by Carmella Mae

Created on: September 03, 2008

When our youngest daughter was a baby she had a lot of problems sleeping through the night without waking up at the slightest sound. My husband worked third shift at the time, and most nights our little girl would be wide awake when dad got home from work, just waiting for him to walk through the door.

Because of our little ones sleeping issues, we had to get very creative and come up with unique ways of getting her back to sleep that most of us would never think of. You see our daughter was very energetic and if she got a five minute nap, she was charged up for hours and it was nearly impossible to get her back to sleep. We came up with a number of ideas that worked, for awhile, but after a few weeks, she got bored, and it was more a game to her, and sleep slowly came, if we were lucky!

One night we came up with an idea that became our daughters favorite "back to sleep adventure", and it worked like a charm every time. Her back to sleep adventure was a walk with dad, in her "pack-pack", as she called it. We had one of those really cool baby back packs that you put on your back to carry your baby/toddler in. Each night when dad got home from work, our little girl would most likely be awake, and waiting at the front door, "pack-pack" in hand, (it was as big as she was), for daddy to open the door and the second he came through the door, (at 4:00 in the morning), she would run to him saying, "pack-pack daddy, pack-pack"!

It was so cute to watch, as daddy, and his little princess prepared for their walk, which undoubtedly ended with our little sweetie being fast asleep. Even in the cold months, they went for their walks. Our little girl would be so wrapped up in blankets, you couldn't even see her, but she loved it, and it was usually the only way to get her back to sleep when she woke up.

Daddy and his little princess had this ritual almost nightly for close to 9 months. It started when our little girl was about 9 months old, and ended around 18 months old. It was one of a few ways that we came up with to get our little princess, and her little brother, the prince, back to sleep when all else would fail.

If you have trouble getting your baby back to sleep when they wake at night, or during a day nap, and if you have one of those cool back packs, give this idea a try, your baby will love it, and the two of you will create a really close bond as well!

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