Angus was a healthy 10 month old baby who’s mum had firm attachment parenting philosophy, she had co-slept and fed Angus to sleep for 10 months, and loved every minute of it.

The time had come where Angus was no longer sleeping for very long over night, and mum was beginning to feel drained and exhausted and resenting the co-sleeping. She has no idea how to change her current situation, but knew something had to change as she had hit a wall with exhaustion and was no longer enjoying Angus.

We spoke for quite some time about how she felt about the co-sleeping and about how Angus crying made her feel, it was clear to me, that her attachment parenting philosophy was strong and as exhausted as she was controlled crying would not be a good fit.

The key to any successful sleep training is consistency and if the method is not one which sits well with the parents then they won’t be consistent and the success rate is much lower and that inconsistency is stressful on the babies involved!

We decided on a gentle removal plan, with lots of nursing to calm and soothe but to sleep, mum had a clear plan on where she wanted to be each day in terms of how much she would help Angus to settle, and how much he would do the settling himself.

I received a very excited email after night one, Angus had successfully put himself to sleep in his own cot in his own room after 70 minutes of mum’s help.

She felt confident he was not distressed and she stayed a further 30 minutes right by his cot to ensure he was asleep before she snuck back to her bed for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep!

This was not the end of the story for mum and Angus. Mum felt she didn’t have the strength to sleep train for 2 naps a day and over night but we didn’t want to intermittently reinforce the idea that Angus would be fed to sleep sometimes and not others, so we decided mum would walk Angus for his naps, and after 3-5 days only walk for one nap and sleep train for the other nap.

This allowed mum to reserve her super women patience for night time settling and enjoy some fresh air over the day.

Mum came unstuck around night 5 when she realised she hadn’t really withdrawn as much as she hoped she would have from Angus’s sleep space and she felt she was stuck with it still taking 20-30 minutes to settle Angus over night.

We had another chat and mum realised it was time and she was ready to take that step up the hierarchy of self soothing and only focus on her voice to soothe.

Once again this was a triumphant night for mum, yes the settling took twice as long as the previous night, but the employment mum felt in the morning knowing she had successfully taught Angus to put himself to sleep without distressed crying and with only her voice was huge.

Angus only got better and better from this point on, mum needed the full 2 weeks of help from me before Angus was settling easily himself over night in his cot in his own room, and napping well unassisted over the day.

Mum felt both she and Angus where ready for this change and I believe this is what made them such a success story.

Right time, right technique and a little hard work and it fell into place.
If you feel its the right time for your situation to change please don’t hesitate to contact us here at the baby sleep consultant – I am sure we can help you make those changes to suit your family too.