October 30, 2024

Helping Your Baby Adjust To Daylight Savings

Babies can’t read clocks. If they could, Daylight Savings would be much easier to manage. Until that time comes, adjusting to this twice-yearly disruption falls on you, the parent. Here are some of Hälsa Baby’s tips for making Daylight Savings a little less stressful, broken down by your little one’s age.

Newborns

If you’re caring for a newborn, you might not even realize Daylight Savings is around the corner. And even if it is on your radar, it’s way down the list of things you’re worried about. At this age, you should still be relying on your baby’s normal sleep cues and wake windows — whatever they may be. Chances are, your little one will adjust on their own after a week or two.

Five Months and Older

This is where Daylight Savings can feel the most disruptive. Maybe you’ve finally settled into a predictable bedtime routine, or just figured out the right nap schedule to keep the early evening crankiness at bay. Just like no two babies are the same, there are a few ways to handle the change:

Option 1: Do Nothing

If you haven’t settled into a predictable nap and bedtime routine, it may be best to follow the advice for Newborns above — keeping an eye on wake windows and sleep cues. After all, you can’t disrupt a routine that doesn’t exist yet!

Option 2: Plan Ahead

A few days ahead of the time change, adjust your schedule by ten minutes. If you normally get your little one up at 7:00, wait until 7:10 on Thursday, then 7:20 on Friday etc. Then push each nap and bedtime back 10 minutes as well. If they don’t want to relax in their crib in the morning, hold them in their room with the lights off and the sound machine on until the time comes to start the day. When it’s time to fall back, you’ll be well on your way to a new routine.

Option 3: One Long Weekend

This option packs all the changes into a single weekend. On Saturday, wake up at your normal time, but then add in about 10-15 minutes to each wake window throughout the day. Then do the same on Sunday after the time change until you’ve added an hour of wake time to the weekend. This is perfect if you don’t have to work on the weekends and can dedicate the time and energy to keeping your little one awake and entertained for an additional few minutes before they crash.

Whatever route you choose to take, know that there are millions of parents going through the same thing as you. If you ever need additional tips or encouragement when it comes to sleep schedules, BabyLiveAdvice is here for you at the touch of a button in the Hälsa App.

(Tips and advice sourced from experts at What To Expect and Huckleberry Care)

Note: The content on this site is for informational purposes only and should not replace medical advice from your doctor, pediatrician, or medical professional. If you have questions or concerns, you should contact a medical professional.

October 30, 2024

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April 10, 2025

A Quick Guide to Sound Machines for New Parents

Technology is helpful to new parents with a young baby looking for support. Rest assured, baby tech, like a smart baby monitor developed by pediatricians and scientists, is tested repeatedly before its release. That said, these products may have features you want to learn more about, like a built-in sound machine that plays white noise and lullabies. If you have heard how sound impacts a baby’s development, additional information can help you decide what’s best for your baby’s environment.

The Truth About Background Noise
White noise or lullabies serve as background noise while your baby sleeps. They help soothe your little one and calm them while blocking out other sounds. This benefits parents and babies, allowing them to get more restful, undisturbed sleep. However, too much of a good thing can have a negative impact. “Too much” means the background noise is too loud and playing too long. You can use a sound machine or a baby sleep monitor that plays white noise or lullabies at a lower volume without causing any discomfort for your baby.

The Science Behind It
A baby’s ears have smaller ear canals than an adult. Over time, repeated exposure to sounds above 85 decibels (dB) could negatively impact hearing. For reference, 80 dB is typical for an average alarm clock (remember those?). When your alarm clock was on your nightstand, around the same level as your ears and within arm’s reach, it was very loud. When you moved it across the room, it wasn’t blaring as loudly in your ear.

Similarly, the decibel level an inch from an infant sound machine may be different than that of the decibel level by the time it reaches your baby’s ears. So, both volume and distance from the machine affect the noise level, and you have the freedom to adjust the volume and distance and follow user instructions to use baby tech properly. That way, you keep your baby monitor hub at a comfortable distance and volume for a good noise level.

A Comfortable Noise Level
A high-quality baby sleep machine has a cut-off decibel level to ensure it doesn’t reach a level that could impact hearing development. This means it shouldn’t go over 85 dB. That’s not the default sound level for the baby tech product, either; it’s just the maximum threshold. Keeping the volume between 20 and 50 dB can help create a comfortable sleep environment for your little one.

Along with a sound machine on a hub, a baby monitor can also feature a baby cam and a smart sensor attached to an ankle band. These features allow you to track changes to heart rate, oxygen saturation, and external skin temperature (as well as the room temperature thanks to the hub). By monitoring any changes to your baby’s sleep patterns, you can make changes as needed, including the volume of white noise or lullabies and where you place the hub.

Whether that’s a baby monitor that plays white noise and lullabies or a data-tracking sensor on an ankle band, you can use all the support you can get. Whenever you have a question about your child’s well-being, you can also reference the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and talk to your pediatrician.

March 10, 2025

What Is Dream Feeding and When Would You Need to Do It?

In early parenthood, you wake up for midnight snacks more often than you’d ever believe, but you’re not the one who’s snacking. Newborns and young babies often rely on nighttime feedings to keep their bellies full and get the nutrients they need for growth and development.

As you learn more about your baby and track insights from their baby sleep monitor, you might wonder when you’ll finally get more sleep or worry that when night feedings stop, your baby isn’t eating as much. So, you want to learn a bit about dream feeding.

What Is Dream Feeding?
A dream feed is a nighttime feeding initiated by the parent. You might sneak a dream feed in just before your own bedtime or wake up in the middle of the night and initiate a feeding before your baby wakes up. During a dream feed, your baby is mostly or entirely asleep, and you do not wake them up to change their diaper. You gently take them out of their bassinet or crib, nurse or bottle feed your baby, and put them back to bed.

Why Do Parents Use Dream Feeds?
The most common reason parents choose to dream feed their babies is to get a longer stretch of sleep between the time they go to bed and the baby’s first nighttime wakeup.

Another reason a parent may dream feed is to maintain natural breastmilk production. Nighttime feedings may boost milk supply because of a hormone called prolactin, which supports breastmilk production. Levels of this hormone are higher at night. If breastmilk production decreases as your baby starts to get longer stretches of sleep, you might introduce dream feeds, but an alternative is nighttime pumping.

Lastly, a parent may start dream feeding their baby for added nutrition if their little one needs more calories. Talk to your pediatrician before dream feeding for caloric intake, as it has the potential to lead to reverse cycling, which means a baby wants more nighttime feedings instead of daytime.

When Would You Start to Dream Feed?
Newborns generally have smaller sleep windows, so they wake up naturally more often. A parent may see themselves initiating dream feeds as their baby starts to enter longer stretches of sleep. Generally, dream feeds trickle off as you stop breastfeeding or your child goes long stretches without needing you to feed them.

What’s the Best Way to Dream Feed?
The best way to dream feed is a way that causes the least interruption to your baby’s sleep. That could be different depending on your and your baby’s sleep habits. You will want to limit stimulation or disturbance to the sleep space. Make sure the room is at a good temperature with a baby temperature monitor for the room, and keep the lights dim (parents may be superhumans, but they don’t have night vision).

Not every parent has to dream feed their baby. It doesn’t make you a better or worse parent for doing it. You can always discuss dream feeding with your pediatrician if you have questions or concerns, but it’s not always a necessity.

January 28, 2025

Crib Safety: Things to Know

Crib Safety — What’s In, What’s Out?

Safety standards are always changing, especially when it comes to keeping newborns and infants safe. In 2022, the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) released updated guidelines on safe sleep. We broke down a few key points for you to keep in mind as you settle into a bedtime routine.

How To Choose a Crib

One of the most heartwarming things about welcoming a baby into the world is how generous friends and family can be with hand-me-downs. Many parents end up swimming in second-hand baby gear, from onesies to stuffies to blankets. However, cribs need extra scrutiny. Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing a crib:

~The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recommends avoiding cribs that are older than 10 years, as safety standards can change in that time.

~Avoid broken or modified cribs. All slats should be intact, and gaps should be no greater than 2 ⅜ inches apart.

~Make sure all the hardware is present and in good working order.

~Cribs with a “dropside” design are no longer recommended, as babies can accidentally fall out of the crib.

What Goes Inside The Crib

If your baby is still under a year old, SIDS can be a scary prospect. Your baby should be placed on their back to sleep for every sleep. Other ways to minimize risks include:

~Choose a firm, tight-fitting mattress. Make sure there are no gaps between the mattress and sides of the crib.

~Swaddles or sleepsacks only. All of those adorable stuffies, blankets, and pillows you got at the baby shower will have to wait. Keeping these things out of the crib will help prevent suffocation.

~Keep cords away. Whether they are curtain blinds or baby monitor cords, make sure they are out of reach.

~Hälsa Baby? Of course! While the Hälsa Baby wellness monitor is no substitute for following the above recommendations, it does give you an extra sense of security by monitoring your child’s heart rate, oxygen levels, and more, so you’ll know if something is amiss the second it happens.

The first year of a baby’s life can be stressful. Anything that brings you extra peace of mind can be indispensable. That’s why we offer BabyLiveAdvice. If you have questions about your little one’s sleeping environment, we’re here for you.

Tips and advice have been reviewed by our partners at BabyLiveAdviceTM

The content on this site is for informational purposes only and should not replace medical advice from your doctor, pediatrician, or medical professional. If you have questions or concerns, you should contact a medical professional.