As a second-time mom, I had been rather relaxed when it came to preparing for Elise’s arrival. I mostly just chatted with friends who recently had their babies and watched some relevant IG stories that I stumble upon to refresh my parenting “skills and knowledge”. Furthermore, with a pre-schooler around, I simply didn’t have the time to sit down and savour parenting books like I used to when I was pregnant with Laurent (oh, how I miss those carefree days!). 7 months on, I think we are doing fine with Elise (thank God)! But if there is ONE thing I wish I read up about prior to Elise’s arrival, it would be the topic of instilling good sleeping habits in our babies.

During my confinement period, Elise was waking up almost every 1 to 2 hours to nurse for the first few days and I was sleeping so poorly, I had to let my confinement nanny take care of her during the night. While chatting with some mummy friends, they shared with me the importance of establishing an age-appropriate nap and sleep schedule for baby. I read up on the topic and started to regulate her napping and sleeping schedule towards the end of my confinement period. Establishing a sleeping schedule really helped Elise (and me) to rest and sleep so much better. It even helped her to feed better because when she was sleeping poorly previously and constantly waking up and fussing, my confinement nanny would assume she was hungry and kept feeding her. She then had bloated tummy from overfeeding and was even more cranky! 

So Elise was doing pretty well in terms of napping and sleeping – following an age-appropriate routine on most days and sleeping at least 8-9 hours a stretch at night. Then it all changed when she hit 4 months. Yes, the much dreaded 4-month sleep regression happened! She started cat-napping during the day, napping for 15-30 mins each time, and can no longer fall asleep by herself at night. I tried to troubleshoot by looking through books and articles but can’t quite determine the issue. I happened to talk to Zoe about Elise’s sleep regression and thankfully, she agreed to come by my place for a comprehensive consultation to see how we can help Elise get back to sleeping properly again. 

Prior to the session, I had to complete a sleep audit so that Zoe can have a better understanding of the situation and Elise’s current sleeping habits. During the consultation, Zoe took a look at Elise’s sleeping environment and gave us some advice on how to make it more conducive for her. She then went through a slide presentation to help me understand the importance of instilling good sleeping habits in our little ones, the science behind sleep training and how to go about doing it to ensure maximum success rate. After her detailed sharing, I realise how little I really know about sleep science and I was so glad to have her share those nuggets of wisdom with me! 

Zoe has a very concise 5-step method for her clients to follow and I understand that her success rate is extremely high if the clients follow through her 5-step method consistently.

I don’t really have videos to share with you because my antique of a baby monitor (from Laurent’s time) was unable to record the footages properly, but I’ll share with you some of my communication with Zoe during our first week of sleep training Elise.

We started the sleep training with Elise on a Sunday evening, starting with her night sleep. The first night was… long. She was probably used to my helper rocking her to sleep for the past few weeks, she didn’t understand why we suddenly stopped doing that and it seems like she has forgotten how to fall asleep by herself. She started with rubbing her eyes, scratching her head, chewing on her jellycat and whining a lot with some short episodes of crying (less than 5 mins each) for more than an hour. In the end, this softie of a mum here couldn’t take it and gave her the pacifier, after which she fell asleep on her own within 5 minutes.

Honestly, it wasn’t a bad start, I just wished I was a little more determined in not giving her the pacifier to use as sleep prop. 

We continued with the sleep training during her naps the next day. Naps are much tougher (which Zoe already pre-empted me) so there were a lot of crying involved. Sleep training for the second night saw shorter but more intense crying compared to the first day and I eventually gave her the pacifier again (oops) before she fell asleep on her own. It took less than an hour on the second night for Elise to fall asleep. 

I updated Zoe on Elise’s progress and her replies always helped to ease my doubts and reassured me that Elise has the ability to fall asleep on her own, I just need to trust her and give her the opportunity to learn, in spite of her protests. 

Then on the third day, it was like someone sprinkled some sleeping dust on Elise (Zoe, was that you?!) and she suddenly GOT IT. She fell asleep within 30 mins on her own, without pacifier and her crying was much shorter and less intense compared to the first 2 nights. And she slept through from 730pm to 7am! Even her naps started getting better. She was mostly able to fall asleep by herself and sleep for more than an hour each time. 

Despite the bad rep that sleep training gets, I can totally see how beneficial it is for our children’s development and also our own sanity! With good sleeping habits, nap times and sleeping hours become more consistent and I noticed that Elise became more interactive and less cranky in the day. It also gave me some time to do my own things and we could even bring Laurent out for movies at night because we know that once Elise is asleep, she won’t be up till the next morning. 

Not even a week since we started sleep training Elise and she was already soothing herself to sleep in as quickly as 15 minutes and sleeping through the night.

Below is a short (and very blur, my apologies) clip of Elise settling to sleep by herself on Day 5 of her sleep training. After leaving her in her cot wide awake, she was fussing for a few of minutes before the crying turned into intermittent whining and she proceeded to fall asleep on her own. It’s a 11 mins long clip so you can play it on fast forward!

After she started attending infant care, however, Elise sometimes seemed to be overtired by the time we put her to bed but refuse to be in her cot any earlier because she wants to play with us when we reach home. Now that she can sit up and stand assisted in her cot, she has also been sitting and standing up to look for us when we try to put her to bed (which Zoe has already preempted me about when she first checked out Elise’s sleeping environment during her visit). This means she is taking longer to fall asleep and sometimes become overtired and needs our help to calm her down. We are still trying to see how we can make changes to her sleeping time and environment to help her fall asleep better, but so far she has no problem sleeping through the night, usually clocking an 11 to 12 hours stretch 🙂

Zoe’s sleep program showed me that getting our babies to sleep doesn’t have to be a long and tedious process for caregivers. It is most important to be persistent and consistent, and if you follow through Zoe’s 5-step program, you can really start to see results within a week of implementing the program. I only wish I’ve engaged Zoe’s service when Elise was still a newborn, she would have breezed through her sleep regressions!

If your little ones are experiencing sleep-related issues, definitely check out Zoe’s sleep training programs. She offers different sleep packages to cater to the different needs and financial/ time commitments that different parents have. From e-consultation to home consultation and VIP experience – I’m sure everyone can find a suitable option. If you are unsure whether sleep training is something you will need at this point, you can start off with a free 20 mins consultation call with Zoe and see how things go from there. If you are currently pregnant and waiting for your little one’s arrival, please follow Zoe on her instagram @sgsupernanny and get her Sleep Baby Sleep! book to equip yourself with all the important tips and knowledge on helping your baby sleep better!

You can start by downloading her FREE Mini Baby Sleep Book here as well https://www.sgsupernanny.com/free-mini-baby-sleep-book/

Zoe has also kindly offer all my readers a special 30% discount for her newly released Sleep Baby Sleep Online Video Program. Hurry though, this 30% discount is only limited to the first 30 subscribers! Enter code DAPRAYERSGSUPERNANNY30 at the checkout.