Once Too Tired for More Kids—Now Thriving and Expecting Baby #2
For many parents, the struggle of sleepless nights and constant exhaustion can be so overwhelming that the idea of having another child seems unimaginable.
The lack of sleep takes a toll on every aspect of their lives—physically, mentally, and emotionally. It isn’t just about surviving the night anymore, it was about whether they could truly handle expanding their family.
For a lot of families, the decision to have more children gets put on hold because sleep challenges are just too draining.
I received the sweetest text message from a previous client, Kasie who was in that exact space. She shared a lovely family photo along with some exciting news: she’s pregnant with her second baby! Can you believe it?
Kasie and her husband had a really tough time with their first baby’s sleep. In fact, they weren’t even sure if they’d ever be ready for a second child because of how challenging their sleep journey had been. But here they are, thriving, well-rested, and expecting a new baby!
Below is a video testimonial where they talk about what life was like “before” working with me and how after sleep coaching they had a whole new life…one that included the possibility of being well-rested enough to consider a new pregnancy.
Kasie came to me when her son was just 9 months old. She and her husband were exhausted. They were trying everything to get him to sleep – co-sleeping, rocking him for hours, cluster feeding all night long. Their home was full of tension, and their energy levels were bottoming out.
Even their pediatrician simply handed them a sleep training book without any guidance. Kasie was feeling so anxious and tired and felt at her wits' end. She had heard of sleep training but wasn’t comfortable with methods that involved letting her baby "cry it out."
Alternatives to Cry it Out Methods
That’s when they found my Gentle Sleep Coaching program. Together, we built a sleep plan that didn’t involve leaving her baby to cry alone. With a better understanding of the science behind sleep, Kasie and her husband were able to gently guide their baby into learning sleep skills.
And what a transformation!
Now, Kasie and her husband actually enjoy bedtime. They even fight over who gets to put their little one to sleep because it’s such a peaceful and sweet experience.
Their son takes two solid naps each day and sleeps through the night for 12 to 13 hours.
They’ve gotten their evenings back, their bedroom back, and most importantly, their sense of peace back.
Jake, her husband, also found a renewed connection with his son and their family, feeling more capable and trusted as a dad.
Now, they’re thrilled to be expecting their second child, and sleep is no longer a source of anxiety – it’s a peaceful and happy part of their lives.
If you’re feeling like Kasie once did – tired, anxious, and unsure of where to turn for help with your baby’s sleep – I want you to know there’s hope. It doesn’t have to be this way, and you don’t have to figure it out alone. Reach out, and let’s work together to create a sleep plan that works for your family.
Are you struggling with your child’s sleep? Could you use some support?
The first step to see if I can help you achieve beautiful, blissful sleep is to schedule a 60 minute ZOOM sleep strategy session. Go to this link and complete the contact me form and I will be in touch within 24 hours with directions on how to schedule your Sleep Strategy Session.
If you are still wondering if I can help, please know I do NOT advocate 'cry-it-out'. I am a Gentle Sleep Coach. If you want to learn about my guilt-free and gentle process, please go to these links.
The Blissful Baby Stairway to Sleep
Please join my Sleep is Bliss Tribe in Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn so we can stay connected and you can continue to get amazing resources on sleep and family wellness.
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Well, hello, I'm Joanna with Blissful Baby. Sleep Coaching. And this is another success call. And we just finished sleep coaching their baby boy who was nine months old at the time. So you guys, thank you so much for being here. What was it like before you called me Mommy? We were not sleeping. We had a grumpy baby.
We had a milestone madness baby, who was just stuck in trying to do all of the things because he wasn't sleeping well. Super cranky. He was also nap crutching, so you couldn't put him down. You had to rock him to sleep. So both of us were having to sacrifice four to five hours to have him attempt to nap and then co-sleep with mom and cluster feed throughout the night.
So life became very difficult through that 'cause it was only growing worse. The naps were going away. He was refusing our efforts to put him down. So we, we felt like we were running out of options and the ability to actually help him go to sleep. Sleep, yeah, exactly. 'cause he was also growing massively. Right. So at nine months he was like 24 pounds.
So physically he was just this big hefty boy. Yeah. And, and you were rocking and rocking and rocking and rocking multiple times a day. And then for mom cluster feeding all night. Yep. In the co-sleeping environment and essentially cluster feeding all day. 'cause how else would he grow to 24 pounds at nine months? Right. Like no hands free time for you.
I mean, mom had zero hands free time. Yeah. She was rocking, holding, nursing, changing, or I don't know. You didn't get to do anything. No. Nope. No life. No. Absolutely not. There was no time for just me ever. Never ever. Yeah. And I also recall he was doing a lot of mommy preferencing.
Right. He was being Yes. At night. He would let Jake help during the day, but not at night. Nope. He had to be on me, physically on me throughout the night to sleep. So he was laying across my body and having to nurse. And he was nursing pretty much every hour throughout the night. So neither of us were sleeping.
It was miserable. Yeah. Yeah. So then you decided like, I need help. And so what made you decide to reach out? What, was there a breaking point had you heard about coaching? Like what, what led you to the search for a sleep coach? I had heard about sleep training. We had all the books. Our, we even went to our pediatrician and asked,
what should we do? And he just slapped a hand in, slapped the book in our hands and said, here, here's the, here's a sleep coaching book. Just sleep, train him. And from a anxious and tired mom, I was, you know, just sort of shocked at like, okay, well what the heck? Like what, what does this mean?
What I do? And so I was desperate just to, to get help. Things. Our household was becoming less peaceful. We had a grumpy baby. And then there was just a lot of tension throughout our home that we were just, we, we desperately needed something to change. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing you guys is that sleep deprivation is like,
it's one thing for yourself to be sleep deprived, but then when both parents are sleep deprived and overwhelmed, then the baby's grumpy and needy and kind of like moving around all day. It's like there's just no peace. And then you, you end up like bickering with each other and just being short fused and it's nobody's fault. Right. It's like, it's like the,
the situation just starts to build upon itself where you're like, oh my God. Like every day is just this like, oh my god today. And then dreading the nighttime, like, how is it gonna be tonight? How much sleep are we gonna get or not get? Right? So yeah. So, so, so you guys obviously decided to,
you know, ask for help and you decided to do gentle sleep coaching. And I remember you were quite afraid or very tentative about like sleep training. You were like, ah, I've heard bad things. So tell me what you had heard or what your assumptions were about sleep training or sleep coaching and, and then I'd like to hear about what the actual reality was for you when we worked together.
So I, I had only ever heard of either the cried out method or doing like, like maybe even a ferber method of just like really just letting your baby cry. And I was very uncomfortable with that. It felt, it, i, it didn't sit well with me. And so I was so nervous to start and, but I was so like at the point where like,
we need to do something. And so thankfully with a gentle sleep coach, I didn't have to let him cry. I didn't have to leave him alone to figure it out himself. We had a like understanding of the Sleep Science behind it and the why. And then we were able to implement it with like more knowledge on the backend that we had already understood.
And it made it so much easier whenever it came time to actually train him but not have him cry it out. And we, whatever like method we did, we knew like the purpose and, and a lot more comfortable with it that way doing the coaching. Yeah. And dad did the coaching. Yes. So I wanna, I wanna talk to dad about that because a lot of times when a,
a baby starts presenting with kind of this mommy preference issue or this dominance with the nursing or the has to be mommy all night, it really kind of puts dad outside the help zone. So wasn't that kind of your experience that you, here you were like, I'm ready to help all, all day, all night and yet tell me about that. Yeah,
all in all, it, it's sort of defeating to know that you're an equal parent and able to help, but you can't just because the, that's the season that your baby's in or that's, that's what they've learned they need and you just can't provide the same emotional connection that a mother and a baby can. So trying to be a helpful member of a family is hard once your baby is in a position that they can't be helped by you.
Right. So as the dad trying to do all that, you can, there's a point in time where you can try, but that, that's all you can do is try and you need help. Right. Exactly. And that was the thing is that, that dad was like so available and interested and committed to helping. Mom was like, please,
I need, I need this baby to let you help too. And that's one of the reasons why working with a gentle sleep coach is so great is because we made, as part of our kind of wishlist and our goals is dad the center of our sleep coaching journey. That that dad and baby boy dad was the primary nighttime coach all the way through the process,
all the way through the weaning. And the benefit of that was number one, mom got a break. Hallelujah. Right. Mom, but also Jake, like what's the result of that? Like how, what is life now in terms of your parenting relationship with your son? It's, it's night and day now, instead of only wanting mom, sometimes they'll come to me instead of mom.
So it, it's definitely reinvigorating to see that your, your young child as they grow, want you to be a part of their life. And you can see that. So it, it's, it, it breathes this new like hope and like love into your relationship. Oh my God, that's so beautiful. Yeah. I mean, so I mean,
who, who doesn't want hope and love from their own child And more importantly, like you're able, you're like a master at bedtime and nap time now. Dad is like the master of that. Right? And so mom can just be like, okay, I see ya. I'm gonna be gone for the day or I'm gonna go out this evening. And dad's got the whole thing under control,
right? Yes. We've got mom's moving around 'cause the baby boy's on the move. Yeah. So isn't doesn't that feel great dad to like just have all that one-on-one with him, him, but also just feeling like you've got it. Like there's no intimidation. Like it's not like mom's not freaking out when you're in charge and you're not getting backseat driving from mom.
It's like just you and your son and you guys are, you guys got your system Going through the process, through you really built a new trust in our relationship. 'cause it is not just you being able to be the sleep coach. It's showing to your spouse that you, they can trust you and you're a capable spouse. It, it, it's much more than just doing it like any,
anyone could be coached, but it, it's a real strong relationship to trust the other to be able to do that. Especially when you're dealing with postpartum and those things where your spouse, you as the the husband or or whoever may not understand what it's like to go through that. And you really need to, to reestablish that, that trust with each other.
And going through coaching like this was able to, to, to do exactly that with us. I was able to show that not only can I do it, but that it's okay to be able to step away because our child is in a safe space. Our child has been taught the skills. Our child now has the tools to do it and you don't have to worry anymore.
So good. Right. Take take it takes out all the worry, meaning that your child has their sleep skills for independent sleep and that whether dad does it or whether mom does it or the babysitter does it, or grandma comes to town, the child can do that under any conditions. And it's no longer dependent on a certain caregiver. Exactly. Yes.
And that gives freedom. Right. And then your child can have such an enriching environment with all these other caregivers because the bedtime routine is pressure when it is, when a child tru truly knows their sleep skills. Is the bedtime routine the cutest, funnest thing ever? Yes. Yeah. Who knew, who knew bedtime could be fun. Yeah. Right.
Because it used to be probably a nightmare. Yeah. And now it's like, oh, it's so sweet. Now we fight over who gets to put over the bed. Yeah. Because It's so precious and so cute. And then boom. And, and by the way, let's talk about what it looks like now we know what it looked like before.
What does life look like now? What time does he go to bed? What time does he wake up? What's going on with naps? So he takes two naps a day. He goes to bed around six or seven and sleeps usually about 12 hours every night, sometimes 13. And then he doesn't wake up through the night. We both sleep completely through the night.
We have our bedroom back, we have our quiet time back. I can have me time in the evening, I can do my skincare. I can take a shower like postpartum mom's know, like I just wanna shower, you know, I just wanna shower by myself, shower, watch a show. Like I can go run errands or do anything. And I know that he's asleep.
He's gonna, he's good for the rest of the night. Dad can go do his thing. I can do my thing. It's, it's so peaceful. So peaceful. Yes. That I love that. Okay. So if you guys met a family that would deprived, but they, and they, they, they kind of already knew that they needed help but they were super afraid.
Oops. Oh no. Oh no. We're, let's see, I think they might've run outta battery. Okay. I will talk just for a minute. The question I was gonna ask was what if you met a family that was sleep deprived but they were afraid of sleep ca sleep training And they were, they wanted to do something to help their babies sleep independently,
but they were afraid because they felt sleep training was bad or scary. So I will probably do a part two video with them because that was a big concern of theirs, of whether or not this was the right thing to do. And I think it's wonderful to hear a parent's perspective on recognizing that when sleep coaching is done based on Sleep Science behavioral science and attachment theory and it's done in a very methodical,
sequential way that meets the temperament of the child and also matches with the values of the family and the nursing goals of the mom. That over the course of two to three weeks we can get that child sleeping through the night and it's not high drama and it's very educational for the parents. And we build that parent-child bond actually stronger. Like the dad here said is that he didn't really have that bond with the child before sleep coaching and the bond actually occurred because of the sleep coaching.
So thank you for listening to another sleep success story. I might have them come back to talk about that they are now true converts of the benefits of gentle sleep coaching. So thank you for listening.