A lot of newborn families think that those first several weeks equal sleepless nights, never your being able to put your baby down, survival mode, and pure exhaustion. And I’m not pretending those things aren’t real – there will absolutely be sleepless nights, newborn babies definitely love those snuggles (as do we!), some days you are just surviving diaper to diaper and feeding to feeding, and you’re tired. We are not meant to run on two hours of sleep at a time.

AND I want to shout it from the rooftops…newborn sleep help is a thing!! While there are going to be very disrupted nights and all-over-the-place days, there can also be some semblance of routine and knowing what’s coming next!

There can be a sense of confidence and peace among the chaos! You can absolutely have an understanding of your newborn’s sleep and what’s normal, but also what’s not normal and when you might need to seek help from other professionals. You can even feel good about your newborn’s sleep as they keep getting older, and know what to adjust and change as they keep growing and changing.

And that’s why I am so passionate about serving newborn families here at Via Graces, and that’s the inspiration behind this post. I am interviewing Abby, a mama I worked with last year starting when her baby was just 10 days old. She’s going to share what it looked like to have help with her newborn’s sleep and what her sweet girl’s sleep has looked like since!

Introduce Yourself and Your Family

My husband Mitch and I have been married for five years and we welcomed our baby Hazel into the work last July!

I was a high school teacher, Mitch is a computer scientist, and we both come from small families, so we really didn’t have a lot of experience with newborns or little kids, so we felt like we were jumping into this whole parenting thing a little blind.

So in preparation for our baby, we did a lot of reading and took quite a few classes while still pregnant, and that helped us feel much more prepared.

What made you decide to hire a sleep consultant for your newborn?

I read a few books about baby sleep when I was pregnant, and I felt like I could pretty easily implement those ideas and everything would be great.

But then I had this newborn who just wanted to be snuggled and cried whenever we put down, and I was just exhausted. At the root, I think my husband and I were just too nervous to put her down. So every night, we would alternate having one of us awake and cuddling her on our chest as we watched TV, and the other would sleep. As a nursing mom, I still had to get up a lot, even when Mitch was on “baby duty,” and we were both so exhausted.

We knew we needed to do something differently.

So I started Googling and quickly realized that people have big opinions about baby sleep and it’s often in direct conflict with each other. I knew there had to be a middle-ground approach that felt right for us, where we weren’t co-sleeping, but we also weren’t leaving Hazel to cry.

I had taken some classes at the Body Birth and Baby Center in Leesburg, VA, and I felt good about the philosophy every professional shared on a broad range of topics, so I was curious if they had a suggestion for baby sleep!

From there, I was given your website information and as I was reading it, I just felt like you understood me.

And a lot of sleep consultants don’t work with newborns because it’s not sleep training, it’s just laying a foundation. But I needed someone to help me set up those routines, tell me it was okay to put my baby down, and how to actually do that. Not to mention having someone to stand alongside us in this journey was really appealing.

When we had our initial discovery call when Hazel was five days old, it felt like you got to know us, what we were thinking, where we were struggling, and our “hopes and dreams”. It just felt right and we were full steam ahead!

What does it look like to work with a newborn on their sleep and to lay that foundation?

When we went through the sleep plan, you walked us through her sleeping environment, daytime routines, bedtime routines, what to do when she woke up at night, and what to do around naps. It was a full rundown about what to do in almost any situation that came up!

The end goal was to set Hazel up for ultimate success so that as she got older, we ideally wouldn’t have to do as much sleep training because we could continue building on what we were already doing.

It felt really good to know that I was doing the “right things” now and that I wasn’t just messing up. I know that’s not how it really is, but I think it’s a common newborn mom worry!

Once we had our sleep plan, we then started implementing it, which looked like focusing on a consistent bedtime routine, and we also worked on having one nap a day happen in her bassinet. The rest of her naps were contact naps, which was nice for the snuggles, not to mention her naps were much longer when she slept on us!

I also filled out sleep log, which felt kind of like a diary. It felt like I could communicate with someone and that I wasn’t alone in those wake-ups. It also helped my catch patterns to figure how I could help Hazel more. And it’s fun to go back now and look at that sleep log, because I can look from the outside now and see how far Hazel came in such a short time!

The email and phone support were really helpful, too. I felt supported in figuring out how to adjust Hazel’s awake windows because things change quickly those first few weeks of newborn life. You also helped me figure out how many naps she should be taking and what a good bedtime was for her.

I also really appreciated how you could confirm when something was norma and encourage me in what we were doing well.

Did you feel like you were officially sleep training your newborn? Nope, not at all.

Did you feel like you could still enjoy cuddling her while also working on her sleep? 100%, that was so important to me!

Was Mitch able to help with Hazel’s sleep? Yes, and as a breastfeeding mom that felt like a big deal!

If you’re curious to learn more about what some of those daytime routines looked like, check out our free guide to newborn routines!

We worked together the first 12 weeks of Hazel’s life, and then you added unlimited email support for one year after that. What has sleep looked like throughout her first year? How has that year of email support been helpful?

Looking back, those first few weeks of Hazel’s life were not easy. She woke up every 2-3 hours at night, but I learned that that was normal and okay. Around the seven-week mark is when she started sleeping longer stretches and usually only woke up 2-3 times to nurse, although she still had the occasional off night.

Right around the 12 weeks things were pretty great and we were in a consistent pattern of getting solid 5 hours stretches of sleep and just two night wakings.

Shortly after, however, we moved, Hazel got a cold, and she started showing signs of the four-month sleep regression. We hit a rough patch where she was back to waking up almost every hour and we had to replace the pacifier, and we needed help again!

So we reached out to you for a 30-minute refresher call, and from there purchased the year of email support.

You were able to help me see what could be adjusted with her daytime routines and also gave us the confidence we needed to pull the pacifier once and for all. I was so nervous to do it and without your help, I would have been doubting myself the whole time. But sure enough, after just 2-3 days she didn’t need it anymore!

At this time, we did some more formal sleep training. We did the chair method for one week, and I was so thankful that I never had to leave her alone to cry. She caught on really quickly, and I think a lot of that has to do with her being so familiar with our bedtime routine and sleeping in her own crib! We were finally in a place where she could fall asleep on her own again and we didn’t have to rock her for an hour each night – it was such a gift to our baby and to us!

Then when Hazel turned six months old, we decided to move her to her own bedroom and we intentionally weaned her from night feedings. By seven months old, she was consistently sleeping through the night and has continued doing so since!

Now, as a 14-month-old, she is still taking two great naps a day and sleeping through the night, and we think we are nearing the transition to one nap.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

To anyone considering hiring help with their newborn’s sleep, it is 100% worth it…DO IT! The internet is full of so many people with so much differing advice, and sifting through it is so daunting. But having a trusted resource you can reach out to who knows your family and your baby is worth it. We are so thankful we asked for help when we did!

Conclusion

I get so excited about sharing that establishing a foundation with your newborn’s sleep is possible. I’ve seen it personally with two of my girls and countless newborn families I’ve worked with!

And that’s why we’ve created our newborn sleep course, Newborn Sleep from A to Z. I used to only work with newborn families in a one-on-one setting, as I did with Abby’s family last year. But I wanted newborn sleep help to be even more accessible for those not looking to work one-on-one with a sleep consultant!

I also found that for a newborn family to find 90 minutes when they can chat with someone and learn so much is hard, let alone being able to focus that whole time. So I took our newborn sleep plan and broke it down into bite-sized videos (and an accompanying workbook!) that you can go through at your own pace. Some families go through it at once, whereas others watch a little bit each day until they’re done.

And for some families, the course is all they want and need! Whether they’re simply looking to learn more about their newborn’s sleep, or they’re looking to really establish that foundation we talked about with Hazel, where for one or two naps a day, and at bedtime, you can actually lay your newborn in their bed before they’re totally passed out!

Others still want that personalized touch, like Abby’s family had. So we also have two package options where you can tag on follow-up support and get that extra hand-holding, assurance, and guidance, as is best for your family.

Learn more about our newborn sleep course and support options here!

And finally, don’t forget that you have a newborn! Newborn sleep is not perfect, it’s not linear, and we’re not aiming for a set end goal with our course, because every baby is so different, especially those first several weeks of life.

So no matter how “prepared” you are, know that there will be curveballs. You kind of have to expect the unexpected, and give yourself, your partner, and your baby lots and lots of grace!

With Grace,

Lauren