# Driving baby around to get her to sleep



## Greaseball (Feb 1, 2002)

Does anyone else resort to the car to get their baby to sleep? We thought we would do this just for a short time and it's almost every night. Now it's starting to be twice a night. And we thought we could gradually phase out the car rides, but she's needing a longer ride to fall asleep now.









She normally gets really fussy and squirmy around 9 pm. We've tried rocking, music, extra feeding, and in-arms crying but it just goes on too long, so we put her in the car and she will sleep until about 1 or 2 am. She used to just nurse and go back to sleep; now she wants to stay up and play. We thought she would be satisfied playing on the floor while one of us slept on the couch, but no, she wants us to be paying attention to her. So again we are resorting to the car ride a second time during the night.

Is the car ride a big mistake? Is there any getting out of it now without making her cry? (She's 7.5 mos BTW).


----------



## Leatherette (Mar 4, 2003)

Oh man.

It's a slippery slope. We don't use car rides, but we have a really hard time getting our daughter to sleep. She is 14 months and full of it. My son was a non-sleeper as well. My rule for deciding what is/isn't okay in terms of getting kids to sleep is this:

Does it really bother me (driving them in the car, rocking them in the sling, laying awake in the bed endlessly waiting for them to fall asleep, etc.)?
Am I willing to deal with the consequences of changing the routine?
Do I have the energy to start a new routine and be consistent about it?

Because I don't think there is any point to trying to change the routine if you are too sleep-deprived to stick with it. Then you deal with crying AND no sleeping. But then, I live in the moment







. I have to.









And I hate hate hate driving, so there would be a line drawn for me.

Best of luck,
L.

PS Looked at your pics. Cute kids, and we have a chicken too.


----------



## Too Busy (Apr 3, 2004)

I have a child who, until recently, had two mode: awake and asleep. And she never made any signs of tiredness until she was past the point of no return, so we had to "induce" sleep.

We did the driving thing from 3 months until about 5/6 months old, I think. We had this whole balancing act of carrying the bucket and then I would get into bed and then my DH would carefully remove her from the bucket and lay her next to me... etc... and sometimes she would wake up and we'd haveto wait a while and start over. It sometimes felt like bedtime lasted for hours...

It was the hardest thing I ever did and we finally had to stop in July because it didn't get dark early enough and she outgrew the bucket.

This is something that I would probably never do again. We finally just stopped when we couldn't do the elaborate bedtime sleep induction routine anymore. I held her and nursed her and she cried in my arms. We took her in the car because it (sometimes) kept her from crying- she was a colicky baby. But after holding her and allowing her to release those feeling and listening to her, she was a lot less fussy. And bedtime got easier for awhile after that. She cried for awhile in my arms, but it didn't feel like bad crying to me, kwim? I don't know how to explain it...

There is no easy way out with a fussy baby. It seems like anything we do, we're trapping ourselves in something that we might not be able to keep up. You just have to listen to your heart and trust that you know your child and that it won't go on forever.








mama. I truly, TRULY understand what you are going through. And it does get better!


----------



## louisa0987 (Apr 29, 2015)

2 drives per night sounds a bit too much... I would try something else like, like limiting the naps during the day or something. If she wants to play at 1 am when probably all the lights are off etc, maybe she slept too much during the day...


----------



## sageowl (Nov 16, 2010)

I have a tough sleeper and had to do that for a few months... Been there!


----------



## SecondtimeMama (Jun 15, 2015)

Maybe it's time to look into a swing that vibrates? Colick and such can mean that the baby needs to be upright to get to sleep and then the vibrate/white noise effect of the car might be the other thing that helps. So duplicate that in a way that lets you all stay comfortably at home and reduces the transitions and maybe that'll go faster/easier?


----------



## littlebear3 (Jul 1, 2014)

I second the swing idea.For us, our dd would only sleep in the swing never took to the crib. Finally, we tried co sleeping at 6months and she has slept through the night ever since. I think some babies want the closeness.Maybe she isn't wanting to play, but simply be next to you?

Something to think about with the car drives.Whatever sleep method you choose, you are slowly engraining that that is what normal sleep is.The longer you go, the harder the break. Before considering co sleeping we knew itd probably be a couple year commitment if it worked.So, do you want to be lugging around a heavy 2 year old after the car rocks them to sleep? They're much more difficult to transport from carseat to bed the bigger they get.

Personally, id break the habit and consider co sleeping, but that's because it was the first time i finally slept through the night and it was like a whole new world once you're rested lol. Or transition to a swing then transfer.

Keep in mind, whatever you choose, babies at that age are still getting their wake sleep cycles down and teething can be bothersome.


----------



## Johnny Leaver (Oct 13, 2015)

Occasionally but I would never make a habit out of it no matter how hard it gets at times. It's going to be an inconvenient solution in the future.


----------



## Mar1 (Oct 12, 2015)

Oh man.. It´s always a tricky one.. If it doesen´t bother you too much, then you´re fine.. But braking the habit does get harder as the days go by (and I hate how easily the kids and me get bad habits!!!!) To get them to sleep in their own bed (or yours) is a task, but it can be done  Maybe you should contact some sleep experts or something around you and get some help and pointers??  Have a good day!


----------



## Melissa5 (Oct 5, 2015)

Our both children also needed the car ride to fall asleep. Later we managed to rock our son in a hammock which worked very well as an alternative. But I would always opt for bringing them as smoothly to sleep as possible at that age. My husband and I believe the first 2 years in a humans life are the most important for its development and life-time well-being. So even it is annoying to go even twice per evening for a car ride I think you do you child a big favour for its development.


----------

