time, the batteries ran out on it.  Evan and I ran around like chickens with our heads cut off looking for batteries and trying to keep her entertained until we could change them.  The girl LOVES this thing.  She watches it so intently and smiles the whole time it's on.  I swear, if it breaks I will go to Walmart that night to go buy another one.  Behold the adored mobile:

Fisher-Price Precious Planet 2-in-1 Projection Mobile

I hope this method helps some parents out there!  I am happy to report that Liliana has now slept through the night ( 7 - 8 hours) since she was 9 weeks old.  It gets even better...she is now sleeping about 9 hours straight...psh...this parenting thing is a BREEZE. ; )