My Journey to Becoming a Sleep Coach
As a new mom in 2008 I had been working with children for over 15 years. I knew a lot. But I had never had to raise a child before. Working with children and raising your own are different!
I knew I was going to have to sleep train my child at some point and so when he turned 6 months I turned to the expert at the time, Dr. Ferber. I used the Ferber Method (incremental time checks, pop-ins) and it was super hard for me. I hated every moment of it. And yet it worked. In 5 days my son was sleeping through the night and falling asleep on his own for naps. But the agony of going through that was something I knew I could not do again.
When I had my second child, I knew I couldn't do the Ferber Method again- it just wasn't for me.
So I kept putting off sleep training him and hoped it would just get better. By the time he was 18 months, I finally decided to do something. To be honest, I can't even remember what I did because it was a hodge podge of stuff and it did work but mostly because my 2nd child had a very easy temperament and didn't cry much, and wasn't waking that much at night to begin with. I got lucky.
Then when I had my third child I knew I didn't want to do Ferber and I couldn't remember what I did with my 2nd- mom brain! I was desperate because he was a very high need baby and had reflux and he cried all the time. When I went back to work at 3 months he reversed cycled- meaning he fed all night and had some milk during the day but most of his caloric intake was at night. I was beyond exhausted and despite my gut I listened to some friends who told me to try the cry it out method. Yes, that's right. Me. I did it...I was that desperate.
And it was horrible. He never learned to sleep through the night and he cried a lot, so I just stopped. I continued to feed him every couple of hours until he was 13 months.
By then I had learned about Gentle Sleep Coaching and was in the middle of my training. I decided to use him as one of my case studies and tried my approach on him and um...it worked.
It wasn't as difficult as Ferber and definitely took commitment but he finally slept through the night and knew how to fall asleep on his own. I wished I had known about this with my other two children.
I resented all those nights of terrible sleep and years of having someone sleeping in my room. I fantasized about all those lost nights of sleep I could have had. I actually began to count the amount of nights I lost sleep until I realized that was going a bit too far...
If you are like me and have tried lots of different things and none of them are working- I am here to help you. I am a Gentle Sleep Coach and I can help. And so you have me if you need me. No pressure but if you are ready to make a change and ready to invest in changing your child's sleep for good and gaining your freedom back I can help you.