Snoozing in Paris

We are so grateful to be parents during such an innovation filled moment in parenting. The SNOO bassinet has completely differentiated our experience this time vs. when we rocked, swayed and danced our first and second babies around in our arms for hours at a time with a prayer for sleep! In the first several weeks SNOO prolonged our newborn’s three hour sleep stretches to four hours. Fast forward to 3 months and our Léo is sleeping for 10 hours straight – at night. Check out the images below to see examples of the handy sleep reports that SNOO provides on your phone via the SNOO app. The red indicates where SNOO is gently rocking and soothing your baby back to sleep for you.

Bit of Background: I highly recommend reading “The Happiest Baby on the Block” by SNOO’s inventor Dr. Harvey Karp. I read it for the first time when I was pregnant with my first child, and reread it when we were expecting our second and third children. It will give you a great understanding of the “4^th trimester” and how important it is to mimick the womb experience for your newborns. In short, swaddling, light movement and white noise help soothe babies and help them sleep. We followed this method for our first two children and it helped us internalize these important principles.

SNOO is going to be an extra set of hands to help you do all the above. You will still be cuddling, jiggling and dancing around with your baby. But after doing that for a bit and loving this interaction, you will have the option to tuck your baby into SNOO. SNOO’s “SNOO Sack” swaddle allows you to easily swaddle your baby with stretchy organic cotton and Velcro. Turn SNOO on once baby is inside, and the light movement is going to help calm baby, alongside white noise. If you are like me, and wake every time your newborn makes those odd little bird-call shrieks – the white noise is going to help YOU immensely, too.

If your baby begins to cry or doesn’t settle easily with this light movement, SNOO will automatically respond with faster rocking and more white noise. All of these settings can be adjusted and SNOO can even be locked to stay at a certain level using the app.

The night: If your baby wakes or fusses in the middle of the night, SNOO will attempt to calm him per above, and will prolong everyone’s sleep in the process. In the first few weeks, you will of course still need to feed baby every 3 or so hours, or as often as your doctor recommends. SNOO helps you achieve these solid 3 hours in the beginning, and helps you prolong them as baby gets older and eats less often at night.

Our schedule: Now that Léo is 3 months old, the following loose schedule has worked for us: Small daytime naps in the stroller when running errands or taking our big kids to school. One SNOO nap during the day, about 2 hours. Then a 8 – 10 solid stretch at night, starting sometime between 9 – 11pm, when baby is clearly ready.

Tips:

*My SNOO ritual: Once baby is clearly ready (e.g. he fell asleep during feeding, he was crying out of tiredness, etc.) I place him in the SNOO Sack which is open and already attached to the SNOO. I then secure his arms in the Velcro, and then turn on SNOO so there is light movement while I zip up the SNOO sack. Voila!

*Our baby has been very “vomity” from birth with a lot of spitting up. You can add leg lifters to slightly and safely angle SNOO so baby is not lying entirely on his back.

*One of the only reasons our baby occasionally doesn’t easily settle in SNOO is due to a stuck burp. After a night feed, I typically hold him upright and snuggle with him for at least 15 minutes before putting him in. Sometimes if he seems uncomfortable in SNOO, I take him out, a burp pops out, and then back in he goes!

We are so thankful to Dr. Karp, Nina Montee Karp and Lexi Montee for such a game -changing product. You can read about the family behind Happiest Baby and SNOO in Forbes here.

Photos taken at the majestic and baby friendly Hôtel de Crillon. Click here to visit their website.