Toddler Lottie’s frequent night waking and feeding to sleep. Solved.

Meet the Family

• Lottie: 22 month old toddler

• Parents: Caitlin & Ahmed

The Problem

Lottie could fall asleep quickly at bedtime, but only if she was breast fed to sleep. Her dad, Ahmed, could rock her to sleep but this could take 30+ minutes and Lottie would usually cry. Once asleep it was fairly easy to put Lottie down in her cot at the start of the night, but after 2-3 hours Lottie would start to wake up and cry out at least every 1-2 hours and had started to resist going back in her cot. Most nights she was waking 4-5 times and wouldn’t fall back asleep unless she was breast fed and then placed back in her cot asleep. Many nights they gave up on the cot and brought Lottie in to their bed but still no one slept well – Lottie was constantly latched to Caitlin who was wide awake.

Caitlin was exhausted, desperately wanted to stop breast feeding, and said that all the joy had drained out of parenting. She was too tired to enjoy any of it. Caitlin was also worried that it would be impossible to change how Lottie settled for sleep without causing her a lot of distress. This had stopped her from trying to improve Lottie’s sleep in the past. Caitlin felt trapped and depressed. Ahmed did as much settling as he could manage but an old back injury made it hard for him to rock Lottie for hours every night. They both wanted a clear plan to change their situation.

The Solution

Caitlin and Ahmed were invited by Dr Laura (PhD) to trial the Sombelle program for toddlers during its development phase. Caitlin and Ahmed focused on the chapters that cover frequent night waking and settling in the cot. First they worked on gradually reducing and then stopping all night feeds. Caitlin slept in the spare room and Ahmed gave Lottie plenty of pats, cuddles, and reassurance to fall back asleep either in her cot, or in the parent bed. They didn’t worry about how they settled her, just gave her lots of support as needed to help her adjust to feeding less overnight. After 10 days Lottie no longer fed overnight at all and was already waking up less often.

Then Caitlin and Ahmed started to work on helping Lottie always fall asleep in her cot. They explored a range of Sombelle’s very gradual approaches but felt Lottie would adapt better to a quicker approach called Advanced Accelerated. This allowed Caitlin and Ahmed to sleep right beside Lottie’s cot and give her frequent hands on support and reassurance while she fell asleep in her cot. After 3 nights Lottie surprised Caitlin and Ahmed by sleeping right through the night without calling out. Within another few nights Caitlin and Ahmed were able to sleep back in their own bed and Lottie didn’t mind this at all, she quite liked having her own sleep space – something her parents never thought could be possible!

We asked Caitlin and Ahmed what they loved about Sombelle, and this was their reply

Caitlin:

“Before we started Sombelle I had felt paralysed by Lottie’s terrible sleep. I’d read that trying to change anything about her sleep could be harmful to her wellbeing and that we should just ‘ride it out’ until her sleep improves. Now I realise that was terrible advice and poor Lottie had missed out on almost 2 years of good sleep, plus we had missed out on enjoying our little girl because we were so stressed out and exhausted all the time. Sombelle is an incredible resource because it gave us heaps of good options to choose from that were all safe and supportive for Lottie. I was worried there would only be ‘cry it out’ approaches but I was so wrong. I love that we had choices we could make about what we did, based on what was likely to work for her temperament. I found the changes quite easy and manageable and wish like hell I’d done something months ago. Honestly, it’s changed our lives and I cry just thinking about how much happier we are now. Thank goodness we did it and thank you Dr Laura and Dr Fallon for creating this essential parent resource, we call you our ‘sleep angels.’

Ahmed:

“The change in our household has been huge. I felt lost and incapable when Caitlin was constantly feeding Lottie all night long. Caitlin was hanging by a thread and I couldn’t work out how to help. But now I can settle Lottie just as easily as Caitlin and it only takes 5 minutes. We have also found each other again – we have time every evening to ourselves and we even booked a babysitter and went out for dinner! It feels like someone put the sun back in our skies. I really didn’t think Lottie’s sleep would ever be this good or that it would be so straightforward and easy to make improvements. I’m grateful to the Sombelle program for that – it does a clever job of distilling lots of information in to small actionable tasks and the sleep action plan really helped us stay focused on our goals. Any dads out there who are feeling a bit helpless with their toddler’s sleep, and know they need to be doing more, just join Sombelle and get it done, you won’t regret it.”