Full night sleeps in just 2 weeks

Amelia, 7 weeks: Full night sleeps in just 2 weeks!

Unsettled baby | Frequent night wakes | Poor napping | Sleeping through the night in 2 weeks! | Little Ones™ Case Study

Amelia's sleep story...

As first time parents, Felicity and her husband had no idea what their baby Amelia wanted and assumed that every cry was from hunger. They never even suspected sleep (or a lack of!) was the cause of her unsettled behaviour.

Felicity assumed that Amelia would go to sleep when she was tired - not realising that being too tired means you can’t sleep! As a result, they had no predictability or structure to their days and no decent naps.

Overnight, Amelia would go down at 6pm then be up again at 7pm. Between 7pm and the morning (usually 5am) she was waking every couple of hours. Out of desperation, Felicity and her husband had resorted to co-sleeping with Amelia at night, just to try to get a little bit more sleep!

My husband and I both thrive on structure so without it and having a newborn, we were totally lost. I started to suffer from PNDA, I was a mess and hated spending time with my baby. There was no time of the day I felt like I knew what I was doing. Her naps were all over the place and she was up and down so much at night. I felt like a failure.

Then late one night, Felicity came across Little Ones on Facebook. She bought our Newborn Sleep Program straight away and much to her amazement, it took less than a week to start seeing positive change:

At first, I felt like we couldn’t go anywhere and would have to be tied to the house trying to work on Amelia's sleep. But it was suggested in the Little Ones Village that we use nap times as travel times, and it worked perfectly for us! I realised we can be quite flexible now that I know what to expect. The first week we started the Program Amelia immediately reduced to one night wake. Within 2 weeks, she was sleeping through the night in her bassinet!

Amelia's unpredictable napping and poor night time sleep was not complicated to improve. There was nothing "wrong" with this baby or her mother's ability to care for her; Felicity just needed some guidance around the best awake times and nap patterns for her baby's age.

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By simply getting Amelia's awake times spot-on and aiming for the best nap lengths to lead to good night time sleep, Amelia is now a happy baby that is getting enough sleep and Felicity and her husband are getting some much needed together time too:

We now have our bed to ourselves at night! We can have an uninterrupted meal together. We get to have grown-up time in the evening. We now know when she is tired and hungry. Our days are much much better! We can coordinate with friends and family the best times for us to go out or for them to pop round and see her. She is such a happy baby and we are functioning a billion times better as a family thanks to Little Ones.

Like a lot of new parents, Felicity and her husband were struggling with a lack of structure for Amelia. This was exacerbating Felicity's Postnatal Depression and Anxiety (PNDA). Mental health is something we take very seriously because we know how often sleep deprivation and PNDA go hand-in-hand. Everyone deserves help and sometimes, that help comes in the form of a more structured approach to sleep that everyone in the family can benefit from.

Felicity was doing the best she could with the information she had, but she had reached her breaking point and knew their current situation wasn't sustainable. Through our Program, she was able to learn about the best awake times for her baby, gentle settling methods, how to set up the perfect sleep environment and the optimal amount of nap hours to lead to good sleep overnight.

And because all of this works with a baby's natural circadian rhythm, little Amelia took to it like a fish to water! It turned out having some structure and predictability was exactly what was needed to get this little lady and her family on the road to better sleep.

Before the Program we felt like our lives were completely dictated by this little blob of love. We never imagined that we could get a routine that is so perfectly balanced for both our baby and us. Little Ones should be given to every family in the newborn kits you get from hospital!

You don't have to put up with poor sleep - not when help is right at your fingertips! Our Little Ones App contains everything you need to get more sleep for your family, including customisable schedules, gentle settling methods and support from our certified sleep consultants. Download our App today to start your journey to better sleep!

Further Resources and Support

Postpartum Support International (USA & International)

Postpartum Progress (USA)

PaNDAS - PND Awareness and Support (United Kingdom)

Association for Postnatal Illness (United Kingdom)

Beyond Blue (Australia)

PANDA (Perinatal Depression and Anxiety Australia) (Australia)

Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand (New Zealand)

Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Aotearoa (New Zealand)

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