A few weeks ago, we decided to see if our then 23-month-old daughter was ready to sleep in her own room again after many months of sleeping in our room.  The first night my daughter slept in her room, she woke up crying around 2 am.  We decided to take her to our bed for the rest of the night, but surprisingly, she did not want to be there and would not calm down until we went back to her room and I lay down beside her.  The following night, she went to her bed by herself which shocked us.  She did wake up during the night again, but this time she wasn’t screaming.  Unlike the previous night, I just went to her room and lay down beside her and she fell asleep without a problem.  Now, every night, she walks over to her bed, lies down and falls asleep beside me within 5-10 minutes.  The next day, she wakes up between 7 and 8 am and walks over to our bed.  If it’s closer to 7 am, then she will sometimes go back to sleep for another hour or so.

While our daughter was sleeping with us in the same room for more than a year and a half, I’ve been told many times that she shouldn’t.  Very few people, like my mother and grandmother, were supportive of what I was doing.  My much younger brother slept in my parents’ room until he was four, so to me and my mother it definitely wasn’t strange that our daughter was still in our room.  I am so glad I did whatever I thought was right because I did not have to suffer by using methods such as “cry it out”.  Our daughter was ready to move to her own room and that is what makes me really happy.

I really do believe that staying close to your little ones for at least the first couple of years is important for many reasons.  Also, time flies and you’ll quickly start missing those brief moments you were able to share with your baby.

If you’ve been wondering how to dress your newborn for night-time, you’re not alone. For the first few days of our daughter’s life, we had no idea how to dress her to sleep.  After reading online that overdressing babies can be dangerous, we ended up under-dressing her.  Then because she was too cold, we ended up overdressing her.

According to the experts, the ideal nursery temperature is 16-20°C (61-69°F). We kept the temperature at 19-20°C because I thought that anything lower than that would be too cold for our newborn.   At first, we dressed our daughter in sleepers (with feet) and then, mainly because we were tired of undressing her for diaper changes during the night, we decided to try a Grobag sleeping bag.  With the Grobag, I could stop worrying whether my daughter was overdressed or under-dressed.  All I had to do was to follow the Grobag recommendations on how to dress the baby at specific temperatures when using the sleeping bag.  I did find that I had to dress my daughter slightly warmer than recommended or her feet and legs would be a bit cold.

Our Grobag worked well until our daughter got bigger and felt trapped in the sleeping bag.  She started moving a lot during the night and the bag would wrap around her tightly.  So, we decided to switch to sleepers.  The cotton ones we tried, didn’t keep her warm enough and she didn’t seem to like wearing the fleece ones.  I ended up dressing her in a cotton sleeper with a long-sleeved shirt and cotton pants underneath.

Next we tried wool longies from recycled sweaters which would work as diaper covers at the same time, but I found that her belly or back were too exposed.  So, we went back to cotton sleepers with cotton shirt and pants underneath and tried to keep her covered with a blanket as much as possible.

After months of using cotton sleepers, we decided to try fleece sleepers because we keep our new house cooler.  I’m not sure what it is, but my daughter does not seem to like sleeping in fleece sleepers.  Partly, it’s not a surprise because I don’t feel comfortable sleeping in fleece either.  I need something lighter and more breathable.  So, we might be switching to cotton sleepers again.

As you can see we’ve had to experiment quite a bit.  What works for one baby, doesn’t always work for another.  If you’ve found something that works for you, then you’re one of the lucky ones :-)