My Sleep Journey

Brooke with her son.

Hello! My name is Brooke and I am one tired parent.

Prior to becoming a parent, I was a middle school science teacher, Montessori teacher, STEM director, and a program mentor for a university. When I was pregnant with my son, I quickly discovered how much I needed sleep. If you asked me how I was doing, it was tired. If you asked me what I was looking forward to, it was sleep. If you asked me what was wrong, it was that I didn't sleep well last night. I was looking forward to the day when I would give birth and be able to sleep once again!

Any parent knows that is a hilarious thought. Of course I wouldn't get more sleep once my baby arrived, but I thought I was ready to go. I read all the books I could find on gentle sleep training, seemed to have memorized The Happiest Baby on the Block, and got all the things I needed for a good sleep environment: black out curtains, sound machine, red night light (since other light can keep you up), and a bedside bassinet so I wouldn't have to walk across the house in the middle of the night.

Almost as if a cruel joke, I gave birth to a VERY sensitive sleeper. We quickly discovered every tip and trick we could find and compiled the perfect system for our son. Nurse, diaper change, swaddle, nurse again, bounce, shush, and lay down. Oh he woke? No problem. Turn on the blow dryer and he'd be calm within seconds. We're out and about and he needs a nap? I have my baby wrap (and back up wrap in case he spits up). By 3 months, we were in such a beautiful groove. Little did we know that things would shift.

Each round of even mild illness, batch of new teeth (because for some reason our son gets teeth 2-4 at a time), new developmental leap, or growth spurt would result in WEEKS of disrupted overnight sleep. We couldn't keep up! After just 7 months, we sought out a pediatric sleep consultant who promised there would be no crying involved. So then tell me why we were told to leave our baby crying in a room by himself for up to 15 minutes AND THEN go check on him?!

I was frustrated, my heart was broken, and I had not slept more than 4 hours within a given 24 hour period for at least 9 months at this point. My doctor was concerned because my son "should be sleeping through the night by 6 months". Excuse me, what?! He was exclusively breastfed and refused to eat enough to hold him over. If I let him cry for more than 2 minutes it would take 45 minutes to calm him down. I was following all the recommended wake windows, doing everything in my power to get to that sweet spot of 14-15 hours of sleep each day, and STILL could not catch a break.

So I decided I needed to learn exactly what to do for my son. I'm an educator and life-long learner. Surely I could find a program that would teach me how to help my son and then get some good, solid sleep myself. I stumbled upon Little Dandelion Sleep Consulting and there was an accredited pediatric sleep consultant program I could sign up for. It claimed to be attachment-parenting based and no to low cry methods. Exactly what I wanted, so I immediately dove in.

The program was wonderful. I learned that my son has a high sleep need, is developing so fast that he actually needs shorter wake windows than typical for his age, and needed more naps than normal too since he was a cat napper. Within a month I saw great results and went from waking every 45-90 minutes to just once or twice a night. Honestly, that was a huge win!

Then he stopped teething and I discovered that he could sleep 13 hours STRAIGHT! Oh my sweet boy had the skills he needed for us all to get sleep. While we can only achieve this when we keep his wake windows on the short end for his range, he isn't sick or teething, or if we haven't traveled in the last 2 months, it is still so reassuring to know that when we can get back to our predictability, our son can sleep!

In my work through obtaining my Sleep Consultant Certification, I worked with a variety of tired parents with children from Newborn through 4 years old. I was able to use environmental supports and child-tailored wake windows and routines to get parents moving closer to their ideal sleep set up. Whether it was the 2 year old who would sneak into his mom's bed each night who was sleeping in his own bed for the whole night in less than a month, or the infant who needed unique wake window lengths throughout the day to achieve a predictable nap pattern, I was able to gift parents relief - without crying - in a matter of weeks.

It is my hope that I can take what I have learned to help other tired parents. While my methods aren't as fast as the ones that involve screaming and crying, they are gentle and they do result in positive change in a short amount of time provided the parents and caregivers can be consistent.