Having been through the dark journey of severe sleep deprivation, and come out the other side, I feel compelled to use my experience to help other families so they do not have to endure the foggy days, and the long desperate nights, that I did.
My first son slept like a dream, from just 9 weeks old. Yes – I thought I had it nailed! However, when it came to my second child, it couldn’t have been further from the truth. I read every book going and googled constantly (generally between 2-5am whilst trying to get him to sleep). I just couldn’t understand what I had done ‘wrong’. It turns out that although there were a lot of things I could have done differently, I hadn’t done anything wrong. He was a different child to my first, in character and in temperament, and this made a big difference to how he learnt to sleep!
He was crashing out at bedtime because he was so shattered from his lack of quality sleep, then waking up anytime between 12-5am for hours at a time, and no amount of rocking or feeding would get him back to sleep. I later learnt the reason for this behavior; he was gradually waking as he entered his lighter sleep cycle and hadn’t learnt how to self-settle himself back to sleep.
Self-settling is a learnt skill – who knew? I certainly didn’t, and because it had seemed to come naturally to my first child, I had no idea that my second needed more support. By the time I found the confidence to ask for help he was nearly a year old, and I had inadvertently taught him lots of ways how not to self-settle and totally confused the poor little guy.
When you are in a fog of sleep depravity, to say everything is emotionally overwhelming is an understatement. I had a toddler who I couldn’t enjoy any time with because I was constantly tired and stressing about my youngest not getting enough sleep. Had I realised that I could have got help sooner, I would have saved a lot of tears – both mine and my sons – which is why I began my journey to train as a Sleep Consultant and help other desperate parents.
These are businesses that I have worked closely with and would like to offer my recommendation in using their services.
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