“Thank you so much for your help and advice! My 14-month-old is finally sleeping through the night. We met at the Vista location of Stroller Strides and had a 30-minute follow-up phone consultation. I had been breastfeeding my son back to sleep one to two times a night. As you advised, I started using a verbal sleep cue and took away the light/music machine from the crib. Finally, one night I was ready (i.e., no time change, sickness, or impending travel) and used progressive waiting. After two hours of intermittent crying, he went to sleep. The next night, I only had to go in once. He stills wakes on occasion, but I only have to talk to him with verbal sleep cue to get him to calm down and go back to sleep. Again, thank you so much for your help. P.S. I have been telling my friends about you and my positive experience working with you.”

Kate
Mother of 14-month-old son

“We were almost there when it came to sleep. But, our one-year-old still wasn’t getting the total amount of sleep she needed, and she still didn’t seem to be developing healthy self-soothing techniques. Back when my daughter was around eight months old (we were a co-sleeping family up until then), we tried to sleep train her using the time check method. After two days of her crying and us struggling through the time check method, my daughter slept the whole night. Naptimes were a battle to get anything more than 40 minutes and she still would scream when we laid her down in her crib. Months later, our daughter got sick and our time check method just wasn’t working anymore for any of us. I kept second-guessing our approach and myself: “I wonder if she’s teething. Maybe she’s afraid of the dark? Why doesn’t this sleep book talk about screaming vs. crying?” And, our daughter had started waking at night again, and we weren’t able to repeat that early success.

“So, we started doing research. I wanted something that was gentler than the time check method, but would still teach her soothing techniques. I wanted to be there for my daughter, and I wanted her to know that I was there. That’s when I remembered The Sleep Lady’s “Good Night, Sleep Tight Workbook” that Jen recommends at the workshop that I had taken before we started our sleep training. So, I read through it. I loved that this method seemed more gentle and that I could help my daughter develop better sleep habits, not just leave her to struggle through it on her own. I started taking a more detailed sleep log and that’s when I found out how little sleep my daughter was actually getting. She was at an almost four-hour sleep deficiency… every day.

“But the directions in the book weren’t helping me battle the second-guessing that I would always go through at every nap and every bedtime. Then I reached out to Jen for a consultation call to discuss what was happening at our house and see what we could do about it. The consultation call was great – I already felt better about our plan going forward and Jen’s insight had rejuvenated me that we were going to get through it and that my daughter would have much better sleep soon. She mentioned that we were candidates for coaching. Since we were so close to reaching success, Jen felt that she could offer me a new package – one where I would develop my sleep plan and continue filling in the sleep log and she would review my sleep plan to help me see trends and identify areas of improvement. This was exactly what I wanted!

“I wrote down my ideal sleep plan and some of the key areas that I would like to improve (e.g., total sleep, no more screaming when we lay her down). I sent her my draft along with my sleep log and we got right down to business. Our first call highlighted some key areas that I could improve and see some fast results. She answered my questions and helped me develop my own tools to stop my second-guessing. She highlighted all the good trends she was seeing in my sleep log (I was so focused on the bad things, I missed a lot of the good things that were happening). We tweaked the sleep plan a little and I set off to see what would happen.

“At our next call, the sleep log showed great progress and I could report feeling much better and happier about our sleep. Jen again made suggestions based on my reports and questions. My daughter’s sleep got better and better. She started cooing and making noises when she would go in her crib. Jen was amazing to talk through any questions or concerns. She had a great way of offering her support even though it was on the phone. The notes I would take during our calls would become tools that I could use to keep my answer consistent for my daughter. So, even between the calls, I had what I needed to reach success.

“It’s now been about a month later and thanks to Jen, I still feel extremely comfortable and confident in our sleep approach and my daughter is not only getting the amount of sleep she needs, she has developed much healthier sleep soothing techniques.”

Sarah
Mother of eight-month-old son
San Diego, CA