As a postpartum doula, the most common questions I get have to do with sleep. I have always felt woefully lacking in knowledge in that area, and really couldn’t offer my clients any solid advice. Once upon a time, I believed that sleep training strictly meant letting a baby cry for hours on their own until they finally gave up on mom or dad coming to comfort them. I can’t really even say why, or when that misconception developed and stuck in my mind, It’s just something I have believed for what seems like forever. Until now.
I finally chose to become a certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant because last year, December, 2021, I contacted a friend who is a sleep consultant about wanting to stop co-sleeping with our 22 month old before our third child was born July, 2022. We had no idea where to start, but were desperate because even with a king size bed we were getting crowded. Our almost 5 year old (also co-slept) was still coming in in the wee hours of the morning and climbing into bed. So there were four humans and one dog…which means zero room, especially for a prego lady. Something had to change.
I had a love/hate relationship with co-sleeping. Having had emergency cesarean sections after intense trials of labor, my body was not up to rolling out of bed to feed a baby, so they came to bed with us. We practiced Safe Sleep Seven by La Leche League, and didn’t know anything about how to transition out of it so we continued on until toddlerhood. I loved cuddling my babies, but I hated being stuck in the same position night after night, week after week. I slept with one shoulder tucked under my pillow keeping it away from my baby’s face with that arm outstretched supporting my baby, and the other shoulder outside of the blanket holding it away from my baby’s face. Ideal for breastfeeding on demand, but talk about a stiff shoulder and neck! I am also not totally convinced that my quality of sleep was that great because I was paranoid about having my baby in bed.
Co-sleeping was something I thought I would never do, and had no plan to do. When you’re against co-sleeping/bed-sharing, but also don’t want to do any sort of “sleep training” because of your preconceived and inaccurate notions, you kind of find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place in regards to sleep with a new baby (or an older one for that matter). We were exhausted, completely out of our depth as brand new parents, and had no support system. We did what was best for us at the time. I will never fault any parent for choosing to co-sleep as long as they are doing it as safely as possible. That being said, and as I know personally, it is very difficult to know how to transition out of that sleep situation.
Enter Jenna, sleep consultant extraordinaire! We had a consult call where I told her of our sleep problems, and she made up a two week sleep training plan based on what we were most comfortable with, which was silent return. By the time we implemented the plan our youngest had finally weaned off the breast, and had her own bunk under her older sister. We just had to get her to sleep in it. Suffice it to say, Jenna knew her stuff, was super available for questions, very encouraging, and lo and behold Philippa was sleeping in her own bed by the end of two weeks. Our older daughter had also quit coming in thanks to advice from Jenna about her sleep, too. I was a believer, and I knew I wanted to help families in the same way.
Since going through sleep consulting training I now know that sleep training is not synonymous with “cry it out”, nor does it mean that you leave your baby to cry without meeting their needs like changing their dirty diaper, or feeding them. It means teaching infants and toddlers how to fall back to sleep on their own after taking care of their needs. I’d like to make a point of saying that I don’t introduce any formal sleep training plan for infants younger than 4 months of age. Newborns should be held and rocked, and snuggled in those first precious months of life. However, it is possible to begin “sleep shaping” in the newborn stage. This means parents start teaching their babies sleep cues by introducing a routine before bedtime. This can look like changing their diaper, putting them in footie PJs, a swaddle, turning the lights down low, reading them a book, and using white noise.
I want to help families realize that they have options, and that babies need to be taught how to sleep, just as they need to be taught how to walk, talk, and eat. I look forward to using my new knowledge and skills with my postpartum families, my sleep clients, as well as for myself for teaching my new baby healthy sleep habits early on.
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