Before I became a Mom, experienced parents all told me to enjoy my sleep. To literally catch up on my sleep because I would not sleep again for years to come…if ever! Once I became a parent I quickly realized they were right. Sleep became one of the most sought after, difficult to attain, luxuries of life no longer afforded to me. I felt like I would never have a full night’s sleep again. I was physically in pain from sleep deprivation. I could not think straight and was an emotional puddle who could barely form sentences! The problem was that this was going on a lot longer than the first 3 months. I began to believe this was simply parenthood. I told myself my daughter would simply grow out of her night wakings. It was normal right? After all, other parents had warned me that good sleep would be a thing of my childless past!
Thankfully Carol (Peat) entered my life and awoke me to the the reality that if I was suffering from such an extreme level of sleep deprivation, so was my daughter. She was struggling as much as I was. Something had to change. I could not bare the thought of leaving my little girl to cry herself to sleep, but we had entered a critical point where no one was getting the proper rest. This put us at risk for so many bigger problems. Our immunity was compromised, our cognitive functioning was decreased and we were all literally walking around in a fog. Carol taught me the science of sleep and this armed me with the will to make the changes we needed. I realized it was simply not necessary for my daughter to “cry it out”. There were other ways to make healthy sleep progress. It did not come without some protesting. It did not come without the need for reassurance from Carol that we were in fact doing what was best for our daughter. But it started to work. It all started to click and we were sleeping We were ALL sleeping. It was like the sun came out in our world again! We had a happy, well rested child and that was the best outcome anyone could have imagined!
The principals of the Sleep Solutions program can be applied to all stages of our children’s lives. Once you understand the science of sleep and have the tools to fall back on, your family’s sleep will never spin out of control again. We would be fooling ourselves to think that we will never be thrown off track with our children’s sleep….they get sick, cut teeth, sleep in a different environment, we go on vacation, etc, but when you have a child with the skills of independent sleep, they come back to their healthy sleep routine without much effort. With this program you arm yourself and your child(ren) with the skills to create healthy sleep hygiene for the rest of their lives. That is a true gift.
Here at Babies Naturally we offer a Sleep Solutions class followed by four weeks of individual support. This ensures you have the best understanding of the principals of independent sleep and an adequate amount of time to implement any necessary changes. This class will run every second month. Check the Classes Page for the next class date. We do require payment confirmation before the class. Please email Tracey at stpetticrew@gmail.com for further details.
Happy Slumbers!
