Marion and 13 month old Rosa

I found Nat on Instagram when I was scrolling in the middle of the night whilst my 12 month old baby was awake and playing in my bed for 2 hours. I was beyond exhausted after many months of very little sleep. My remit to her was simple – I wanted my baby to fall asleep easily, without hours of shushing and patting, only to wake up again an hour later, and for her to stay asleep for most of the night. She was waking 2 or 3 times a night by this stage (it had been up to 6-8 times but things were gradually getting better as she got older!)…. so I would have taken 1 wake a night. Nat stepped in and basically gave me the structure and support I needed to be able to do the sleep training I knew I needed to do. For my little one, the gentle methods had worked up to a point, when she was 6 months old, but I was stuck in a shushing and patting cycle, which meant hours of leaning over the cot until I was too exhausted to do it anymore, so gave up and took her into my bed for the second half of the night!
Nat helped us to establish good wake windows and solid routines, and supported me whilst I let my little one work out how to get to sleep by herself. There were some tears, yes, but she was not left screaming for hours on end. The timing of the sleep was crucial for us, which Nat guided me with. Was it easy? No! But changing habits, being consistent and not taking the easy route out is never easy. We stuck at it for 4 weeks in the end, and now my 14 month old goes to bed happily, quietly and very quickly. She mostly sleeps through and we are just getting the early mornings to be a little less early – 5am is too early in my book – but every day is a little better than the last! We have made enormous progress and I am so proud of my little girl who is now a champ at getting herself to sleep – she now fights to get out of my arms and into her cot at bedtime, rather than the other way around! Thank you, Nat. You have been so very patient with me, even when I have been tired and fed up and ready to quit, you kept going, and we got there in the end!

Marion and 13 month old Rosa