Turn Up The Volume! Baby Needs To Sleep

Many of the things I thought I knew as truths about babies have been shattered since having a little one of my own. How to get baby to sleep is one of them.

I remember aunts and friends always saying, shhh, the baby is sleeping. I have heard of babies liking white noise, swaddling and rhythmic sounds but liking 80’s metal, so much it soothes you to sleep, who would have thought that one up.

Obviously, this Rock Momma did. I remember it all very well. We averaged a whole seven hours of sleep that first week. You read right, for the week not a night, and I was beyond exhausted. Besides no sleep, baby man wanted to eat every two hours and took an hour to breastfeed. Now that is one hungry little man (13 months later, he will sit in his highchair for 45 minutes and eat. He takes his time).

One day, Daddy Man goes out to run some errands and I was with a howler. Baby Man just did not want to go to sleep. Forget trying to lay him down in his crib or putting him in a bouncer or a swing. Only the arms and pacing would work when and if he was going to fall asleep. If you did succeed to get Baby Man to shut his eyes, don’t you dare stop moving. You would no sooner rest the side of your bum on the couch and you would hear, uh uh uh, get moving momma.

My ears needed a break from the crying so I through the first CD I could grab one handed, which ended up being Queensryche – Empire and threw it into the CD. It was probably a little louder than I would normal play music for an infant, but an amazing thing happened. Before the first song ended, there was silence. Baby Man was content. The second song started to play; he started to whimper, so back to the CD player, first song repeat. After another play-through, little man slept. I listened to track one for over an hour. It was peace.

So for all of you mommas with high-needs babies, where all the advice in the world does not seem to help and you are starting to feel like you might be failing at this new mommy gig. Grab your favorite CD, and turn up the jams. You will feel better and it might be just what you baby needs too!