Daughter (16 months) can't sleep...with out her smelly crib bumper. The corner strings on one side of her crib bumper came off and she has learned to fold it down to form a very flat pillow. Then to get to sleep she sucks on the fabric. After one nights sleep on it, it smells really funky, so you can imagine after a couple of nights and with nap time too. It stinks! When she gets up she smells too!
She goes to bed fresh as a daisy from her bath and wakes up in the morning smelling like a ripe hobo. Even after nap time her hair and face are a bit smelly.
When I wash her bumper at least 2 times a week (although I could do it every day)...she cries for up to an hour trying to get to sleep on the fresh (non-smelly) bumper and once she has saturated it with drool and tears...and it has that scent she drops off to sleep.
Do I take it out and train her to sleep without it? Do I just wash it everyday/morning? Help!
I am so spoiled at nap time and bedtime, I tell her nap nap or night night, she lunges into the crib with out a peep. My son didn't sleep through the night until 16 months and even now at 3 he can be up 2 or 3 times a night. She sleeps so great with "the smell"...but it is finally starting to get to me and my husband.
Thanks!
I distinctly remember having a bear like that. I really hated when my parents would wash the bear and she didn't have that sleep smell anymore. Unless you want to risk upsetting what you have described as a great sleep routine, I would leave that smelly crib bumper and stop giving her baths at night. Let her go to sleep funky since she'll only get funkier and give her a bath in the morning! Good luck.
I wasn't sure that anyone else had something like this going on. When my daughter (who will be 5 in a week) was a month old, she received a baby blanket/quilt. Ever since then, she's slept on and with this little blanket. It started out as "Gammie" when she could barely talk, then to the proper "Blankie". Over time, this blanket has been severely loved, as you can imagine. She slept with it, played with it, sat on it, wrapped up in it, dragged it along everywhere. That thing was stained and smelly (to me), but she loved her Blankie, just the same. One thing I noticed is that she would smell it. I thought that was very strange, but it seemed to soothe her just to be able to smell it. As you can imagine, the blanket eventually wore out until it finally disintegrated. Now, she has a pillow that she carries around and she does the same thing with it. She didn't like when we washed the blanket and she doesn't like when we wash her pillow. She says it doesn't smell right when it's clean. I guess only she would know what that means. We do wash the pillow once a week and she hates it, but she just kinda drags it around and lays on it until it smells the way it should, to her. She understands why we have to wash it, but likes it better all "loved up", as we call it. Your daughter is too young to understand why you're taking the smell away, but she'll learn. I would say, wash the bumper pad once a week and, in the meantime, if she wakes up smelly, keep a washcloth with a tiny amount of soap handy to wipe her head and face with, when she wakes up. It'll serve 2 purposes.. to clean the smell off her and to wake her up so she'll be nice and fresh. I don't think the bumper pad is going to do any damage. It comforts her, it soothes her. It's not causing her any harm. I say, let her have her bumper pad.
I have never experienced this, but the only thing I can think of is what if you just start trying other things she might like. A little blanket or a doll something to distract her from what she is used to. Good Luck
MY 11 month old son seems to have an attatchment as well. In the early months, he used a pacifier. When we took it away, he found a teething toy I bought and started using it as a pacifier. The teething toy is filled with water and shaped like a small bottle, complete with a small flat nipple. He seemed to need it, to go to sleep. Sometimes he would even fall asleep with it, and I would remove it from his mouth, when he was fully asleep. I worried that his teeth would be damaged, so, I have been giving him different teething toys (all without nipples). So far it is working. I suggest, you introduce other objects to her. It will take time, but she will soon forget and get used to something new. hope this helps.
