New parents face many challenges the first few days home with their newborn. I can remember my first two days with great detail. We’d had twins, a boy and a girl, and the idea of putting two newborns to sleep instead of just one seemed like an impossible task in the world.
That first night, I didn’t get any sleep at all. My son wouldn’t get to sleep at all. I wound up holding him upward as I sat on the ground because only the feeling of suspension would comfort him. I held that position for 6 hours until he woke up.
I watched 3 excellent Bruce Campbell movies that night.
As they got toward the 1-month age, my wife and I had this deep fear that SIDS would come around if we didn’t get everything right. Sudden infant death syndrome is super scary to a new parent. You get to a point of pure fatigue that you become unsure of what you’ve just done, so you keep double-checking everything every 5 minutes throughout the day.
We made the cribs be safe and kept toys and blankets out of it. We used sleep sacks since they were born in January to keep them warm. And then we installed a ceiling fan in the nursery.
Medical Professionals Highly Recommend a Ceiling Fan
There are three reasons why babies and a bedroom ceiling fan are a good combination.
- The fan provides some white noise for the nursery, which helps the infants fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer.
- The fan circulates air throughout the room, which prevents overheating while sleeping.
- It may help encourage continued breathing should the baby roll over for some reason.
We liked to use the portable cribs for our twins, especially for the first 3 months, because that allowed us to use our bedroom as a secondary nursery. There were nights when responding to the baby monitor seemed like a journey of a thousand miles. By keeping the cribs next to our bed, we could get up, tend to their needs, and then we could all get back to sleep.
Now that is not to say that a ceiling fan solved all our worries. Far from it. My wife and I were all about reducing every possible risk factor for our children. We offered the twins a pacifier at bedtime. No one was allowed to even smell like cigarette smoke if they came into our home for a visit. If someone had a cold or something, you were banned from touching the twins for a minimum of 14 days.
We also gave the twins plenty of time on their tummies. Strengthening the neck muscles was incredibly important, even if both of them hated “tummy time” with a passion.
Can babies sleep under a ceiling fan? Absolutely. From my personal experience, I’d highly recommend it. The twins are now enjoying third grade and we’re very thankful for the research and advice we received that helped us to get to this point