It’s 7pm and as I tuck my five-year-old son Felix into bed for the night, I breathe a sigh of relief.
There are no pleas for one more story or other tactics to delay bedtime, and I know he won’t wake up and come into my room at midnight.
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Yes, I’m one of those moms who claims her child sleeps through the night – and has been doing so since daytime.
When Felix was born in June 2018, I was committed to getting him to sleep through the night so I could get my life back on track.
And I broke it in just two weeks.
I was a single mother—I separated from Felix’s father before he was born—so after I gave birth via C-section, my mother came to stay, bringing with her no-nonsense Italian parenting style.
“Let’s do this the European way,” she insisted, and told me about the Gina Ford method of getting a baby to sleep through the night.
Gina advocates letting babies “cry it out” initially and says this is completely harmless.
Her best-selling book, The New Contented Little Baby Book, has sold more than a million copies and has been translated into seven languages since it was released in 1999.
The more I analyzed his approach, the more I liked it.
She recommends following a strict eating and sleeping schedule.
This involves waking the baby at 7am for a feed and keeping him awake until his next nap, which should last no more than two hours.
Bedtime is always 7pm and after holding hands, the mother should leave the room for a few minutes at a time to let the baby calm down.
My mother, who raised three children, said, “It may be boring now, but you’ll thank me later.”
On paper, it seemed simple, although I was worried it wouldn’t work – and as soon as I put Felix in his bed and turned off the lights, there was fussing, crying, everything working.
I tried swaying, silence, and even a slow dance.
He seemed so uneasy that I was afraid I was doing the wrong thing.
But Mom was very reassuring, so I persisted, and eventually, after what felt like a lifetime of rubbing his belly and leaving the room on all fours, Felix finally fell asleep.
The following nights, the same thing happened, but I continued to live on cereal bars and boiled eggs, too scared to look at myself in the mirror.
Then, on the fifth day, we turned a corner.
My son was slowly adapting to his new routine of going down at 7pm – a dream feeding that involved giving Felix the bottle without waking him up entirely – at midnight with mom sometimes helping, then another around 6am.
When Félix was ten days old, the health visitor appeared.
‘IT’S WORKING’
As I explained our routine, she said sleep training should be done in moderation, as parents should follow their babies’ schedules and were concerned that I had given up breastfeeding.
I tried it but found it tricky because of latch-on issues, so after four disastrous days I switched to bottles of formula.
I decided to ignore her advice and trust my instincts – so I continued to keep Felix on a strict routine.
And breastfeeding just didn’t seem like the most important thing.
Felix was born with a rare bleeding disorder called Glanzmann, which doctors estimate affects one in a million people and requires hospital visits and care.
Making sure we both felt rested was key because I didn’t know when I might have an overnight emergency, so I decided, once again, not to take the health visitor’s advice and instead trust my own judgement.
On the 14th, it was working.
I was sleeping six hours undisturbed a night with a newborn and was able to enjoy the simple things again.
I had time to do my hair and makeup, have a leisurely breakfast, and take Felix outside in his stroller without worrying about whether he was well-rested.
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Maintaining the premise that my baby would fit into my life and not the other way around, I went to bars and restaurants at night with friends while Félix, still less than a month old, slept soundly in his stroller.
I even took him out on a date.
When Felix was three months old, I joined a parenting group, and the moms were a little horrified when I told them I had gotten over sleep training so quickly.
“I could never do that!” one of the mothers told me.
But I refused to stay awake all the time.
Ironically, six months later, the same mother confessed how she had become so exhausted that she too went down the sleep training route and was now reaping the benefits.
Now five years old, Felix still fits into my life and loves to sleep.
Co-sleeping is a big no-no – we live in a tiny flat in Kensington, west London, so I can always hear him if he needs me.
Felix’s bed routine always involves his daily medication and a book, so he goes out like a light without any fuss or protest.
The only time I deviate from my bedtime routine is to eat out, but even that brings snarky comments and eye rolling.
It seems that the locals don’t like children in their territory.
But he’s well behaved and it’s better than being stuck inside watching Peppa Pig.
If I had another baby, I would take the same approach to sleep.
And if exhausted moms want to enjoy longer nap sessions, I think they should do the same.
As my dear sensible mother once said, “You will definitely thank me later.”
‘I can’t ignore the baby’s crying’
By Mel Fallowfield
SINCE Rachel Coles gave birth to son Dougie two years ago, she has been “dizzy” with exhaustion.
Dougie sleeps so badly that Rachel, 29, even feared her marriage to senior sales executive Tim, 28, might crumble under the pressure – but the marketing director insists Dougie’s needs come first.
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She says: “Dougie isn’t refusing to sleep because he’s naughty – he’s crying because he needs us.”
Your child struggled to sleep from the start.
“Sometimes he would wake up every 30 minutes,” says Rachel, from Brentwood, Essex.
“I was breastfeeding and he wanted to nurse all night, so we ended up sleeping together.
“We would do anything to stop him from crying, even take him in the car at 3am.
“Tim and I were absolutely devastated.
“Sometimes we were so grumpy I thought we were going to break up.”
In desperation, they let their son “cry it out” when he was six months old.
‘IT SEEMED CRUEL’
Rachel recalls: “After ten minutes we couldn’t take it anymore – it felt cruel.
“We went in and he had his legs stuck to the bed – he was trapped.
“It showed me how wrong it is to ignore a baby’s cries.”
The couple have now come to terms with adapting to Dougie.
Rachel says: “After his bath, one of us stays with him and cuddles him to sleep.
“But at some point he will wake up, so we alternate between hugging him and putting him to sleep.
“Sleep training worked for friends, but every child is different.”
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
