Bridget tells her story about sleep training her two children, Harrison aged 3-4 months and Daniel 2 years and 9 months. We used very gentle attachment parenting methods on both her children and the turn around was amazing.
The birth of our second bub, Harrison, brought much joy and enthusiasm to learn from the mistakes we'd made with our first son, Daniel. Daniel at 2.9 yo had never been a great sleeper, rarely slept through, was a fussy eater and his behaviour at times was becoming a concern.
Harry's celebrated arrival put additional pressure on an already stressful night time routine.
Daniel would insist it was 'mummy's turn' to put him to bed every night. It was taking longer and getting later and later. Sometimes taking a good hour or more before he would fall asleep. It was exhausting, there was no down time for me and on top of that he would wake numerous times. With Harry being breast fed I found myself beyond exhausted getting up on average 4-8 times a night, sometimes I'd have them both awake in the wee hours.
I found my days were spent breastfeeding and settling Harry, all the while poor Dan was feeling neglected and I felt guilty. Harry was becoming a notorious 35 minute cat napper. The time and effort it was taking to settle him was more than the time he spent sleeping. I knew my baby needed more sleep and I could feel the strain on my relationship with my husband.
I was given Karen's number by a friend who said she was fabulous. I didn't call immediately. At breaking point I called and scheduled a home visit. My husband was weary but was eager to hear what she had to say. He is now equally as grateful as I am to Karen for teaching us simple but effective strategies that transformed our children, practically overnight.
Karen arrived Sunday morning, highly qualified and experienced in her field. She listened, reassured, explained, demonstrated and provided hope. She taught Harry how to self-settle. She was calm, encouraging and determined. I could not have taught Harry this skill by myself. No amount of reading would have changed a thing. I simply would have crumbled, given up and reverted back to my old methods. Karen was generous with her time. We felt she stayed with us until we had discussed all our concerns. She said she'd be happy to come back if we needed her.
Karen followed up with regular phone calls/text messages to check how we're going and provided the encouragement and additional advice we needed. The difference Karen has made to our family is priceless. We can't thank her enough.
