I reversed my car into my house from tiredness. Then I got a baby sleep consultant.
Updated: Two years on.
I’m reposting this from my archive at the request of a lovely reader, but I’ve also decided to update it as when I wrote it initially, it was a month in. We’re now over two years in, and I’ve got some *notes* to add. They’re at the end. If you’ve read this already and want to skip through, feel free. Regularly scheduled posting continues tomorrow with an opus on why the film Saltburn changed how I feel about creativity.
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This is possibly going to be the most smug-sounding piece I’ll ever write. If you’re interested in MAGIC and parenting content, read on. If you’re allergic to all things baby, skip to my next post.
It’s not only smug, but also fierce dangerous for me to be writing this… because don’t you know. The minute you talk about something that’s going suspiciously – WORRYINGLY – well, the minute it all goes arse up. Tenner bets I’ll be eating my words this time next week because I dared state the following:
My child, the five month old who thinks sleep is for the weak, NOW sleeps from 7pm…
UNTIL 7AM.
Without. Waking. Up.
I am beside myself with happiness and feel very lucky. Let me tell you the story.
About a month ago, I reversed my car into my own house and caused €1,000 worth of damage. (The story gets better I promise). I was so exhausted, so bone-tired, so addled by the lack of sleep, that I full on smashed my boot door into my living room windowsill.
It was then that I decided to pursue, as opposed to just think about, working with a sleep consultant. Now. TRUST me. I was skeptical. I didn’t believe it would work, at all. But I needed it to, and so I threw money at the problem and €400-odd later I had a Zoom appointment with an Irish-but-Qatar-based sleep consultant that had been recommended to me by a friend.
Still skeptical but literally willing to try anything, I got a babysitter so my husband and I could both attend the Zoom call and, you know, actually pay attention instead of getting up every 15 seconds to tend to the baby.
Prior to going on the call, I had to log Lydia’s every move for three days into a spreadsheet provided to me by Anneka (@thesleepsociete). So when the call commenced, she already had a plan devised for our route to better sleep. We were at the point of ‘this HAS TO WORK’ and I think Anneka could sense it from us.
The plan (which, for obvious reasons, I can’t share in too great detail) involved carefully timed naps, wake windows, a rejig of her bedroom, the introduction of a white noise device and (scary bananas) the removal – cold turkey!!! – of her soother. To say I came off the call as white as a ghost and frozen with trepidation… I was nervous but also, so ready for what was hopefully going to happen: A baby who slept at scheduled nap times and, most importantly, slept reliably through the night.
I wondered, of course, was five months too young? Was I being a bad mother for wanting my baby to sleep loads? Was it going to involve crying it out – something I KNEW my heart couldn’t handle – or would she grow up to hate me because I put her into her own bedroom too early?
Of course, all my fears were pretty unreasonable and ridiculous. Five months is a very common age for sleep training, I’m definitely not a bad mother (although, I’d bet my house on the fact that every mother at some point feels like a big ol’ failure) and thankfully, it wouldn’t have to involve crying it out. I could go in to her at regular intervals and pick her up if she was upset. PHEW.
Night one?
A runaway success. But surely a fluke? Right?
Night two?
A disaster! YES. I knew night one going well was setting me up to be trifled with. She cried, I cried, we alllllll cried. It took 40 minutes for her to settle to sleep. Those 40 minutes felt like four hours, and I was weary with tiredness and stress by the end of it.
But then.