Watching your baby sleep is one of the most heart-warming things I can think of as a parent. It gets me every time. There’s something about seeing your baby’s chest rising and falling, her eyes fluttering, her mouth doing that cute little sucking thing, and hearing each and every soft breath she breaths. It’s not only peaceful for her, but peaceful to you as well.
If you want to help promote a healthy night sleep for your baby, you’re in luck!
So what are you to do?
Well since there are already plenty of people out there willing to give you some advice on how to get your baby to sleep well, I’m simply going to show you a quick little something that can help them to relax once they’re in their beds for the evening.
I’m going to show you how to make an easy, no-sew dream pillow using herbs and essential oils that can help relax your little one and get them to sleep soundly tonight.
Helping Your Baby Sleep: Herbal Dream Pillow Tutorial
The first thing you’ll need for your dream pillow is an unbleached cotton muslin bag with a drawstring. This way you can put your herbs and oils directly into the bag and tie it up without ever having to lay a hand on a sewing machine.
If you don’t have a muslin bag around your house somewhere you can take a clean rag, put your herbs and oils in it, then tie it up with a piece of tight string. It should look like an old-time coin purse. You can also do the same thing with a sock or a bamboo pillow cover.
Choosing Herbs
When it comes to choosing herbs that help put babies to sleep, hands down, lavender and chamomile are the first that come to mind. I love the colors and fragrances of these two herbs on their own. They have a nice light, floral scent to them. I also like to throw in some rose buds as well. You can do rose petals if you wish, but I find that they get broken up easily and don’t last as long.
You’ll need to combine equal parts of each of these herbs. I usually shoot for 1 TBSP of each herb.
After you have your herbs combined and mixed well, it’s time to add in your oils.
Choosing Oils
When it comes to choosing relaxing, sleep-promoting essential oils, that will help your baby sleep you have a few options to choose from.
Single Scents
First, you can go with a single oil like those found here:
- Lavender
- Chamomile
- Vanilla
- Ylang Ylang
- Jasmine
- Mandarin
- Bergamot
- Patchouli
- Sandlewood
DIY Oil Blends
If you want something a bit more than a single scent, but you’re not up for combining oils and making your own blend, you could always go with a pre-made blend of oils usually referred to as a synergy blend.
Here are a few of the most common.
Putting Your Dream Pillow Together
Finally, carefully pour your herbs into your muslin bag, cloth, or sock and tie it up where it’s not easily opened. Not too tight though… you’ll want to be able to get it open to add more oils later on.
Place it next to your child’s bed where they can’t reach it, but where they’ll be able to smell it well. For small children this may be right next to their bed just out of arms reach, but for older children it could be on a table next to their bed. Just show the dream pillow to them so that they know all about it and aren’t curious anymore. Then remind them not to touch it, but to leave it alone so they can smell it while they sleep and have sweet dreams. You don’t want them opening it up in the middle of the night and getting herbs and oils all over their bed! What a mess!
Okay, so that’s it. Helping your baby sleep is that simple. All you need is a bag, some relaxing, fragrant herbs, and some relaxing oils to make your very own herbal dream pillow and help your little one rest well tonight.
Do you have a tip to help your children get a good night’s sleep? If so, share it with me in the comments below! You can never have too many tips!
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Meagan Visser is the owner of Growing Up Herbal on Etsy where she offers natural, herbal skin care products for children. She also teaches parents how to take charge of their children’s health naturally on her blog, GrowingUpHerbal.com, and she’s enjoys living a simple and healthy life with her husband and 3 little boys in the southern Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee. Connect with her on her on Facebook and Pinterest.
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