My Experience with Sleep Training my Son

My first son was born towards the end of 2020. He was our shining light of joy in a year of uncertainty and isolation through lockdown after lockdown. Becoming a mother in the middle of a global pandemic was…an experience! It was full of positives and negatives too. On one hand, being a winter lockdown baby, this was a great transition into parenthood, my husband and I hunkered down into our new normal and didn’t have to worry about entertaining visitors or hosting with a newborn.

However, lockdown also intensified a lot of the isolation that new motherhood can bring. And with the sleep deprivation that, for us, lasted long after the newborn phase, I had some difficult times.

Our little boy was waking up every other hour throughout the night, and my husband and I would spend hours feeding and rocking him to coax him back to sleep. Like so many other mums in this situation, I read everything I could get my hands on regarding infant sleep and the 4 month sleep regression. Quickly, I learned that the best way to improve all of our sleep was to help my son to learn how to fall asleep himself, without relying on being rocked or fed to sleep. Again, like so many other mums in this situation I was nervous about starting a sleep coaching plan. However, once I spoke with the sleep consultant she put my mind at ease and shared some really helpful articles and studies that helped me understand that while there are many emotionally driven articles against sleep training, no evidence has been found that it is in any way harmful to a baby’s attachment to their parent or their development in the short or long term.

Three short weeks after implementing our plan, my husband and I had our evenings back, we were no longer spending hours rocking our son to sleep and he was going to sleep happily in his cot. At this point I was still exclusively breastfeeding, so he would wake once per night to feed, take a big feed and then go straight back to sleep. He was also doing two big naps in his cot each day, whereas previously he would only take a big nap during a contact nap. I also noticed a huge improvement in his overall mood and feeding habits, something that many parents report about their little ones when we finish working together. 

Every family has a different experience, and many families have different goals. I tailor all of my sleep plans for the families that I work with, based on the challenges they are facing, what their sleep goals are, and to their parenting style and child’s temperament.

Are you ready to get better sleep? Book a free 15-minute sleep assessment call with me, a child sleep consultant, to see how I can help. As a paediatric sleep consultant and baby sleep consultant, I’m here to support you in navigating these changes for your family.

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