Our 2.5 year old boy had barely slept a night in his life. We could count the number of times he managed to sleep all night without waking on two hands. Almost every one of the nights he had woken during the night, he would have 2 or 3, sometimes more, wakings a night. And not brief wakings! At least one of the wakings would be for 2 hours, sometimes 3, and often requiring a cup of milk (or two!). We had tried sleep school, a private sleep consultant, a purchased home program and were finally prescribed both Melatonin to get him to sleep and Vallergan to keep him asleep (which it rarely did) by his peadiatrician, who also told us he is an anxious child. On top of this lack of sleep was the difficulty in getting him to go to sleep. Every night 1 to 1.5 hours to get him off to dream land. This process involved sitting on our lap next to the bed while he pinched our right hand, then our left, then the right again, and then he would finish his cup of milk. Daytime naps were often non-existent, or in the car for a drive with the sole purpose of getting him to take a nap, or when they were in his bed, one of us had to lie with him until he went to sleep. I even resorted to sitting on the couch with him on my lap to watch The Wiggles and repeated a particular song that made him sleepy until he’d fall asleep. To say we were exhausted was a huge understatement!
After hearing tips and tricks from Lisa’s Facebook page, we decided to get in touch with Lisa to see if she thought she could help.
Lisa came to our house, and the moment Charlie laid eyes on her, he loved her! He showed her everything in his bedroom – right down to his water bottle and gave her a grand tour of our house and wanted her to come in to view potty time! I have never ever seen him warm up to someone so fast, or be that interactive and excited with someone! What a great start!
Our initial in house consultation was great. Lisa checked out Charlie’s room, listened to our story so far, outlined a few options and talked to us about what we would be comfortable with. No pushing us to do cry-it-out method’s, timed approaches, etc – unlike our previous experiences with sleep consultants and sleep schools. Lisa was already sharing ideas to help with Charlie’s (and Mum’s) anxiety.
Lisa’s plan was very detailed and unique to our circumstances, and the constant support and feedback has helped us through each night and we have adapted the plan as the nights went on based on Charlie’s reactions, also including targeted activities during the days to support what we were trying to achieve at night. We have done a number of activities to help Charlie with his anxiety and are seeing great results! He is much more confident now than he was only a few short weeks ago!
So far, in three weeks, we have taken a gentle approach and seen some fantastic results! We are no longer giving Charlie any drugs to get to sleep or to stay asleep. There is no longer a chair next to his bed, no milk in the middle of the night, no more hand pinching! He climbs into bed after his bedtime story, and we have had one sleep through, and when he has woken, it has been only once and we have been able to speak one sentence to him from the door and he will roll over and go back to sleep! We are stoked by his phenomonal progress and are incredibly thankful to Lisa for not only tailoring the program to our families needs, but for the endless support, feedback and ideas she has provided for us. Lisa has gone above and beyond for us to help us get some very much needed shut eye in our house. I cannot recommend her highly enough!! We are very confident that we will have a good sleeper on our hands very soon, and we already have a much happier little boy during the day. Thank you Lisa!!
- https://www.cherishyoursleep.com.au/2-5yrs-of-sleepless-nights-are-now-a-thing-of-the-past/
