Marina had never really been a great sleeper and always needed a fair amount of assistance to get to sleep. At 5 months, mum was trying to follow the Baby Sleep Code routines but Marina would only have short 25-30 min naps and then would be too tired to make the next wake window.
She was settled to sleep with bouncing, rocking, singing, shushing - and sometimes nothing would seem to work. During the day it might only take 10 minutes to settle her to sleep, but she’ll often wake immediately after being transferred to her cot, and the whole process would start again.
At bedtime it would often take an hour before she finally settled. She was also experiencing some split nights sometimes being awake for hours in the middle of the night. They had tried sleep training using the Ferber method but the crying was so intense and they didn't feel confident so stopped. A couple of weeks later they booked a Complete Sleep Support Package with Baby Sleep Code to get sleep happening.
I reviewed their situation in detail, walked them through why they were experiencing these sleep difficulties and set out a plan to get sleep on track. For the first few days we just focused on tweaks to Marina's sleepwear, sleep environment, and nap timings. Then we introduced a new settling method that gave Marina the opportunity to start to fall asleep more independently, with mum still there to provide soothing support whenever she needed it. We worked on sleep over the 7 days, and here's what mum had to say after we wrapped:
"Working with Melissa on our little one’s sleep has been life changing. We started this journey with our baby needing to be rocked and bounced to sleep for long periods of time. As she was getting older, the task became more difficult not only for us physically since she was a big baby, but mentally exhausting as well. She was fighting sleep and only took 25 minute naps. At bedtime she could have up to 5 false starts where we had to start all over again, and night feeds could take hours to resettle. I knew we needed to look into independent sleep skills but after trying some methods and failing miserably we were adamant on not trying again, less if involved crying it out.
I researched all I could and I resonated the most with Baby Sleep Code Instagram. I dm'd a few times with questions and was surprised on how quickly they answered and how much we had to learn. We finally booked a consult when our baby was 5 months old. Melissa walked us through the process on a super detailed call, and was very understanding on us wanting a gentle method. She made a plan for us for the next week and we quickly started with a routine. I was able to be there to support my baby while she learned to sleep by herself and with the login checkins Mel guided us, answering all of our questions that would pop up.
By the 4th day we were in disbelief on how things had changed for us. Naps were becoming longer, she started settling quicker and needed me less to so. I became confident in my decisions and learned as well not to put so much pressure and stress on her sleep. It has been 2 weeks since we started and we have 2 hour naps, she settles by herself and we have our evenings for some quality time for us again. Also baby is sleeping like never before!
If you are on the fence on booking a consult just do it! They will personalize every aspect of the plan to you and your baby’s needs, and it will be so worth it for now and future days to come. Thank you Mel for your help! ❤️"
Ximena, California USA
