Whether you are a new parent or an experienced parent, the type of sleep deprivation a baby can bring is insane! 

Sleep deprivation can be one of the hardest things to deal with. Sleep deprivation is used as a form of cruel punishment in some countries. 

Now of course we know that our babies are not intentionally trying to punish us.

 Babies’ sleep is erratic for the first couple of months to a year, of their life.  

It has a lot to do with their development, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5440010/ has a great article on the subject. 

We will discuss how we got our baby to sleep, and what helped.  We are not experts in any way, we were just parents desperate for sleep! 

WARM OIL MASSAGE

This was a very unusual practice for me because I’d never heard of a baby getting a massage. 

However, my mother-in-law is from Nepal, and she was very familiar with oil massages for babies. 

When we had our first baby, she visited us and helped us with bath time, and performed an extensive oil massage on our daughter. 

In my opinion, it looked a little rough, but my daughter was enjoying it. Our daughter was very well relaxed for the night, and we were grateful. 

TIPS

• 8-12 weeks is when we started implementing oil massages for our little chicken (yes, we call our baby chicken) I don’t necessarily recommend doing this for the newborn stage (unless you are doing it for non-sleep reasons) because newborns must wake up every two hours to eat. 8-12 weeks is when babies begin to sleep a little longer.

https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/infantandtoddlernutrition/breastfeeding/how-much-and-how-often.html

• Our favorite time to give her an oil massage was after bath time. Then after bath time, I would nurse her, that was my secret trick (bath, massage, and nursing) the trifecta of my baby sleeping well for the night. Now! we didn’t give her a bath every night, because she had eczema, and we didn’t want to dry her skin out. However, please feel free to massage your baby every night. ( I should add depending on your schedule feed your baby first, and then add in the bath, massage, etc, my baby was a cluster feeder so I nursed her after our bath routine)

• Of course, invest in a high-quality baby oil, or your favorite baby moisturizer your choice. Here are some we recommend. Earth Mama baby oil; Organic Coconut oil; Organic Burt’s Bees Oil etc.

• Adopt a baby massage technique that you feel comfortable with and has physical benefits for your baby, here is a video.

WHITE NOISE/ VIBRATION MACHINE

Okay, I know what you are thinking everyone knows about the shushing.

 However, did you know why this works primarily in newborns? 

So apparently, when your baby is in the womb, they listen to the rushing of your blood going throughout your whole body, and it sounds like white noise!

Awesome right? As stated, this works primarily for newborns, and they have erratic sleep, but this white noise may help them adjust to the outside world more comfortably. 

We were in shock when we found that babies sometimes have a tough time adjusting outside of the womb in the first week mostly. (Stay tuned for that crazy story, my friend in a different blog) 

TIPS

• Play noise machine, in a low light room (this will create the perfect atmosphere that your newborn is familiar with from being in your womb.) 
• For the first week, you bring your baby home and try to play with the noise machine to help them sleep better in between feedings. The two we recommend, for two reasons one is portable which could be a blessing for on-the-go naps, and one to have at home.
• you can try this technique starting at 0 weeks and for however long this helps your little baby!

LIGHTLY BLOWING IN THE EAR

So, this in my opinion was truly unusual. 

I would put my baby in a position as if I was going to burp them. 

Then I would lightly blow on the top of her ear. This work best for us from the age of newborn to 8 weeks. 

I have absolutely no idea why this works, it just did for us. 

https://baby.lovetoknow.com/baby-sleep/5-tricks-get-your-baby-fall-asleep said, “Just as an adult finds a nice summer breeze calming, so does the baby. 

TIPS 

• Ensure that you are blowing very lightly. 

Conclusion

There you have it friends! Those were the three unusual ways we got our baby to sleep. As we said we are not experts, but we were desperate parents I hope that you found it helpful that I put the ages on each technique. Getting your baby to sleep is not an easy task, but we are here to help. 

Please let us know in the comments how you enjoyed the guide, and if there is anything we can help you with we are here for you! 

Enjoy more amazing informational articles on motherhood here.