My Secret to Put Baby to Sleep

This is the most random thing I’ve ever figured out with my baby. I know different things work for different babies, but this one shocked me.

To put Dylan to sleep, I massage his ears!

That’s it. That’s my secret.

Tonight was a perfect example. He was overly tired, fussy, and wanting to just play. So, I laid him down in his crib and he was still fussing and didn’t want me to leave the room.

I started massaging his ears, he sleeps on his tummy (nothing I can do about it, if I lay him on his back, he flips right over to his tummy and falls asleep), so technically I just massaged one ear. I massaged the ear lobe all the way up and down, the back of his ear, the inside of his ear… all over it. His eyes closed 5 seconds after I started massaging his ear and then he was completely asleep two minutes later. How random is that?

My second secret to putting my baby to sleep super easily is the book “The Baby Whisperer” by Tracy Hogg. The Baby Whisperer is aMaZInG to say the least. Tracy Hogg does not believe in the cry-it-out method… nor do I, so it was perfect for me. I figured I would try The Baby Whisperers tricks and if it didn’t work then I may, at my wits end, try the cry-it-out method. Tracy Hogg teaches you that you have to be patient and nothing works overnight… THAT WAS TRUE!

It was really hard to be patient, but I started using her methods when my baby was about 4 months old (as I felt under 3 months, they’re just getting used to not being held 24/7 in the womb and I just couldn’t stand to not rock him to sleep… I still love rocking him to sleep every so often). I actually tried “Health Sleep Habits, Happy Child” by Marc Weissbluth, he’s the one who points out that the first three months the baby is in the 4th trimester and is slowly weaning off of being held and rocked constantly. I liked that idea. His cry-it-out-method really wasn’t so bad, it’s just letting the baby cry for a few minutes at a time and you leave for a few minutes and then keep stretching that time out. It just breaks my heart when I hear my own baby cry, and I lasted 2 minutes and ran into the room CRYING and telling baby that I will never leave him again to cry.

Back to The Baby Whisperer, she just matched my philosophies so closely, so I gave it a shot. She teaches a shhhh, pat method. Where you lay the baby down and shhhh and pat their back until they go to sleep. This was really hard at first because he was fussy and just wanted me to hold him, plus, it just took forever… when rocking really didn’t take that long. It was really hard when he’d wake up in the middle of the night and I was just worn out and tired and ready to rock him to put him to sleep faster.

Tracy talks about “accidental parenting” and it totally makes sense. I just rocked him to sleep because I was worn out, but if you stick with the shhh pat, then pretty soon you’ll just have to do your nighttime routine, shhh, and lay the babe down (which is now how it goes for us 90% of the time… he is still a baby, not a machine).

After just a few days, putting baby down was getting sooooo easy! I was excited and motivated to keep it up. In less than a week, I could lay the babe down and get things done right away. The best part is if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he just goes right back to sleep rather than fussing for me to go in and rock him back to sleep.

I think it’s great if you want to keep rocking your baby to sleep for every nap and at night. I still rock him when he’s sick (like, right now), and I rock him every once in awhile because I love the feeling of it… plus, when we travel, I need him to be able to sleep in my arms.

The Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg is my recommendation. If you are interested in sleep training your child, check it out. She says it’s best to use right away, but even if you have a 2 year old that just refuses to sleep in their own bed or has trouble going to sleep without you, she has plenty of advice.

And try massaging their ears… ya never know, they might love it.