Hiring a Guru
The Sleep Trainer that Made Me like My Baby Again
Ok Ok, that’s a little dramatic. Of course I love my baby! But Teddy boy and I had a pretty rough start to our relationship and this past summer I was seriously starting to question my abilities as a parent. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned that baby No. 02 makes you question those abilities no matter what (apparently that’s the whole thing about the jump from one to two… it makes you insane.) but mix that with sleep deprivation and you have the perfect recipe for a mommy melt down.
Isla was my first and unknowingly, easy baby who fell into a sleep routine the first time I tried to train her. Teddy has been a whooooole different story! By the time month four rolled around and I was starting most of my days at 4AM I knew I had to find some help. I am not too proud to say I pulled a full New York City mom moment and was like “I’m hiring someone!” because I desperately needed an expert.
Cut to my new bestie Kylee, Founder of Parenting Made Joyful. Wow. There is a reason she is the hidden gem secret of the underground baby sleep world. She came in and whipped our world into shape in ways I didn’t even know that we needed to shape up. While I don’t want to give away all of her secrets, (I mean girlfriend has to make a living too) I will tell you all about our experience and some really great tips that I learned.
So… what does a sleep trainer do you ask? Well, I had no clue either. Kylee came highly recommended to me and only works through a word of mouth reference from the NYC mom network. She responded to my text and we set up a call immediately. I was so scared that I would get on the phone with someone that was going to judge and lecture me on the things I was doing wrong. Instead just in the tone in Kylee’s voice she made me feel understood and that she had compassion for me and my extreme lack of sleep! We went through what was going on with Teddy and she asked a couple of question. Right away she said she knew exactly what the problem was and it was an easy fix. From there we set our date and I started counting the days until I could put Teddy into “Sleep Bootcamp” as I was calling it. Below are highlights, answers to burning questions I’m sure you have and tips that I learned from Kylee in this experience.
The Home Session
Kylee comes to your house for in home session to teach you what to do. She was at my house on Friday at 7am (yup she showed up smiling with Starbucks!) to 7pm. Teddy slept through the night by Friday night.
The Set Up
She whipped our Teddy living space into shape. Told us where to position his crib, the best sound machine and monitor to have and basically set him up with the most ideal sleeping space possible. Shop a couple of my favorites below.
The Mathematics
I specifically was nap training Teddy as a part of our plan to fix his night time schedule. After we put Teddy down for his first nap we got started on my first lesson of the day in Kylee’s method called Nap Math. She helped me to understand that amount of sleep a baby his age needs to be getting, how to achieve that amount of sleep in a day and the trouble shooting that goes along with it. Throughout the rest of the day she guided me through the nap math and gave me tips as we ran into little problems at each nap. You wouldn’t believe how much just a small dirty diaper can totally tear apart a baby’s sleep!
The Communication
Kylee left my house exactly 12 days ago and we have been in constant contact every single day since. She coaches me through each scenario and I have her full time support virtually for the next 30 days (that’s the package I went with).
Bonus: Toddlers Love her
I had Kylee over to help me with Teddy but she proved to be super helpful with Isla without me even realizing I needed the help. She specializes in behavior and potty training as well, so she had a lot of tips and tricks to use when it comes to understanding a tiny little monster like a toddler.
As you can see I’m basically going to hire Kylee for everything including moving my kids into dorms with me! I learned an enormous lesson outside of sleep training my baby, in that it’s sometimes terrifying to ask for help as a mom. The sense of having to handle it all on your own and be a super woman at it all is so overwhelming and well… impossible. You just set yourself up for failure. Although it took me coming to my very exhausted whits end, I’m so happy that I broke down my comfort zone barrier and reached out for help. The end result is amazing and we’re still in the middle of it so I can only imagine it gets even better. So biggest and best mom hack: ASK FOR HELP you crazy lady!!!
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