Hello, and welcome to my first edition of the Mommy Files! This idea may be terrible, I am really not sure if it is or isn’t… as it came to me on 3 hours of sleep while battling it out with my 3.5 month old baby and I gotta say… she won. heh. 

When my kid was born, she came out full term. We had no reason to expect any issues… but within the first 24 hours, she had been rushed to the NICU. She wasn’t able to come home with us for a full week and a half.. literally the longest week and a half of my life. When she was in the NICU, they put her on hypoallergenic formula because her little body was not a fan of the enfamil… like projectile vomiting not a fan… 

Anyway, when she was moved from NICU to well-baby nursery, they switched her to reg enfamil thinking it was fine…. <sigh> when we brought her home, she would occasionally (more than I liked) have projectile vomiting… this would cause her to choke when she was lying flat on her back. The docs said it was reflux and prescribed anti-reflux meds… for my two week old…

Enter the rock n play… I wanted something that would keep her upright and prevent the choking. This thing did the trick! AND she started sleeping through the night in it. 

RIGHT AFTER she started sleeping through the night, she also started turning more into the cushion… <sigh>

also…we saw a GI specialist… the GERD ended up being a milk allergen… <sigh>

we have been trying to transition out of the rock n play. we have had a few setbacks…anywho… list of love/hate is below

LOVE/PROs

• inclined and snug making baby feel like in womb or arms
• keeps baby from startling themselves awake and when they do, they are so snug they go right back to sleep… seriously. i have watched it happen folks… just this morning at 3am. (don’t trip)
• 6 hours of sleep! uninterrupted, for mommy AND baby!
• GREAT for babies with gas/GERD/reflux/vomiting issues (and when I say vomiting… I do not mean spit up… I mean straight up vomiting)
• did I mention the peace of mind that comes with that incline… allowing you to get some sleep too? it’s glorious

HATE/CONs

• baby gets used to incline and/or snugness
• can be hell to transition out of… (straight up)
• baby sleeps really well in it and less well in pack n play…<sigh>

I am sure there are more things that could be added to both lists. And yes, I researched tons before putting her in it and knew it could be challenging to get her out of it… with that being said, peace of mind so I could sleep more than 45 minutes at a time, made every single dollar I spent on this thing worth it. And it enabled her to sleep more too which was beneficial for everyone. Just like adults who don’t sleep… when babies don’t sleep, they get cranky and it sucks for everyone. 

I should add, she didn’t sleep in this for nap times and only slept in this rocker for about a month overnight consistently. She has been sleeping on a flat surfaced pack n play for about 3 weeks now. It is a slow process and damnit I am determined to get her to enjoy it. It has prolly caused me the most issue as I only sleep about 3 hours at a time and while she goes right back to sleep, I do not… hehe  

We started to transition her a few weeks back because she started wanting to turn into one of the sides of the head cushion and the second I saw that, I was like “nope… nope nope nope”… pulled her from it that very moment and had a very “youre cool, youre cool, f you, youre cool, im out *mic drop*” moment — so now we sleep less but baby is safe in her wide open space of a pack n play and although im chugging coffee, I am absolutely fine with the trade off. 

She moves to her crib tomorrow hopefully! One of the things we have learned is that she likes a mattress (and not the pack n play flatboard crap) so we expect the crib transition to be an easier one… we just had an issue in her room (stupid mother nature).

 

(ps… no one gave me a rock n play… i bought it thinking it would help with my kids “reflux” and it absolutely did. she is now sleeping on a flat surface and that has its own set of challenges… i think she will sleep better when she can flip over to her belly… she is almost there, but not quite)

With all of this being said, we have tried a few things to aid in transition and have learned many other things. But that is for the next mommy files post. Until then…..