– Hi, I’m Dana and today, I’m gonna give you some really good news.

You can save all your money on all the gadgets that are being sold for that crib. We don’t need any of it and I know it’s tempting. A lot of it looks really cute. You can get an aquarium, you can get a little like push thing that plays music, you can get mobiles, you can load the crib with a bunch of stuff, toys, but you don’t need any of that and your baby most certainly does not need any of that and let me tell you why they’re problematic when it comes to sleep.

When we go to a space that we use for sleep, like our beds, for example, what we’re trying to do is send a message to our brain and our body that it’s time to sleep and that’s why if you are having trouble sleeping as an adult, the first thing I would tell you to do is to eliminate all other activities in your bed.

So, we’re not working in bed, we’re not watching TV in bed, we’re not reading in bed, we’re not looking at our phone in bed. We’re gonna start sending a message that when you go to this bed, it is now time and this is the space in which you are to sleep and so, I think we should start sending that message to our babies right from day one that when you go to this space, the goal and the expectation is that you sleep and so, what happens when they get into this crib and there’s this really colorful mobile hanging right in front of their eyes and there’s all this stimulation attached to the crib bars and all these toys in which they have access to, it just creates a confusing message for one, is this playtime or is this nap time? I’m not too sure and it’s also very, very stimulating.

All the sounds and the colors and the movement is just winding your baby up when really, we wanna be winding them down and usually, most people are waiting too long to put their babies down for their naps or their bed. So, they’re already pushing into some over tiredness before they get to the crib and now, they see all of this stuff, which is just stimulating them even more and it’s just adding fuel to the fire, making it much harder for this baby to get to a place in which sleep can come easily and that they can calmly and comfortably take a good nap or sleep through the night.

There is lots of time throughout the day for playing. I love toys, but let’s move them out of the crib and get them to a more appropriate space, so that when your baby goes to that crib, sleep is the only thing that needs to happen.

Thanks so much for watching today. Sleep well.