Gentle transition from cuddling to sleep to sleeping in his cot: Meet Bodhi.

Anita is a 36-year-old farmer, runs her own business selling farm produce, and has a small brood of her own - two primary school age children, and baby Bodhi who is 3 months old. Anita has a busy life – she home-schools her two older children, and packs customer orders for her business, all with Bodhi strapped to her in the carrier.

Anita likes to keep Bodhi close. She believes in following his lead and has always let Bodhi sleep in his carrier any time he needed to. But a recent diagnosis means Anita needed to start putting Bodhi down in his cot for naps, so her back could rest. The problem? Bodhi wasn’t so keen on this plan!

“I had a lot of back and pelvic pain during my pregnancy with Bodhi, but with the older children I didn’t have time to see anyone about it. I figured it would ease once he was born. When Bodhi came along the back pain never really went away, probably because he spent a lot of time strapped to me in the carrier so I could manage the kids and the business. As Bodhi grew and got heavier, it only worsened. My doctor diagnosed me with severe postpartum back pain and told me I had to stop carrying him all the time.”

 Anita felt that the doctor was right. Her back needed rest. So she went home and gave cot settling a try.

“It was a disaster! No matter how I tried to put him down in his cot he would scream and my anxiety would go through the roof. He cried, I cried, even our dog cried along for a while. I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was awful. I gave up pretty quickly. I figured there had to be a gentler way to help him make the adjustment to falling asleep in his cot. He just didn’t know how to fall asleep there and it probably felt a bit scary for him being somewhere so different.”

 Anita did what most tired parents do – she turned to the internet for advice.

“I had so many tabs open, trying to compare a million different consultants and clinics. I wanted to work with someone highly qualified who really understands sleep and who would give us some flexibility and choice about how we helped Bodhi transition to his cot. Everyone who is highly qualified is booked out for a month or more, but I didn’t want to wait. I knew I needed an option that I could start on right away, but also didn’t want some basic pdf download. I wanted something meatier than that, and I also wanted the advice to come from women with lived experience. I suppose it was a tall order, but when I found Sombelle it ticked all the boxes.”

Anita joined the Sombelle parent trial. Straight away she began to learn about why Bodhi found the cot so distressing. She learnt to think about sleep and settling from Bodhi’s perspective, and identified his unique sleep needs. She started to fill in the Sombelle sleep diary and sleep plan template, and worked through the lessons on her phone. Within a day Anita had identified the strategies she would use to ease Bodhi’s transition to the cot, and felt ready to get started. 

“I knew Bodhi needed a lot of hands-on support and a very gradual transition to the cot. I wanted to minimise crying and take our time. I decided to try the Slow Tapered approach because it meant I could spend time preparing Bodhi to move to his cot, before making that leap. Hubby arranged help on the farm so he could do more of the settling too. I introduced a bunch of new sleep associations while Bodhi was still napping in the carrier. These were sleep associations that could still be present when he’s in his cot, which would help him make that transition. We applied a couple of modifications as suggested in the Sombelle materials, so we felt that the plan we worked up was really well suited to our parenting style and also the practicalities of having other kids and a farm to look after.”

We asked Anita how long it took her to have Bodhi settling easily in his cot.

“We definitely didn’t hurry! I think we spent a week adding in new sleep associations, then a week or two supporting him to fall asleep in his cot. It was worth it though. We respected and supported his need for reassurance and comfort from us. We supported him through the transition and I feel really proud of how we did it.”

Bodhi’s sleep improved in lots of ways.

“I can put him down in his cot and he happily puts himself to sleep without crying. He’s started to have longer day naps because the cot is more restful than the carrier. We noticed a big change at night time too. We used to feed him or hold him to sleep and then put him down in his cot, but he would wake all the time probably wondering where on earth we had gone. Now he sleeps several hours at a time, wakes 1-2 times to feed overnight and settles back to sleep quickly.”

“My back is healing and the pain has almost gone. When Bodhi figured out how to fall asleep in his cot I could finally go to my physio appointments knowing that I could put him down in the pram and he would nap while I was working with the physio. At home, I can get a lot done during Bodhi’s naps and have time to help the older children with their school work. I’m a happier parent too. I think I used to feel very touched-out and grumpy all the time. Now I get much better sleep at night and settling in the day time is so easy.”

 “Sombelle changed our lives. It’s the sort of resource all new parents should have so they can skip the guesswork and confusion about sleep and get the right advice from the get-go. I’ve told my entire mother’s group about it. I thought I would have to give up my parenting values if I wanted to change anything about Bodhi’s sleep. I’d heard all these horror stories, so I was worried that I’d have to be a less responsive and nurturing parent if I wanted him to sleep in his cot. But this wasn’t the case at all. Sombelle taught me how to choose an approach that honours my values. The videos from Dr Laura and Dr Fallon really helped too.”

Anita’s experiences are not unique to her – lots of families we work with report similar progress. What surprises parents the most, is that improving sleep often isn’t as hard as they expected it to be. Most parents believe that sleep can only be improved using harsh, ‘cry it out’ type approaches and this simply isn’t true. You can nurture and support your baby's mental health and also improve their sleep.

Sleep is really important for health and wellbeing. If lack of sleep is impacting you or your baby, it’s important to get help so you can be the vibrant, happy human you ought to be!