By Meneesha Governder
After much deliberating, my husband and I thought it might be wise to look into the concept of sleep training for our daughter.
Saskiya had started off as very contented baby who began sleeping through the night at about six weeks of age.
Much like my son, we really had no problems with bedtime. She learned very quickly the difference between night and day and was quite happy to go down at about 6pm.
However, things changed when her routine was upset after three long, tiring and traumatic stays in hospital over a six-week period. All of a sudden Saskiya became very needy of Mom or Dad and very wary of anyone else, even her brother and grandparents, whom she was very used to by then.
So, we thought we'd give the Baby Love programme a try.
Rebecca Merensky, the Baby Love consultant in Durban, told us that while the programme was quite rigorous, nothing was carved in stone and it could be adapted to suit our needs as a family.
The key word for her is perseverance.
With that in mind we started our three weeks of sleep training. We had a number of constraints to deal with as Saskiya is asthmatic and so would require special attention - especially with regard to how long we could leave her to cry.
It must be said from the outset, this programme is not for the faint-hearted.
Baby Love requires that baby has his/her own room. No problem for us there. It worked for my son, so we decided to do the same with Saskiya. With a baby monitor on hand, we were quite happy having baby in her own room.
It's a difficult choice to make, especially after a few weeks of hospital stays. But in the end it proved the right one, as she learned independence very quickly and her asthma is never an excuse for her or us.
She is happy on her own, doesn't cling to us when she sees us and knows that Mommy and Daddy are just a holler away when she needs us.
Based on the principle of controlled crying, parents are urged to put baby down while she is still slightly awake and leave her to fall asleep on her own. If they do cry, parents are meant to leave them to cry for 15 minutes, before checking on them and then leaving them again. This, of course, is shattering the first time round.
As soon as she cried I just wanted to run into her room and pick her up. And of course, more importantly, we had to be certain that all this crying would not lead to an asthma attack. So we decided that 15 minutes was too long for us and we shortened the time we left her alone.
My first week on the programme was extremely disillusioning. I was afraid of Saskiya having an attack and just couldn't bear her crying. It led to lots of frayed nerves, tense parents and tense children.
We were ready to throw in the towel when I reported back to Merensky. But then she said to me, "do what works for you. Remember, it's about perseverance and patience and not everything is carved in stone".
So we set about establishing a good routine for her days and followed a four-hour cycle that included two hours of sleep time and two hours of awake time. It took two weeks of frayed nerves and sleepless nights, but this routine proves a dream. Even her nanny found it easy to implement after a while.
Saskiya is never over-stimulated, she is happy to go for up to two-and-a-half hours before her eyelids start drooping and it's a dream to go out with her because we know exactly what to expect and when.
We still haven't got her sleeping through the night though - on the Baby Love programme a baby her age should be sleeping 10 to 11 hours at night. Saskiya does wake up at least once every night but she doesn't cry for us. She has learnt that being in her own room, alone, is a secure place to be. So she sings to herself and eventually falls asleep on her own. Baby Love encourages some sort of bedtime soother, and for Saskiya it's her dummy. She simply pops it back in her mouth and falls asleep almost immediately.
Of course, there are nights when only Mom or Dad will do. And there are other nights where all her singing has the entire house awake. And we get through those as best we can.
We've learned it will not always be smooth sailing. If anything, the Baby Love programme will teach parents that. While they set out parameters, they are also adamant that you work within your own as well. And once baby is in a routine, she will stay in that routine quite happily despite the few hiccups. Teething, flu, growth spurts - they're all curve balls that are thrown out at different times.
That's not to say we stick to the programme rigidly. There are times when circumstances dictate a break with the norm, but it isn't a train smash. We just pick up where we left off in the next day or two and she falls back into it quite easily.
While, my experience with Saskiya is not entirely a success story, Merensky has had phenomenal successes with other parents and babies she has worked with - some of them with a lot more constraints than I had.
The most daunting case she had to deal with, I think, was a mother who approached her with her adopted 18-month-old son.
He was severely traumatised, having been re-homed a number of times and he was experiencing terrible fear and insecurity, as well as disturbed sleep patterns.
Merensky was reluctant to apply Baby Love, simply because not too much was known about the baby's past.
But his mother insisted and she agreed to help. By applying the Baby Love programme, his sleep improved remarkably, his days were stabilised and this once terribly insecure little boy is now happily interacting with other children at school.
Another amazing story she has to tell is of a desperate couple who was suffering so terribly with their son's sleep disturbances that they moved back to South Africa from abroad to seek the help of their family to cope.
After being referred to Baby Love, they agreed to give it a try, having already tried everything else.
Within a week, their baby was sleeping through the night and his days had stabilised dramatically.
Baby Love is not easy. It does require a very particular mindset. But if you're prepared to adapt as you go along and persevere, persevere, persevere, then that's half the battle won. In the end, it's all about what works best for you as a family.
This is a programme that will appeal to some immediately. For some, like myself, it takes a bit of convincing and tweaking, and for others it just won't work. But I am happy, and more importantly my little one is too.
What's the programme?
- The Baby Love training programme is based on stabilising your child's feed, wake and sleep cycles, which work in harmony to promote a healthy, happy child, as well as teaching parents the physiological explanation behind sleep disturbances and how to correct them.
- If parents are happy to follow the suggested routines and sleep training tips, you are guaranteed to notice a marked improvement within a few days and an overall success within the proposed three-week training period.
- Baby Love was designed for new parents who wish to get their babies off to a healthy start by implementing good sleep and feeding habits from the start. However, stabilising existing sleep disturbances has become a large part of the goal.
- Successes range from assisting parents to select the right routines for their babies, based on their age, to rectifying severe sleep disturbances that have been in place, in some cases, for the better part of the child's first two years.
- For more information on the programme visit the Baby Love website.