Best Tip for Getting Your Baby to Sleep!

Written by Teddi B.

This bit of advice/knowledge, whatever you wanna call it doesn’t fall exactly into the category of “Yes It’s Normal”, but I could never stand by and NOT share the most important piece of advice that I have!!
What does a young mother with a newborn, a mother of 1 or 5 need the most?? -- A good night sleep, right?. To be able to face our very BUSY days (that is NOT rocket science). So a little background for you that may let you know how serious, passionate and darn right “not even kidding” I am.
I have been a mother for 23 years and have 5 AMAZING children – I have had totally natural child birth, epidurals, thumb suckers, pacifier users, discipline issues, sibling rivalry - you name it, I have probably experienced it and got the t-shirt. BUT… if someone told me that I was going to die and I could leave 1 piece of advice to my 4 daughters – what would it be (of course things of the Lord aren’t even a question – just talking practical helpful advice for mothering) --- my advice would be to buy a big box fan and put it in your nursery for your babies. CRAZY for some I know, but let me explain…
23 year ago I had the amazing blessing of having 5 older sister that had a total of 8 kids between them and 1 of them used a box fan in their nursery and noticed that they had REALLY great sleepers and wondered if it had anything to do with the box fan. So as we had children every sister had a box fan in her nursery and before we knew it, we had a total of 28 children and EVERY one of them were AMAZING sleepers as infants and children.
Fast forward to a few years back and one afternoon I was watching good ole’ Oprah and low and behold a Dr. Harvey Karp (a pediatrician who has A LOT of letters after his name) is on and he is talking about the Five S’s of Parenting/Soothing Infants:
Sucking
SHUSHING
Swaddling
Side/stomach positions
Swinging.
All of them are VERY good advice to soothing an upset baby, but he all of the sudden starts talking about the shushing. My ears perked up when he started talking about the VERY loud noises in the womb and he describes the noises to --- A BOX FAN and that the baby has heard all of those noises so that is why they LOVE the shushing (he thinks you should sh, sh, sh right in a babies ear (loud) to soothe them but there is something SO much easier and BETTER) - so my thought was - BINGO, I knew that my older sister was WISE, but now we had medical evidence to back up our crazy box fan obsession!!
So that is the history of “The BOX fan” and now I will share how it works.
Well, you go to the dollar general and you buy a big $12.00 fan and in the summer you use it in your child room to circulate the air – and help them sleep like ANGELS and in the winter you have it near the entrance of their room but pointing out so they don’t freeze BUT they still can hear it. That is it!!
I have had 5 AMAZING sleepers – the side benefits to the box fan is when the phone rings and you could KILL the person calling because your infant wakes up or your 2 year old screams at the top of their lungs and wakes your infant up or you would LOVE to vacuum but the baby is asleep (I have vacuumed right up to my kids doors and they don’t hear it) – they WON’T get woken up!
Now training a baby to go to sleep on their own is a whole other topic (which that same sister perfected for all of us – man I owe her a lot) but when they do wake up in the middle of the night the fan will help soothe them back to sleep. Trust me – I promise it works – it even works for adults. No matter how old your children are they will remember those special 9 months inside of you and that noise will trigger comfort in them.
All of my children still use a box fan and we are believing God that their spouses will learn to love them too because where they go their box fan goes!! Also, if someone says that it can hurt their hearing that is rubbish!! I know 28 adult/children that hear perfectly – well sometimes they have selective hearing but the box fan isn’t to blame!
One little side note is if you travel you need to take it with you because they become dependent on it but it is WORTH it. We have travelled by airplane to places and the 1st thing we do is find a store to buy a box fan and then we just leave it there. Another bit of advice is the small fans, ceiling fans or noise makers DON’T have the same effect as the “not so attractive” box fan (my best friend).
I pray you hear the passion in my writing and if you are WISE you will go RUNNING to the store – the most horrible thing IN THE WORLD is that they are hard to find in the winter so buy a spare just in case!! Or you can borrow 1 of my 7!! Happy SHUSHING and when you experience the wonder of it – PASS IT ON!!