You’ve been here before. It’s 2:00 am. Your baby is crying. You stumble in his room to find him ready for a diaper change, feeding and possibly some dreaded middle-of-the-night-playtime. The lights are out and you want to keep baby in a relaxed sleepy mood but you need light to change his poopy diaper. What do you do? This dilemma is one that could happen for any mom, any where. But we have some suggestions to help:Add a dimmer to baby’s room. You could put the light on ever so slightly to keep it very dim, but still give enough light so you can change and feed your baby without putting him in a playtime mood.
Carry a nightlight or flashlight. No need to put the lights on full blast – just carry a small nightlight with you that you plug into the wall and presto, instant nighttime light. Some babies will enjoy a nightlight long-term, so you can even try leaving it plugged in all night.
Get a nursing nightlight. I saw this company, Nighty Nite Nursing Light, at a baby tradeshow last year. They make a clip on nightlight than you can attach to your shirt or bra strap and get an instant glowing light that soothes baby and allows you to see so you can get business done. Very clever! And if you must turn on the light…. Do it quickly to change your baby, but then turn it off during feeding. You want your baby to understand that darkness means sleep-time!
Now go back to bed, Mama!
11 comments:
I try to make things somewhat easy on myself. DS sleeps in our room and I have a small dim lamp on my nightstand which I turn on once in a while. But my laptop is also right next to bed so I usually just poke that out of sleep mode which gives me enough of a glow to change a diaper and put him back to bed!
I keep baby's closet light on overnight, with the door slightly shut. It acts like a nightlight for him, and allows me enough light when I need it too.
I literally changed my LO's diaper in pitch-black darkness last night and thought "I really need a nightlight in here!" She's over 1 yr, and so I knew she hadn't made a messy diaper but was just wet, so it was a lot easier to take care of, but...these are good suggestions. She may be getting ready for a nightlight anyway for those occasional nighttime terrors :-\
my daughter has no problem associating dark with night time sleep. in fact, if i leave the light on when i nurse her to sleep at bedtime [830] she will NOT go to sleep. as soon as the light goes off, she out in a minute, TOPS. lol. ah, the power of BEDTIME!
I'm glad we have a dimmer in my son's room, that worked very well. But we will be moving before long so I'm so glad you shared the nursing nightlight. That is genius. I doubt we'll have a dimmer in our next place, so I'll keep this in mind! Thanks!
I completely reccomend adding a dimmer to any nursery, not even just for diaper changes but for any middle of the night wakings. When we were expecting #3 it was on my dh's to-do list for the nursery and I have been thankful for that everyday. He's 10 months old and still waking once a night most nights and it's nice to have some dim light when I go in for a feeding.
These are good tips! After having 2 kiddos now, I've found that either keeping a nightlight (with a very dim 4 watt bulb in it) plugged in in their room or having one of those "tap" to turn on lights sitting on the dresser is key for nighttime feeding/diaper changing. I also prefer velcro-closing pocket diapers so there's only 1 layer of diaper to deal with and it can be closed up easily. I also prefer wearing nightgowns or tops that have a wrap/cross type front or a stretchy v-neck so I can feed quickly and easily without fumbling with openings or pulling my shirt up and getting cold. Keeping nighttimes quick and easy is KEY! :)
Sadly, I think most of us get to the point where we barely need any light at all to change a diaper!
It's also a good idea to keep everything on hand in one spot so you don't have to look all over for wipes or cream. Velcro diapers are the perfect night diaper as well- no need to worry about being on the right snap settings!
ooo... I worried about keeping it dark and calm for my little one. Thankfully, regardless of whether we kept it dark and calm or not, he always went straight back to sleep. We just wrapped him back up, placed him back in his bed, and to sleep he went (if not soon, after a few minutes).
Another plus, he rarely pooped during the night.
I turn on the light in the hallway. Gives me just enough light to see, but not enough to blind my poor little sleepy baby!
We keep a lamp with a blue light bulb in it for a night light. It keeps the room dark enough at night, but you can still see if you need to change a diaper or feed at night.
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