waking up with baby at night - lights?

[maplekitty]

When you wake up with your baby at night, do you turn on the lights? Do you have a nigh-light that you switch on for a small amount of light? do you keep the lights off but have the hallway light on to see?

Just curious? I was watching "Bringing Home Baby" on TLC and noticed the new parents switch on the lights everytime the baby cried, and I just wondered if that affects the baby going back to sleep?

[Brink]

We just turned on a small light to help change the diaper and then turned it off for BF. We also didn't talk to her at all. I don't know how much that really helped, but DD has STTN since she was about 7 weeks old.

[Renrel]

I used to use a book light to see when my son woke up. Both to keep my son from becoming any more awake and to allow my DH to sleep or at least try to sleep since my nursing station was in our bedroom for the first few months. DH also used a sleep mask to help keep it dark for him.

[phart]

No lights when he was in the nursery (has a door to our room as well) as I just went in and nursed him. We hardly changed his diaper at night unless we knew it was poopy or he was extra pissed.

Once he was in his own room I would turn on the hall light to nurse.

[cr8zyforaf]

They say you shouldn't turn the lights on - use a nightlight.

I just read an article that said you should be as dull as possible when the baby gets up at night - no lights, no eye contact, no talking/interacting with the baby. I find that hard - especially if she gets up in a good mood and cracks a smile at me - I hate to not look at her and smile back.

[karen]

When the baby was in the room with us, we leave the bathroom light on all night. Now that he is in his room, we turn leave the light on in a dim setting. I don't like turning on the light as it is too bright.

[nancy drew]

we have a dimmer on in stellas room, so i would turn that on the lowest setting at night when she was still waking at night.

with nathan in our room i either turn on the tv (low volume) if dh isnt home yet (he works nights sometimes) or use the light attachment from the pnp. but usually its light enough that i can see without either of those lights. all i need to do is pick him up and latch him on, i could probably do it with my eyes closed. i dont change dipes overnight. that would wake him up even more than a light.

[happy1nuv]

we put a night light in the hall and leave the door open ... bright enough to change a diaper (ok, not the best jiob ever but it keeps til morning) ... dark enough to sleep. this way we dont have to ever turn a light on/off....

[LexyLou]

I have a nightlight that's behind the rocker and is connected to a light switch so when I go in to feed her I turn on the night light and turn it off as soon as I place her back in the crib.

I think when they are super small it doesn't matter as much as when they get a little older. I still kept it dark when she was a newborn but that was mostly so I didn't wake up DH since she was in our room.

[Kanga]

We have her light on a dimmer, so it's on just enough for us to see. As for the talking and eye contact, I sorta follow this rule. I go in, smile, talk, direct eye contact, etc while I'm getting her out of her crib and changing her diaper, but once we're in the rocker and she's latched on, that all stops. I do the shushing and sometimes sing to her if she's extra awake.

[jenjen0713]

We have a dimmer in DS room for late night feedings/diaper changes.

We don't talk to him or make eye contact with him at night as well. Just get down to business and then back to bed! :p

[rancherswife]

We have a dim light that faces up toward the ceiling on our fans, so I always leave that on so I can see what I'm doing. Either that or the tv in our room.

[BeachBum]

We use night lights.

[LeslieR]

We put a dimmer switch on the overhead light. I use that when I'm putting him to sleep for the night. I don't turn it on at night when I get up with him, though. There's a nightlight next to the rocker, but it's too bright so I have the blinds pulled down all the way covering it. If I change his diaper during the night I use the light on the wipes warmer to see what I am doing.

[jmvan74]

We have a very dim night light in the nursery, but I nurse him in the dark in my room. The night light is barely bright enough to change a diaper, but we do that minimally, so it's fine.

[AttyGrl74]

Didn't you know that when you become a mother, you suddenly get the secret power to see in the dark? :D

Seriously, though, no - no lights. I used to have a nightlight - but I don't even need that anymore. I can see in the dark.

[MrsT]

For the first 4 months or so we had a dimmed light on in our room (think the dimmest you can go). At first it was so I could see to get him latched on (back in the day when I had to use the boppy and sit up:p ) and then it was because we were used to it. Finally I realized I didn't need the light and since we co-sleep, he just latches on himself when he wakes. I have NEVER talked to him when he woke or really made eye contact. He's never STTN (well, I guess if you think of 5-6 hours like the crazy book people, he has) but he's also never woken up and stayed up - he nurses and we both go right back to sleep.

[baboo]

I have a nightlight in our room. When we had the Christmas lights up in the bedroom window, that was the perfect ammount of light !

[abbytfox]

We also have the light on a dimmer switch. It was so easy to install and really helps especially since DS LOVES to look at lights. Also, the clock that we have in his room is the blue-glowy kind of face so it illuminates the room a little bit, too.

[Cali_Katy]

Nightlight here, too.

DS spent the first, oh, 8 weeks in our room, where we didn't have a nightlight. In those early days, when he would wake up every few hours and I was still not super-confident in my breastfeeding abilities, I found that if I turned on the TV on mute, the glow from the screen would be enough for me to see what was going on but not bright enough to disturb DS or DH.

Usually I wouldn't even pay attention to what was on the screen -- which led to a great moment one night when it was tuned to a Girls Gone Wild infomercial. My husband woke up, looked at the TV with the girls lifting up their shirts to show their breasts, turned to me nursing our son and said, "Look, Ben, lunch!" And then rolled back over and went right back to sleep.