Sleep train without tears

Driven to desperation by a sleepless baby, and flummoxed by all the traditional options, this mom turned to a sleep consultant for help – and it made all the difference

As the co-owner of a production company that produces lullabies for babies, Sumari Schoeman certainly expected some kind of success in getting her baby Joshua to sleep well with ease. She also had the help of her father-in-law, a paediatric neurologist, who offered his advice. Yet both Sumari and her fatherin-law remained perplexed at the reality of a relentlessly sleepless baby, and Sumari was at her wits’ end.

She had tried every possible product that promised sleep. Day by day, the effects of sleep deprivation were worsening; affecting not only her health, but also her marriage. One morning, Joshua woke up every ten minutes, screaming. She walked out of his room, defeated. She was about to go back to work after maternity leave, and she was concerned about how she and her baby were going to survive the transition with so little sleep. Her husband took one look at her face and they decided they could not carry on like this.

FINDING A HELPING HAND

Sumari had heard the most horrible stories about the consequences of sleep training, and had tried her own version of it, rather unsuccessfully. Joshua was already a “screamer” – he was overtired and he suffered from colic – and she just could not bear any further behavioural intervention that resulted in more of the incessant crying and unhappiness. She read every book she could find on baby sleep, but the authors contradicted one another and left her feeling even more confused. So she decided to seek out the help of a professional.

“Desperation is a funny thing,” Sumari says. “I remember feeling that the situation was stealing my joy as a parent. I felt unequipped and so guilty. Every time I looked at Joshua I started crying. I thought about my options and could really find only a handful of people online that call themselves baby sleep consultants. I started asking around, I did some research online and found a company that I felt comfortable with and that had an excellent track record.”

WHAT SHE LEARNED

Sumari had to complete a questionnaire before the consultant arrived, so that the sleep specialist had all the necessary information about this specific case. “I made it clear from the outset I did not want my child to cry for endless periods of time. This was very important to me as my previous attempts at sleep training had left me uncertain and fearful.

“I really appreciated the fact that the consultant asked me about Joshua as an individual. She never made me feel like he was ‘just another baby’. The questions related to our routine, his temperament, what I felt comfortable doing and what I was not comfortable with. She also spent a great deal of time familiarising herself with our family dynamics, taking the time to explain to our nanny why we were changing a few things in our approach. This really helped because the nanny would need to look after Joshua when I went back to work.”

Sumari learned loads from the consultation, and afterwards she confessed that she actually felt overwhelmed by all the changes that the consultant required. These ranged from changing the position her baby slept in to swopping around a few steps in her bedtime routine. “I was encouraged by the fact that I wasn’t doing this on my own. The consultant assured me that I could talk to her at any point – day and night – and she kept true to her word. She texted me in the morning to ask how the night went, and sometimes we sent more than 20 messages back and forth as she wanted to make sure that I was comfortable. The truth is that without her support, I would never have been able to follow through with the new routine.”

JOURNEY TO DREAMLAND

After the consultation, Sumari was left with a personalised sleep plan and a sleep log to keep track of Joshua’s progress and routine. She had to make adjustments to his feeding schedule, routine and the environment in which he slept. “Such small changes made such a big difference. My little boy was relying heavily on a dummy to fall asleep and as a result I was on dummy drill the whole night. I learned how to soothe him in other ways, and also how to help him soothe himself, so that we didn’t use his dummy as a sleep prop anymore. He protested a little when I did this, crying for about 30 minutes in total, but I was able to settle him in other ways and it involved much less crying than what we experienced before!”

Fundamentally, Sumari came to understand that it wasn’t that she wasn’t doing enough to make her boy sleep, but that she was actually doing too much. Sumari explained that her biggest fear was that it was going to be a very long, tedious process and that it wasn’t going to work, even though this was her last resort. However, with the support of her husband and the consultant, her fears were unfounded.

SLEEPING LIKE A BABY… AT LAST!

“At the consultation we were given a certificate that we could complete on his first night of sleeping between 11 and 12 hours. I will never forget the night that actually happened! Two days after seeing the consultant, at exactly four months and eighteen days of age, Joshua slept for exactly 11 hours and 11 minutes. I could not believe it – I kept on getting up to check if he was breathing!”

Sumari says this was the best gift she could ever have given her baby, her husband and their family. “I did not want to regret the first two years of Joshua’s life because he did not sleep; I wanted to enjoy it with him. Not only is sleep the best gift for our family, babysitting for our little sleep superstar is a breeze now!” YB