Better Sleep for Baby

At 11 months, we saw a dramatic change with our McNugget going to sleep. She just wasn't ready mentally- too much to see and do. Although we tried it for "a minute", we weren't really "cry-it-out" parents - nor were we rock her to sleep every night parents.  We realized we had to find another way to let our girl - who has always been a terrific sleeper - settle herself down.

Even though she was obviously tired, she just wasn't ready to be dropped off for bed after reading, prayers and pjs. We made a few changes in the couple of weeks that we were having sleep issues, and now bedtime is a 15 minute routine again!

1. We started winding her down with a different bedtime routine. We first let her play in her jumper or gave her a bath - since she loved both of those. It only took about 5 minutes for her to wear herself out using both methods.
2. I decided to use the rocker for story time and prayers. If she still squirming around after 5 minutes, into the crib she went. If she needed a couple of minutes of extra cuddling - that was okay too. But we didn't rock her fully to sleep; we kept putting her to bed while she was still slightly awake. The rocker was just to 'settle' her for bed. 
3. We bought room darkening blinds. She's used to noise at daycare, but since its the summer and the sun is out until 9pm, it was hard for this early bird to understand why she had to go to bed! The old blinds had to go anyway - they had dangerous cords. We got these cordless darkening blinds at overstock.com (love that site!) for about $50 per blind. We were able to use a 10% off coupon, and they were cheaper there than we could find at JCP or Lowes. As a bonus we also got the 3% back from Upromise using their click through link.

The blinds are amazing. Bo says they were just about the easiest things in the world to put up - and they REALLY darken the room. We always use them for nap time and bedtime, and have even used them to keep the heat out of the room during the day.

See the difference where they're covering the window compared to where just the curtains are? LOVE them.