My first daughter never slept. Never. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but the kid took 20 minute naps and woke up every 2-3 hours until she was 6-months-old. I had the only newborn in the world who spent more time awake than asleep. She wouldn’t sleep in the car or stroller no matter how many miles I clocked. You can imagine how crazed, exhausted, emotional and just plain desperate I was.
After trying almost everything, I was introduced to a book from a Dr. Marc Weissbluth called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.. After some trial and error, and yes, some crying it out on her part, she started sleeping like a champ. She was a much happier baby and we were much happier parents.
Now there is help, besides a book, for parents at their wits end.
Enter Dream Team Baby. These sleep consultants will help parents and babies get a good nights sleep via phone consultations, visits and even overnight stays. One Dream Team consultant lives right here in Baristaville. Elizabeth Ruebman, Montclair mom of three (that’s her above), can help your baby and you get a good night’s sleep. She told me more about the method Dream Team Baby uses:
The method is tailored to each family but we start by preparing the baby and the family for sleep. We first work with the parents to make sure that there is partnership between them and that they are on the same page moving forward. We have parents keep logs of their baby’s days and nights and receive approval from their pediatrician. Then we review everything to see if there is anything that could be affecting sleep and then we make any needed changes. We assess the nursery for anything impacting sleep such a light sources or temperature. We develop a schedule for the baby to provide the optimum amount of sleep and the parents commit to the schedule for two weeks. The first night we do an in-depth consultation covering everything from sleep science to strategies for when the sleep consultant is not there. Clients receive two weeks of phone support.
The benefits are immeasurable. Babies release growth hormone at night and they need uninterrupted sleep for their physical and cognitive development. Typically my clients say that the baby is very cranky and/or very “busy.” A lot of babies have been labeled “bad babies” and I get to watch them become happier and calmer once they sleep. The “bad baby” is suddenly the happy baby and the “busy” baby is suddenly focusing on a single toy at a time when they start getting the right amount of rest. Parents cannot function at their best when they are sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation can make you depressed, irrational, and/or irritated. It is a joy to see this fade away as the family starts to get sleep!
Do wish you had help getting your kids to sleep? Are you going through the sleep deprivation now?
(Photo of E.Ruebman by Ron Holtz Photography)
oh brother – there’s a sucker born every minute. Is there no aspect of parenting someone won’t contract out?
We used the cold turkey method. 3 nights of crying an it was all over. They slept like veritable babies after that.
This is a serious issue for a new mom recovering from child birth. The exhaustion sucks away your sanity. I was lucky to have an experienced nanny who had many grown children of her own. From the day I brought my twins home from the hospital, she taught me everything I needed to know about babies. We had those girls sleeping on schedule immediately. In a society where our mothers sometimes live far away, like mine does, we need women who can teach other women. Tending to babies isn’t instinctual. There’s much to learn, and it’s wonderful that Elizabeth Ruebman is here in town to help moms with little ones.
For those parents who just cannot go ‘cold turkey’, this sounds like a great way to get your child sleeping and in fact I know of several parents who have used sleep consultants and loved it. It seems mean spirited and obviously very negative to put down a different approach to this aspect of parenting just because you were able to do it yourself. Now if I could just get a sleep consultant for myself…
Kristen-
I couldn’t agree with you more. Historically, families lived close by and they, and the community, would teach new mothers how to sleep train their kids, breastfeed AND COOK! Now that families are fragmented, we still expect women to know how to do all these things simply because we are women. They are not instinctual and we need to be taught. We all need to support one another. Who wants to move to a commune with me? Thanks, Elizabeth Ruebman (by the way, great photo.)
“They are not instinctual and we need to be taught. We all need to support one another.”
Or, really, we need to support Dream Team Baby for $400.
ooooooh, bruuuuuther.
Ferberize them. It’s 2 nights, tops. My kids are grown & almost grown…they are happy and well adjusted. It wasn’t easy for those 2 nights, but it worked like a charm.
We musta been crazy.
We LOVED watching the little prof sleeping. We’d just smile.
So we took a room in the West wing, had our servants remove the furniture and get some big ‘ol pillows and we let him fall asleep as we watched TV.
I still smile thinking of his little face, the cat sometimes curled up next to him.
Our thinking is simple: In NO TIME, the little prof will have his own life and friends. So we want to spend as much time with him as possible. So he stays up late, we read, play or watch Dirty Jobs and then mrs. prof reads him the classics as he (and sometimes she) drifts off…
Me?
I’m catching up on “24.”
But if you want to spend your money on someone to teach you the EASY stuff, just what will you do when your kid is unpopular?
Is there a “popularity” coach?
(prof wants a credit, Alma, because I KNOW I just gave you a great idea. And judging from your posts, you’d be very good at it too: Alma Schneider, popularity coach for tweens and teens…”)
My first child did not sleep through the night until she was FOUR AND A HALF. Trust me, having a child with sleep problems is horrible; we would have benefitted from this program.
I right now have a baby who doesn’t sleep through the night (on a good night he’ll only wake up once or twice).
That being said: I completely agree with the Prof. You couldn’t pay me enough to use a stranger to put my kid to sleep.
Forget about the absolutely absurd idea of me paying for someone else to do it.
For the record, I don’t “do it” for the parents. No one is handing their baby over to me–I’m not a night nurses. I work with the parents on implementing the Dream Team method and stay over at their homes but they care for their own babies. And by the time I get to their house I am hardly a stranger.
Maybe it was not clear from the article but the people who hire us are having PROBLEMS with their baby’s sleep. They have usually TRIED Ferber, a doctor’s recommendation, and a million other methods and nothing works. Long-term sleep deprivation is one of those things (like childbirth) that you really can’t understand until you have lived through it. But I guess it is more fun to sit in judgment of people for struggling with “the easy stuff” than to try to understand. Unfortunately we just can’t all be so perfect and some of us have to get help with problems. For me it is so gratifying to help families who are struggling with sleep and watch how improved their lives are when the whole family is well rested.
You’re a little thin skinned, aren’t you, eruebman? Maybe you’re tired, behind on your sleep, a little cranky perhaps…
Nice try eruebman,
But, and I may be wrong here, haven’t babies been around for a long time?
In that, haven’t parents put them to sleep for just as long?
So, the idea that your service is “needed” is a joke.
Though I’m sure you do good work. And the folks who use you will praise God above for your service.
But, there’s no reason to get all snitty when folks question the use or value of your “service.”
Moreover, your use of “Long-term sleep deprivation” may work with tired parents with cash, but under any sensible light, it fails to persuade.
I wish you well because, as I said, if you help one family- God Bless You.
But it is always unsightly for the subjects of posts to berate commenters.
Mr. Roo is right, being thin skinned is unattractive.