Who would have thought that sleep could be so complicated? I mean, sure, I often have trouble falling asleep. And I have always been a night owl. I can remember sneaking out into the living room and hiding behind the sofa while my parents watched “Roots” because I just wasn’t sleepy.
Should it surprise me, then, that my baby girl stays up jabbering and singing the Elmo theme in her bed…often for hours and hours and hours? In many ways, she is absolutely my girl.
So when the generous folks at Lilitah offered to send me one of their blankets to try, I leapt at the chance. What’s so special about Lilitah Blankets? In their own words:
Lilitah Harmony Symbols and Blankets are precisely designed to lower your stress, help you sleep, and create happiness and contentment. Science has shown that your unconscious responds to symbols, not words, and Lilitah Harmony Symbols have the ability to enhance, instill, and create feelings of always being safe to experience life, with the freedom of being who you are, all while developing the courage to move forward. Lilitah Harmony Symbols help to clear nightmares and create lucid dreaming.
Indeed, Lilitah claims that when your baby is snuggled in one of their blankets, the embroidered symbols will help them feel safe, calm and soothed. They encourage you to wrap your newborn in one to be passed from person to person to create a cocoon of safety and warmth around them. They also claim the blankets help relieve nightmares, contribute to solving sleep problems in children, help speed up healing, and alleviate the effects of jet lag. My little Bean was sent the gorgeous, plush polka dot “I’m A Big Kid” blanket pictured above. I have posted about the value of super snuggly blankets for babies and Mamas, and let me just say that this Lilitah blanket is divine. It has all 12 symbols attractively embroidered on it, and just could not be any more soft, silky, plush and snuggly. It is, in fact, one of the Berkshire Blankets that I featured in my blanket post. The polka dot pattern is gorgeous and I love it. It is a beautifully made blanket.
The baby blankets Lilitah offers are also exquisite, as you can see. I love this “Waffles Please” design which is embroidered with the symbols for Clearing, Heart and Joy.
So I imagine you’re wondering if this blanket has indeed solved my child’s sleep problems. Now let me say, that we have had it for the months of June and July. This blanket is thick and plush and warm. I haven’t had it in her bed at night, simply because she would swelter and that would not do any of us any good. I have used it as a receiving blanket after bath time, to sit on and cuddle with as we brush hair and read books and it has contributed to making that pre-bed time ritual soothing, calm, and special for us. The blanket has been hanging on a chair right next to the baby’s crib while she sleeps, and I have to say, she is still having troubles going down at night. She does, however, (and in fact always has) sleep nearly twelve hours at night so that’s really nothing to complain about. I am eager to see how the blanket serves us this winter when she’s actually wrapped up in it. I’ll let you know.
That said, here’s a little story for you. Two nights ago, my friend Rebecca was making us a wonderful dinner in the apartment. It was sweltering hot, the lights were off in the living room, and the Bean was fritzing a bit, hurling herself into her little foam arm chair and goofing around. Suddenly, with the speed of an Olympic gymnast, she rocketed into the chair, over the stuffed arm, and landed with some force on the hardwood floor, directly on her forehead. She screamed and a freakish goose egg the size of a golf ball appeared on her sweet little forehead. After calls to the doctor and many exams from Doc Hubby, we determined no trip to the ER was necessary. We woke her up every hour until midnight and she was alert (albeit exhausted) but fine. I, however, was traumatized. I couldn’t let her sleep alone. But we have no mattress or sofa in her room. So I spread the Lilitah blanket on the braid rug, plopped down my pillow, and the girl who snuck into the living room to watch “Roots” actually slept for six hours on a hardwood floor. Let me say, that night I was pretty glad to be surrounded by Protection, Joy, Heart, Abundance, Creativity, Gratitude and Receiving.
