How to get your baby to sleep in a pushchair

Sleep for you and your baby or toddler is such an important thing and something that can create a lot of anxiety in a family if you’re not getting any. If you want to be out and about with your baby during the day, or if you have a toddler and a newborn so can’t be at home for all of your babies naps, then you need to get your baby to sleep in a pushchair or a pram.

For some babies or toddlers, this is an easy task. Give them their comforter or a bit of milk and they will drop off straight away in the buggy. For some babies, they will fall asleep easily, but will always wake up if the pushchair stops moving.

We found with our daughter that she was generally good at sleeping in her pushchair, however, if she made eye contact with us or other people when she was on the edge of sleep it would wake her up again for a while. We also found that like other parents, if we stopped pushing her around before she had hit deep sleep she would wake up and maybe not sleep again so would miss out on a lovely restorative nap.

Make the pushchair sleep environment a home from home

You’ve already (hopefully) managed to get your little one into a good bedtime or naptime routine that works in their cot. Try and follow that for their pram or pushchair sleeps as well. Make sure they have their comforter/ dummy/ favourite toy to snuggle. Try to keep the environment dark (using the shade) and recline the pushchair so they can sleep flat (babies under 6 months old should always be in a flat reclining pushchair or pram).

If your baby only sleeps with silence, try to push them somewhere quiet until they drop off into a deeper sleep and then go to a noisier place. For example, if you’re off to a toddler group with a baby (who needs a nap) and a toddler (who wants to play) then make sure you take a bit longer to get there so your baby has a chance to go to sleep before it gets loud.

Are there any products that will help my child sleep in a pushchair?

At Kid Transit, we recently attended the Kind und Jugend international tradeshow for kids’ first years. This tradeshow has loads of great products for parents on the go and we got a lot of inspiration for new products to offer to our readers and customers. One of these great products that caught our eye is to help your child fall asleep (and crucially stay asleep) when you’re out and about with the pushchair or pram.

The Rockit Rocker

This award-winning product is relatively new to the baby products market- it is a small device that attaches to the handle or chassis of your pushchair and rocks the whole pushchair to soothe your baby to sleep and keep them asleep when you aren’t pushing it. So, instead of having to keep rocking your pram when you stop moving, you can pop on the Rockit Rocker and let it do the job instead!

The device is pretty small so shouldn’t use too much space in your nappy bag or buggy storage. It has a quiet motor (pretty important if your baby can’t stand too much noise) and the speed can be adjusted depending on how much rocking your child likes. The boasted battery life is 60 hours which seems astonishing! This should keep your baby going for a few weeks of naps and not need any batteries replacing!

The Rockit Rocker has been designed for indoor as well as outdoor use, so you can get your baby to sleep in their pushchair without having to take a stroll around the block if it’s wet, dark, cold etc. I know some parents use the stroller to get their child to sleep during the night so this device will mean you don’t have to go out to do it anymore.

Take a look at the video from the people at Rockit Rocker showing it in use.

The Rocker was developed by three Dads who combined their skills in product development and skills as well as parenting experience of their children not sleeping so well in a pushchair to bring it to the market.

To give parents peace of mind, the Rockit has been safety tested to toy standards so it is safe to have around children from birth, just in case your little ones happen to get their hands on it.

Award Winning Design

The Rockit Rocker has won the prestigious Design Council Spark Award in 2016 and also been a finalist in the Baby Product Association’s Innovation Award. It was also shortlisted at the Kind und Jugend tradeshow for their Innovation Award.

Sleeping in a pushchair: final thoughts

Once your baby or toddler is sleeping well in a pushchair or pram the world can open up for you a bit more. With the freedom to get out and about even during naptime you can incorporate a few more trips out into your routine. Make the job of rocking your baby to sleep in the pram easier with the new and award-winning Rockit Rocker. Please let us know at Kid Transit if you give it a go as we would love to publish your review on this page.