Dana Obleman: Hi there! I’m Dana, welcome to this week’s video. Today I want to talk a little bit about props. Now, I know you’re probably sick of hearing me talk about props, I talk about them all the time. But, today I want to talk about some good props.

I get emails sometimes from parents asking me well, “Are all props bad?” And the answer is no, they’re not all bad. So I want to give you a few ideas here today of what I would call good props.

I know that a lot of children develop attachments to something called a lovey, that’s what I call it. That is just some soft toy or version of a toy that they become attached to in a sleeping environment. My first son had a giraffe he called Maggie and she slept with him every night and took naps with him every night and it was just a few years ago that he finally put Maggie up on the shelf instead of in his bed.

That was a piece of comfort in the night. I think of it like a pillow for example. My pillow, I love my pillow. I don’t want to sleep on anyone else’s pillow. I have a strong attachment to my pillow and I don’t sleep as well when I’m on somebody else’s pillow. That’s really what a lovey is, it’s a comfort item.

Now a lot of people say to me well, what if we lose it or we forget it and the child’s going to cry the house down and it’ll be the end of the world. It’s not usually, right. Because it’s not the child’s prop in the sense that he can’t sleep without it. It’s not like a pacifier in the mouth or being rocked by a parent or having a bottle to fall asleep too. It’s just a comfort item. So the same way, I don’t love to sleep on a hotel pillow, I still can and I will. It’s not my favorite, given the choice I wouldn’t, but I do.

So don’t panic and if it’s really concerning to you then buy a few of them so you have some on backup. I think that they should stay in the crib that’s my opinion. I think that it’s something to look forward to when it is nap time. I used to love the look on his face when he would see Maggie in the crib at nap time or at bed time and he’d get excited and give her a cuddle and I thought that was really cute and I didn’t really want him to drag her around all day long because she’d get ruined faster if that were the case.

A lot of children develop an attachment to a blanket for example. Now, blankets have some health concerns or some safety concerns I should say. You want to make sure that your child is old enough that they can handle having any kind of blanket in the crib. A lot of people sometimes just use a face cloth sized blankie or cut a small square out of a blankie that’s fine too if that makes you more comfortable. And obviously if anything is out of your comfort zone, don’t do it, right. They’ll still happily sleep without a lovey or a blankie it’s just something nice if you want to offer it its fine.

Another thing is white noise, a lot of people ask me about white noise. Is it OK, isn’t it? There was even an article, I guess it was about a year ago now, that said maybe white noise was damaging to a babies developing sense of hearing and I don’t buy that one. Studies have shown that babies in the womb listen to white noise as sound of everything going on in a mother’s body and have recorded it being about as loud as a vacuum cleaner going.

That’s pretty loud and it didn’t seem to bother their developing ears in the womb. I really don’t think it’s going to hurt their hearing at all now that they’re born. Obviously let’s not put it right beside their ear and blast it full volume…

That’s just common sense, right? I can imagine everyone has the sense around on that but I do find that white noise can be helpful in certain situations. I don’t think it helps a baby sleep but, I think it can help prevent a wake up if you have other things going on in the house. For example, a noisy toddler or crows that start chirping at f5.00am or a garbage truck that goes by or daddy has to get up for work. You name it, right?

There’s some environmental noise that could potentially wake up your sleeping child. I always say to people you know we’re not in comas when we sleep. Anything in the environment that’s loud enough will potentially wake up all of us, right? So why wouldn’t you want to try to preserve the nap or keep baby sleeping later into the morning with a little bit of white noise to help drown things out so that you don’t cause the baby to wake prematurely.

I would say to go for it. If you have a nice quiet home and there’s really no need then don’t start it because occasionally it can become a bit of a dependency. I’ve met enough people now who tell me you know, “I cannot sleep unless there’s white noise.” To know that maybe eventually it will become a bit of a dependency. Even if that’s the case though, you can still sleep even if there’s no white noise. That’s the story you tell yourself that you can’t, but you actually could. If you’re tired enough you will. So it won’t be the end of the world if you’re traveling and you forget the machine and he has to sleep now without it. Most people can live with or without white noise and most people don’t even really notice white noise often unless it’s all of a sudden turned off. Then you notice it was going.

So those really are two of my favorite good props. Some people ask about music and I think music can be a great accompaniment to a bed time routine. It can be a great cue to the baby’s body and brain that it’s time to transition into night.

However, once baby gets to the crib I would recommend you turn music off, OK? Because music is something to focus on and if she’s focusing on music and falling asleep to that and then wakes up in the middle of the night and there’s no more music to focus on, that might cause a full wake up and that might actually be distressing enough that she starts to cry and then you have to come in and either turn it on or do something else for her. So music free when sleep is actually meant to come. OK! I hope that helps you today. Thanks for watching, sleep well.

Transcription by CastingWords