You have helped transform our lives in so many ways!
Our son L, was never a sleeper from day one, he wouldn’t sleep at night, and he cat napped during the day, 15/20 mins max.
We were exhausted – the lack of sleep alone had me very down, I began to think “I can’t do this anymore, something has to change, but what?”
I was Co-sleeping with L from he was 5weeks old, and bed shared right up until he was 6months old – and by this stage he wouldn’t sleep alone or go back into his next to me. Although, I loved Co-sleeping and this was easier for breastfeeding, my husband wasn’t a fan, so he went to the spare room – which encouraged me to bed share more. But it was becoming unhealthy for Leo because he was never learning to sleep on his own, and unhealthy for myself as I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis/lupus – so this was extremely taxing on my joints, not being able to move much at night – this would leave me very sore and my days ahead where a massive struggle!
I rocked him to sleep, rolled him on his side, patted his bum, back and got him to fall asleep this way, and after 2/3 hours, roughly around the time I was going to bed, he would wake & he was in my bed. So every night for me started with Co-sleeping. Any wakes during the night where rocked, patted, rolled onto his side.
A girl I know, who had bought your book, told me to look into your courses, so I did, and I was immediately impressed.
So, we started your programme the same day our son turned 6months old. We started with the foundation week, and he got sick the week after, so we continued the foundation week of routine & timing for roughly 3 weeks.
After 3 weeks of this we started the stay and support approach and got him into a big cot and moved away from our bed (I don’t want him moving out of our room just yet, I think he’s still tiny).
We haven’t looked back since! There had been NO crying at all, NO refusal for sleep, LESS wakes at night, LONGER naps (maturing themselves once overnight was achieved) I can’t believe it!! So many people told us to just cry him out, “it only takes a few days, and he won’t even remember it” but my husband and I just didn’t feel right at the core doing that.
Our journey may have taken longer with prolonging our foundation week, but I think it has made a massive difference!
Once we continued on our journey, we started hugging & kissing him and setting him down awake and leaving the room, he now falls asleep on his own, within 5/10 mins, both at naps and at nighttime. I cannot emphasize enough, there have never been any crying at any stage of this process! He has been fully supported in his own sleep journey, thanks to you and I feel a massive sense of achievement with being his parent!
His naps are now 1hour 20, 1hour 30 in length and this has matured itself, and I was planning on doing the stay and support approach once we achieved overnight, but this happened all by itself!
As soon as he’s awake, your advice is to go in, expose light and get up etc, I think this is really important for their learning that you are there for them straight away and they know falling asleep, you’ll be there!
We cannot thank you enough for the difference you have made in our lives, honestly!
I go back to work in September, and I am so happy we did this 6–8-month course!
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!