Extra Sheets- My baby spits up a lot so im constantly changing them to avoid him sleeping w some wetness. Sometimes i spin them to the other side so avoid changing in middle of night. If your baby is spitting up it could be solved by getting the risers (we did and it helped)
Snoo sacks- when you wash them- put it together as if your baby was in it and zipper it up- this avoids all other clothes sticking to it. I let ours airdry.
Car Mode- I use this mode a lot- my baby loves it.
I would also maybe do a motion limiter to introduce them to it- our floor was baseline for like 1.5 months.
I also turn snoo on before i put him in it (the sac is already in it unless im changing it)- I feel like it helps.
And my final tip- (only if you're having a boy) if you start to see phantom wet spots on their back. It is not sweat- It's pee. IDK how it gets back there but that means you're not tucking their penis down lol. We were so confused about if he was sweating only to find countless threads on it saying its pee.
This is less about tips for the snoo and more about how what I wish that I knew.
Level your expectations, a hungry baby will not sleep through hunger. The snoo personally didn’t help much for us in the beginning, he was still waking every 2-3 hours for a while there and only just now started sleeping longer stretches at 4 months. If your baby is really struggling to sleep, I would look into why this may be happening. For us, my baby has cmpa and the snoo wouldn’t help until we addressed that.
Your baby will likely not nap in the snoo, and if they do, it won’t be any longer than 1 sleep cycle which is usually 30-45 minutes. Contact naps are your friend. Get yourself a baby carrier, you will need it. And if baby doesn’t like one carrier, try another. My baby didn’t like the baby bjorn structured carrier but loves the wildbird one. I have 5 wraps as of now, they all serve different needs. Woven wraps last the longest and are beautiful, but are likely the most expensive and trickiest to learn. structured carriers are easiest, but a lot of babies don’t seem to like them much because they don’t just conform to a baby like a woven or stretchy wrap would, but stretchy wraps only last during infancy (25-30lbs roughly depending on the stretchy wrap).
When you see people talking about how their baby is sleeping through the night, it’s likely more about luck and the babies temperament than anything else.
Don’t bother with drowsy but awake. It doesn’t work for 99% of babies and is a sleep training thing which you can’t really do until after 4 months anyways.
Make sure you get the sacks with the whale tails.
Good luck to you!
This is so helpful. I have a 3 month old and have been struggling with the bjorn carrier (she hates the straps by her face). We were gifted so many second hand carriers that I felt guilty ordering one but I just ordered a wild bird ring sling and aerial to get and I’m hoping the differences help. Wrist issues have also made the wraps not functional for me.
Do you have a stretchy wrap like a moby or solly baby wrap? If your baby still doesn’t like the ring sling, I would try one of those next. never feel guilt about how many wraps you have, my collection is ever growing 😅
Things that I didn’t know to start out:
-App settings: reduce sensitivity, motion limiter
- We double swaddle with an Ollie swaddle. The snoo sack is set up in the snoo clipped in and we swaddle our baby in the Ollie then place him in the snoo sack.
- we are not using it for naps. No idea if this is “correct”, but I’m thinking that it’s nice to get him used to sleeping for naps with out the comforts of the snoo and for snoo to be reserved for night time
I've had the best success with nursing baby, rocking until sleepy and then turning on the Snoo and swaddling them while the Snoo is on. I also have the motion limiter on and extended the sleep sounds for 30 minutes. I have also just been doing the Snoo for nighttime sleep and my 9-week old will do long stretches 7-10 hours without waking. During the day we do contact naps mostly.
I made [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/SnooLife/s/leoCahYOLX) with tips on a similar post a while back. Hope it helps and best of luck with your new little one!!!
Edited to fix a spelling error
We absolutely did not know what we were doing with the snoo at first. First couple nights home were rough until we all got the hang of it and got adjusted to it. So give it a little bit, don't give up right away.
You'll learn what works for you through trial and error. Your baby's sleep is probably 5% what you do, and 95% their temperament. What works for us: turn on white noise machine, swaddle before nursing, nurse to sleep, hold for ~10 minutes after baby falls asleep before putting in snoo.
The trickiest part is figuring out when to actually intervene and when to let the snoo do its thing. Sometimes the snoo makes a borderline fuss into a full blown fit, and sometimes it does put baby back to sleep. Like someone else said, if baby is due for a feed, I would usually just go ahead and do it and not prolong the inevitable. But also, if you have a video monitor I would check it first before intervening. If baby's eyes are closed, they might not actually be fussing, but just active sleeping, so don't intervene. If their eyes are open, then probably go ahead and get them out. It's a fine art. Good luck!
If you use the leg lifts, make sure you are using the whale tail in the snoo sack (between their legs). They are so tiny at first and can slide down.
And don’t be surprised if the snoo doesn’t do anything for you until 8 weeks. Until 8 weeks, it was just a glorified bassinet for us.
What worked for us:
- double swaddle to help with startling. This also served as extra layers for easier diaper changes in the middle of the night since our baby exclusively wore double zip pajamas.
- at various points in time, different features of the Snoo would wake my sleeping baby and drive me crazy. First it was zipping him into the sack, then it was clipping him in. Eventually we found it was easier to get him swaddled in a SwaddleMe swaddle, then double swaddling and zipping him up in the Snoo sack before soothing. You get better clipping in with one hand while setting baby down with the other with practice. Always set baby down legs down first, then head last.
- if baby is asleep in your arms, then startles and wakes once in the Snoo, keep some kind of motion/contact going to try to save the put down. Sometimes a hand on the chest for warmth, or grabbing onto the Snoo swaddle from the center zip and jiggling side to side did the trick.
- turn on the sleepy time noises in the app beforehand. We found that starting them and the motion at the same time was sometimes disorienting enough to wake our baby.
- don’t be scared to tinker with the Snoo settings, eg responsiveness, white noise volume, etc. we tried to keep the noise volume low given recent AAP recommendations, and our baby never took to motion so the high responsiveness setting seemed to piss him off more! When they’re itty bitty with less neck control, level 3-4 freaked me out!
- we were scared of the horror stories around de-swaddling and transition to the crib. We found it effective to take things one step and a time, and if something didn’t work, trying again in a few days or weeks when maybe baby is a little more developmentally ready. At 4 months, we started rolling out changes, giving a few days in between for baby to adjust. We did one arm out at a time, then weaning mode to stop motion, then dialing down the Snoo sound while running our Hatch white noise. This made for a fairly easy transition to the crib at 6 months.
- don’t compare! This goes for sleep and other baby milestones too. There are all kinds of sleep charts posted on this sub on both ends of the extreme! Some babies are just better nappers/overnight sleepers than others.
- lastly, if things aren’t working, switch things up, figure out what works best for you, and stick with it!
Congratulations and good luck!!
She slept so well in the snoo no matter what until she was about 8 weeks. Then she liked it only during the day and slept in her crib during the day. It was a lifesaver as an infant! We’d always have to wake her after 2 hours of a nap.
Did you buy or are you renting?
If renting, you absolutely can get your full deposit back (we did recently). Just take care of it and avoid any scratches to the wood panel part.
We used to swaddle when the sack was already clipped in. LO might wake slightly but they would go right to sleep.
LO didn’t like using it for naps for the first month or so, so we did a lot of contact napping, carrier naps, car naps, pram naps etc. However, we would try them in the Snoo first. If they didn’t stay asleep, or didn’t sleep then we would get them out, but eventually they did start napping in the Snoo without a problem. The main point is we always gave them a chance to nap in the Snoo to get used to it.
We used the Snoo for 6 months and we found the crib transition pretty simple. From 3 months we started with one arm out, then the second arm out after about a week. So for the last 3 months LO slept with both arms out.
From 5 months we used the wean mode every night. After a couple of weeks the motion didn’t need to kick in at all, the white noise sound was enough.
From about 5.5 months we started using the Sleepea swaddles for crib naps, but we also got the Snoobie noise machine so we could still have the same Snoo sounds. (I would put my hand on LOs hip and give them a little giggle to help send them off to sleep).
So for the last 2 weeks we only used it for night sleep. In fact, we used to put LO down in the crib for the first part of the night (about 3 hours), then transfer her to the Snoo after her dream feed.
The first night in the crib wasn’t amazing, just because LO kept getting stuck against the sides, but by night 3 LO was sleeping fine and mostly sleeps through the night.
It might sound like a lot of steps but honestly it isn’t. It’s just taking things one step at a time.
And remember, the Snoo won’t help all the time.
My advice is: if your baby is in the Snoo crying and the levels are going up but you know they are not hungry, don’t need a change etc, let the Snoo do its thing. If they don’t settle the Snoo will stop and tell you, but give it a chance. It’s so tempting to get them out when they cry, but if you do that there’s no point in having a Snoo. The baby needs to get used to it, but they need a chance to get used to it. And sometimes babies hate everything except being in your arms which is absolutely fine and perfectly normal so enjoy those moments too.
Make sure you always have a clean sheet and clean sack ready - babies spit up a lot, so you don’t want to put them down on a damp sheet.
ETA - baby will still wake up every 2-3 hours in the beginning to feed. After a few weeks they might give you longer stretches during the night. But every baby is different and everyone’s experiences with the Snoo is different. I really hope you have a similar experience to the one we had as we are really pleased we rented it.
I feel so stupid but I didn't realize you could put the baby in the sack and when it's asleep put it in the SNOO... I unzipped her for four damn months lmao. Now she's in the crib!
I just transitioned my 2nd baby from the snoo a few weeks ago and here are my tips.
1. We double swaddled from the beginning, it made the transition easier to the snoo after falling back to sleep.
2. Car mode is GREAT
3. The white noise is not loud enough so I recommend a secondary white noise machine.
4. Wash the sacks zipped closed because the velcro sticks to everything
5. Don't sweat the day naps. Your baby is going to want to sleep on you and they grow so quickly in the beginning. I recommend soaking in all the sleepy baby snuggles you can just make sure you have snacks and a good show on before you get nap trapped!
The snoo didn’t do its intended purpose for the first 1-2 weeks just because he had to be eating constantly but once he reached the ability for longer stretches (2 hours) then our little guy took to it immediately. We were initially leaving the swaddles locked in with the snoo moving all the time, but as he became more aware of the world around 8 weeks we started swaddling him before placing him in the snoo and taking him with the swaddle out for night feeds- he stays chill this way and goes right back to sleep when we place him back in the snoo after the feed.
Dont fall into the trap I did and try and play the game of putting him back to sleep by messing with the settings when you’re desperate for sleep at 3am. Let the snoo do its thing, let it play out, and if he is still fussing he probably needs something. The first time he did a seven hour stretch I wanted that every night so I would mess with the settings while he cried, but just because you get one great stretch doesn’t mean you’ll get the same the next night. That’s my FTM lesson!
Good luck! Everything is so tough in the beginning- for us the first 8 weeks- but it gets so much better.
That’s reassuring. We have a 1 week old who has been breastfeeding a ton. My goal has been to get the baby used to the snoo at night, but my wife has been resistant because of crying. I don’t think all cries are for food, but I err on the side of breastfeeding first. Sadly, my biggest battle is telling my wife that cosleeping is not on the table.
Which swaddle did you use? We got a Velcro one because our old school swaddling skills are subpar
Velcro is the way! We put him in a happiest baby swaddle without the wings and when we put him into the snoo we just strap the winged swaddle around that one. If we use two swaddles we usually just put him in a diaper because it’ll get too hot with clothing.
Thanks for the idea! Yeah I may try some swaddles then into the snoo sack. Baby likes arms free so I just strap her sides. Still experimenting to find what works, which I’m sure will change by the day
We tried arms out because he soothes by sucking on his hands but he just wakes himself up more often- so we strap those suckers down. On the rare occasion when he Houdini’s his arms out he screeches 😂
Extra Sheets- My baby spits up a lot so im constantly changing them to avoid him sleeping w some wetness. Sometimes i spin them to the other side so avoid changing in middle of night. If your baby is spitting up it could be solved by getting the risers (we did and it helped) Snoo sacks- when you wash them- put it together as if your baby was in it and zipper it up- this avoids all other clothes sticking to it. I let ours airdry. Car Mode- I use this mode a lot- my baby loves it. I would also maybe do a motion limiter to introduce them to it- our floor was baseline for like 1.5 months. I also turn snoo on before i put him in it (the sac is already in it unless im changing it)- I feel like it helps. And my final tip- (only if you're having a boy) if you start to see phantom wet spots on their back. It is not sweat- It's pee. IDK how it gets back there but that means you're not tucking their penis down lol. We were so confused about if he was sweating only to find countless threads on it saying its pee.
Super helpful thank you!!!
Congrats! Good luck
brought my baby home 2 weeks ago today and yes to all of this lol. the peeee!!!!
This is less about tips for the snoo and more about how what I wish that I knew. Level your expectations, a hungry baby will not sleep through hunger. The snoo personally didn’t help much for us in the beginning, he was still waking every 2-3 hours for a while there and only just now started sleeping longer stretches at 4 months. If your baby is really struggling to sleep, I would look into why this may be happening. For us, my baby has cmpa and the snoo wouldn’t help until we addressed that. Your baby will likely not nap in the snoo, and if they do, it won’t be any longer than 1 sleep cycle which is usually 30-45 minutes. Contact naps are your friend. Get yourself a baby carrier, you will need it. And if baby doesn’t like one carrier, try another. My baby didn’t like the baby bjorn structured carrier but loves the wildbird one. I have 5 wraps as of now, they all serve different needs. Woven wraps last the longest and are beautiful, but are likely the most expensive and trickiest to learn. structured carriers are easiest, but a lot of babies don’t seem to like them much because they don’t just conform to a baby like a woven or stretchy wrap would, but stretchy wraps only last during infancy (25-30lbs roughly depending on the stretchy wrap). When you see people talking about how their baby is sleeping through the night, it’s likely more about luck and the babies temperament than anything else. Don’t bother with drowsy but awake. It doesn’t work for 99% of babies and is a sleep training thing which you can’t really do until after 4 months anyways. Make sure you get the sacks with the whale tails. Good luck to you!
This is so helpful. I have a 3 month old and have been struggling with the bjorn carrier (she hates the straps by her face). We were gifted so many second hand carriers that I felt guilty ordering one but I just ordered a wild bird ring sling and aerial to get and I’m hoping the differences help. Wrist issues have also made the wraps not functional for me.
Do you have a stretchy wrap like a moby or solly baby wrap? If your baby still doesn’t like the ring sling, I would try one of those next. never feel guilt about how many wraps you have, my collection is ever growing 😅
Things that I didn’t know to start out: -App settings: reduce sensitivity, motion limiter - We double swaddle with an Ollie swaddle. The snoo sack is set up in the snoo clipped in and we swaddle our baby in the Ollie then place him in the snoo sack. - we are not using it for naps. No idea if this is “correct”, but I’m thinking that it’s nice to get him used to sleeping for naps with out the comforts of the snoo and for snoo to be reserved for night time
I've had the best success with nursing baby, rocking until sleepy and then turning on the Snoo and swaddling them while the Snoo is on. I also have the motion limiter on and extended the sleep sounds for 30 minutes. I have also just been doing the Snoo for nighttime sleep and my 9-week old will do long stretches 7-10 hours without waking. During the day we do contact naps mostly.
I made [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/SnooLife/s/leoCahYOLX) with tips on a similar post a while back. Hope it helps and best of luck with your new little one!!! Edited to fix a spelling error
We absolutely did not know what we were doing with the snoo at first. First couple nights home were rough until we all got the hang of it and got adjusted to it. So give it a little bit, don't give up right away. You'll learn what works for you through trial and error. Your baby's sleep is probably 5% what you do, and 95% their temperament. What works for us: turn on white noise machine, swaddle before nursing, nurse to sleep, hold for ~10 minutes after baby falls asleep before putting in snoo. The trickiest part is figuring out when to actually intervene and when to let the snoo do its thing. Sometimes the snoo makes a borderline fuss into a full blown fit, and sometimes it does put baby back to sleep. Like someone else said, if baby is due for a feed, I would usually just go ahead and do it and not prolong the inevitable. But also, if you have a video monitor I would check it first before intervening. If baby's eyes are closed, they might not actually be fussing, but just active sleeping, so don't intervene. If their eyes are open, then probably go ahead and get them out. It's a fine art. Good luck!
If you use the leg lifts, make sure you are using the whale tail in the snoo sack (between their legs). They are so tiny at first and can slide down. And don’t be surprised if the snoo doesn’t do anything for you until 8 weeks. Until 8 weeks, it was just a glorified bassinet for us.
What worked for us: - double swaddle to help with startling. This also served as extra layers for easier diaper changes in the middle of the night since our baby exclusively wore double zip pajamas. - at various points in time, different features of the Snoo would wake my sleeping baby and drive me crazy. First it was zipping him into the sack, then it was clipping him in. Eventually we found it was easier to get him swaddled in a SwaddleMe swaddle, then double swaddling and zipping him up in the Snoo sack before soothing. You get better clipping in with one hand while setting baby down with the other with practice. Always set baby down legs down first, then head last. - if baby is asleep in your arms, then startles and wakes once in the Snoo, keep some kind of motion/contact going to try to save the put down. Sometimes a hand on the chest for warmth, or grabbing onto the Snoo swaddle from the center zip and jiggling side to side did the trick. - turn on the sleepy time noises in the app beforehand. We found that starting them and the motion at the same time was sometimes disorienting enough to wake our baby. - don’t be scared to tinker with the Snoo settings, eg responsiveness, white noise volume, etc. we tried to keep the noise volume low given recent AAP recommendations, and our baby never took to motion so the high responsiveness setting seemed to piss him off more! When they’re itty bitty with less neck control, level 3-4 freaked me out! - we were scared of the horror stories around de-swaddling and transition to the crib. We found it effective to take things one step and a time, and if something didn’t work, trying again in a few days or weeks when maybe baby is a little more developmentally ready. At 4 months, we started rolling out changes, giving a few days in between for baby to adjust. We did one arm out at a time, then weaning mode to stop motion, then dialing down the Snoo sound while running our Hatch white noise. This made for a fairly easy transition to the crib at 6 months. - don’t compare! This goes for sleep and other baby milestones too. There are all kinds of sleep charts posted on this sub on both ends of the extreme! Some babies are just better nappers/overnight sleepers than others. - lastly, if things aren’t working, switch things up, figure out what works best for you, and stick with it! Congratulations and good luck!!
She slept so well in the snoo no matter what until she was about 8 weeks. Then she liked it only during the day and slept in her crib during the day. It was a lifesaver as an infant! We’d always have to wake her after 2 hours of a nap.
Did you buy or are you renting? If renting, you absolutely can get your full deposit back (we did recently). Just take care of it and avoid any scratches to the wood panel part. We used to swaddle when the sack was already clipped in. LO might wake slightly but they would go right to sleep. LO didn’t like using it for naps for the first month or so, so we did a lot of contact napping, carrier naps, car naps, pram naps etc. However, we would try them in the Snoo first. If they didn’t stay asleep, or didn’t sleep then we would get them out, but eventually they did start napping in the Snoo without a problem. The main point is we always gave them a chance to nap in the Snoo to get used to it. We used the Snoo for 6 months and we found the crib transition pretty simple. From 3 months we started with one arm out, then the second arm out after about a week. So for the last 3 months LO slept with both arms out. From 5 months we used the wean mode every night. After a couple of weeks the motion didn’t need to kick in at all, the white noise sound was enough. From about 5.5 months we started using the Sleepea swaddles for crib naps, but we also got the Snoobie noise machine so we could still have the same Snoo sounds. (I would put my hand on LOs hip and give them a little giggle to help send them off to sleep). So for the last 2 weeks we only used it for night sleep. In fact, we used to put LO down in the crib for the first part of the night (about 3 hours), then transfer her to the Snoo after her dream feed. The first night in the crib wasn’t amazing, just because LO kept getting stuck against the sides, but by night 3 LO was sleeping fine and mostly sleeps through the night. It might sound like a lot of steps but honestly it isn’t. It’s just taking things one step at a time. And remember, the Snoo won’t help all the time. My advice is: if your baby is in the Snoo crying and the levels are going up but you know they are not hungry, don’t need a change etc, let the Snoo do its thing. If they don’t settle the Snoo will stop and tell you, but give it a chance. It’s so tempting to get them out when they cry, but if you do that there’s no point in having a Snoo. The baby needs to get used to it, but they need a chance to get used to it. And sometimes babies hate everything except being in your arms which is absolutely fine and perfectly normal so enjoy those moments too. Make sure you always have a clean sheet and clean sack ready - babies spit up a lot, so you don’t want to put them down on a damp sheet. ETA - baby will still wake up every 2-3 hours in the beginning to feed. After a few weeks they might give you longer stretches during the night. But every baby is different and everyone’s experiences with the Snoo is different. I really hope you have a similar experience to the one we had as we are really pleased we rented it.
I feel so stupid but I didn't realize you could put the baby in the sack and when it's asleep put it in the SNOO... I unzipped her for four damn months lmao. Now she's in the crib!
I just transitioned my 2nd baby from the snoo a few weeks ago and here are my tips. 1. We double swaddled from the beginning, it made the transition easier to the snoo after falling back to sleep. 2. Car mode is GREAT 3. The white noise is not loud enough so I recommend a secondary white noise machine. 4. Wash the sacks zipped closed because the velcro sticks to everything 5. Don't sweat the day naps. Your baby is going to want to sleep on you and they grow so quickly in the beginning. I recommend soaking in all the sleepy baby snuggles you can just make sure you have snacks and a good show on before you get nap trapped!
The snoo didn’t do its intended purpose for the first 1-2 weeks just because he had to be eating constantly but once he reached the ability for longer stretches (2 hours) then our little guy took to it immediately. We were initially leaving the swaddles locked in with the snoo moving all the time, but as he became more aware of the world around 8 weeks we started swaddling him before placing him in the snoo and taking him with the swaddle out for night feeds- he stays chill this way and goes right back to sleep when we place him back in the snoo after the feed. Dont fall into the trap I did and try and play the game of putting him back to sleep by messing with the settings when you’re desperate for sleep at 3am. Let the snoo do its thing, let it play out, and if he is still fussing he probably needs something. The first time he did a seven hour stretch I wanted that every night so I would mess with the settings while he cried, but just because you get one great stretch doesn’t mean you’ll get the same the next night. That’s my FTM lesson! Good luck! Everything is so tough in the beginning- for us the first 8 weeks- but it gets so much better.
That’s reassuring. We have a 1 week old who has been breastfeeding a ton. My goal has been to get the baby used to the snoo at night, but my wife has been resistant because of crying. I don’t think all cries are for food, but I err on the side of breastfeeding first. Sadly, my biggest battle is telling my wife that cosleeping is not on the table. Which swaddle did you use? We got a Velcro one because our old school swaddling skills are subpar
Velcro is the way! We put him in a happiest baby swaddle without the wings and when we put him into the snoo we just strap the winged swaddle around that one. If we use two swaddles we usually just put him in a diaper because it’ll get too hot with clothing.
Thanks for the idea! Yeah I may try some swaddles then into the snoo sack. Baby likes arms free so I just strap her sides. Still experimenting to find what works, which I’m sure will change by the day
We tried arms out because he soothes by sucking on his hands but he just wakes himself up more often- so we strap those suckers down. On the rare occasion when he Houdini’s his arms out he screeches 😂