Sleep Themed Baby Shower Gifts

If you've been lurking around or reading my blog posts for even, oh, 3 minutes, you know that I have 2 recurring themes throughout my posts: food and sleep. Today, we're talking sleep (again!) and what products we have used and loved over the past few months to get us more precious sleep. Currently, at 10 months old, the boys are sleeping through the night. About 11 hours straight. They wake up well-rested and happy and I wake up well-rested and (usually) happy - although I still need my morning cup of iced coffee.

It seems like every 3rd person I know these days is pregnant. That means a lot of baby showers. I have a go-to gift theme and I'll give you one guess as to what it is... sleep, duh. Some people put together little bath time gift baskets or diaper changing kits. I gift items that may help the new baby (and parents!) get a tad bit more sleep in the early months.

As new parents of twins, Andy and I get a decent amount of sleep. Some would call it a luxurious amount of sleep. We have good sleeper-babies but there are a few tips and tricks we have picked up along the way. How do we get 11 hours of uninterrupted sleep out of our boys? These products.

Swaddles, Sleep sacks, and footed-pajamas, oh my! For the first few months, you'll want baby to be swaddled. It feels natural to babies to be in a cozy, secure environment and they tend to sleep better when swaddled. Once they start to roll, swaddling is out and sleep sacks are in. Babies still get the cozy, secure feeling without Mom and Dad having to worry about baby rolling over in the middle of the night in a swaddle. Once baby is too long for sleep sacks, bring on the footed pajamas!

No lie. I now buy these Summer Infant SwaddleMe Swaddles for every.single.freaking. baby shower I go to! They come in dozens of adorable patterns and are much more decently priced than other brands (that we ended up not liking as much anyway!) 


White noise. I didn't think it was possible to love background noise as much as I do now. When the twins are sleeping, they have white noise on to drown out the sound of me doing dishes, watching TV or just generally moving around the house. At night, the white noise puts me into a deeper, more peaceful sleep - I would wake up at the tiniest grunt or whimper from these guys! We have this white noise machine in the nursery and set it at a neutral (read: not too soft, not too loud) volume during all naps and at night.

Wubbanubs You know I love these things. I know I love these things. The boys love these things. Emmett is not a binkie-baby and only uses his as a stuffed animal to suck on but Oliver is a binkie fanatic. I do not recommend starting baby out with a binkie as you may need to sleep train them to get them to learn to fall asleep without it down the road, but now that the boys are older and can find it in the middle of the night and use it to soothe themselves - life is good! Each baby gets one of these in their crib to do with as they please. These make super cute baby shower gifts! I can't believe more people don't know that these exist.

Stuffed animal blankets. I remember way back when (oh, 4 months ago?) when I was so concerned about putting one of these loveys in the crib with the boys. First time mommy problems. Since giving the boys a few items to use to comfort and soothe themselves in the middle of the night, they have started sleeping so much better. More often than not, when I go to get them in the morning, Emmett's blankie is soaked from him having it in his mouth all night. Loveys also make cute baby shower gifts!

What would you purchase for a new mom as part of a sleep-themed gift? Which products are you a fan of?