Today, I’m interviewing Angie Ludwig, wife to her husband Chris and mama to Emmy and Shepherd, as well as our favorite family photographer in Columbus, Ohio. I have now worked with the Ludwigs twice, supporting them through the sleep training process for both of their kids.

I am interviewing Angie about their before and afters of sleep training, as well as the highs, lows, and in-betweens of the sleep training process.

Introduce Yourself and Your Family

My name is Angie Ludwig and I’m a mom and family photographer in Columbus, Ohio. I am married to my husband, Chris, who I met back in 2017 at our church. We got married in July of 2019, and now we have two kids – Emmy, who just turned two, and Shepherd, who just turned eight months old.

What did Emmy’s sleep look like before you hired a sleep coach?

We worked together when Emmy was eight months old. I reviewed our old sleep log and it was kind of crazy because I think I’ve just kind of blocked out some of the hardships that were there.

Emmy was an amazing sleeper as a newborn, but then when she hit four months, sleep was really downhill from there. She was a very snuggly girl and only wanted to be held when it as time for sleep, so that meant for every nap and every put down, and every wake up in the middle of the night, she had to be rocked to sleep.

And she was so sensitive to being set down in the crib, so she would often wake up in the middle of the night, need to be rocked down to sleep, and then she’d wake up as soon as she hit the crib mattress, and then we’d have to start the cycle all over again.

So there was a lot of lack of sleep in the middle of the night. I think she would wake up 3-4 times on average, though some nights were closer to six times.

Before working with you, we tried the cry-it-out method. We had so many friends telling us to “just do cry-it-out,” and that it would only take two days. We tried it once and didn’t love it, and then at her six-month check-up, our pediatrician told us to, “Let her cry it out for two hours. And I say two hours because nobody ever cries for two hours.”

Because our pediatrician told us to do it, we did, and it was horrible. Emmy cried for one hour and 40 minutes, and I just couldn’t do it anymore, so I went and got her. We had to figure something else out because we were stressed and exhausted, but despite so much information online, we didn’t know what to do.

A mutual friend then told us about you, because she knew we were struggling, and we honestly didn’t really know sleep consulting was even an option!

We knew we couldn’t sustain our current sleep situation and we couldn’t put a price on sleep. We knew we needed to do it.

What did the sleep training process look like?

I remember the first night very vividly – it was hard! I hated hearing her cry, although I was thankful I could sit next to her and try to comfort her. I knew she just wanted to be held and rocked, and while I wanted to do that for her, I knew she needed to learn the skill of falling asleep independently.

I think it took Emmy 30-40 minutes to fall asleep that first night, and we were shocked it worked that quickly because with the cry-it-out method, she had cried for so so long. So she fell asleep much faster than I thought possible.

We then had lots of ups and downs. She actually learned how to pull herself to stand while we were sleep training, so we had to navigate a new skill while sleep training. I think it took her the majority of the two-week sleep training plan to settle into the routine and learn how to put herself to sleep.

But it was incredible, because after the two weeks, her sleep was so different. We knew we could just put her down and walk away and she was going to fall asleep herself. And it made naps better, it made bedtime better; it was such a night and day difference.

What has Emmy’s sleep looked like since working together?

Emmy has honestly been an incredible sleeper since we’ve worked with you. She held on to two naps a day until after I gave birth to Shepherd, which was a gift during such a hard pregnancy.

She’s now on one nap a day, and although she usually takes more than 10 minutes, she just happily talks to herself or plays with her stuffed animals until she falls asleep. And she still sleeps 11-12 hours a night!

The only hiccup we had was a couple of months ago when she was refusing to eat. We went through an incredibly picky eating phase and she would wake up screaming at 2 am because she was hungry. So we had to navigate that, but I think that was more food-related rather than sleep-related.

What was Shepherd’s sleep like the first seven months of his life?

Shepherd is the sweetest, happiest little guy, when he’s not screaming. And unfortunately, for the majority of those first seven months of his life, he just screamed. And that was really hard to navigate while also caring for a toddler.

Shepherd never liked to sleep from the get-go. As a newborn, he didn’t ever want to be put down to sleep, so he needed to sleep on us. We were so desperate to sleep in any capacity, so we borrowed the SNOO from some friends, and that motion was one of the only ways to get them to sleep.

He would nap for about 20-30 minutes at a time, on average, and sometimes it would take 45 minutes of rocking for just a 20-minute nap, and that was just really hard to sustain while trying to care for a toddler and trying to manage a business, as well.

He would also wake up quite a bit during the night, too.

Shepherd also struggled a lot with eating. He actually needed to be rocked to sleep in order to then eat for the majority of the day; he would not eat awake. So we were trying to figure out what was going on with him, whether it was reflux or an allergy, and we knew we needed to figure that out before sleep training.

We then found a pediatrician who was able to help us with a lot of that, and they gave us the green light to sleep train, so now we’re thankfully in a different spot of eating and sleeping!

What made you want to hire a sleep consultant again, rather than using what you learned the first time we worked together?

One, we knew that working with you was going to give results; we knew we could count on you and your methods. Secondly, we were just struggling so much with Shepherd and while we had some tools in our pocket from working with you before, Shepherd was just so different from Emmy, so we knew we were going to have different questions along the way.

And while navigating his feeding challenges, we knew we were probably going to need to make different adjustments along the way.

We also just trust you! We know you have four kids, you’ve done this with your children, and you also just had a baby with health issues you had to navigate before sleep training. And we were in a vulnerable spot trying to figure out how to love and care for our child, and how to help him eat and sleep! It’s overwhelming, and we were sleep-deprived!

So knowing that I could invite you into that space and that you were going to help and press in – because it’s not just sleep training for you. You really care about us and we’ve only ever felt really loved and cared for by you. And so I think that was what made the biggest difference for us.

What is Shepherd’s sleep like now?

It still just feels unreal to me; his eating and sleeping have been so completely different. I can have full confidence that when it is time to lay him down for his nap, we’re going to do our little routine, I’m going to lay him down and walk out of the room, and he’s going to be asleep within 10 minutes (usually less!).

And then I know he’ll nap for at least an hour, usually an hour and a half. I can lay him down and have one-on-one time with my toddler, or read for a little bit, or I can work on my business.

He is also sleeping through the night!

My husband and I lead the youth group at our church on Wednesday nights, and my mom has always tried to help out with our daughter. But until now, we would just take our son with us to youth group. But now I can leave both kids with her, knowing all she has to do is lay down Shepherd and he’ll go to sleep without any issues.

Or for date nights, I don’t feel bad asking someone to come rock my baby for 45 minutes. It all just feels so freeing.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

If you are struggling and you feel like there’s no way your baby is going to do this method, or you feel a little skeptical because you’ve tried applying advice you’ve gotten from friends or your pediatrician and it just hasn’t worked…

Or if you’ve researched a lot of information online, informational fatigue is real! I read so many things and I was driving myself crazy. So I would recommend finding one trusted resource and stick with that one.

I often joke that if I could give everyone the gift of sleep by snapping my fingers, I would do that in a heartbeat! And although I don’t have that power, you (Lauren) have the gift of knowing how to help families get to sleep again, and so honestly, I just want to share you with everyone.

If you have sleep training questions or just general sleep questions, you’ve got to ask Lauren because it is just amazing; I never knew you could be a specialist in a field like this. Even if you feel like you’ve “tried everything,” you haven’t tried Lauren! Don’t give up until you’ve called Lauren about it.

Also, just working one-on-one with someone makes such a difference. You can read a strategy online and implement that, but it makes such a big difference when you’re going through it with someone who’s walking with you and helping you shift when necessary. And it’s a personalized plan for your child, so it’s built around them.

I just can’t say enough good things about Lauren, and it’s obviously made a big impact on our life being able to sleep again – so so great.

If you’re curious to learn more about what it would look like to work together, book a (free) discovery call here!

Angie Ludwig is a mother of two and a family photographer based in the Columbus, Ohio area. As both a photographer and a mom, she has a deep love for documenting the beauty, connection, and fleeting moments of motherhood – both for her clients and for her own family! Angie and her husband, Chris, have been married for six and a half years and love soaking up time with their children, going for runs, and serving their local church.