There is only ONE piece of baby sleep advice I think EVERY new parent needs to know. It’s not a program that promises your baby will sleep through the night by a certain age; it’s not a magical product on the market; it’s not even an old-wives tale…
It’s to TRUST YOUR INTUITION.
It’s the advice I did not hear when I was expecting my daughter but what I needed the most. Learning to trust my intuition changed the course of motherhood for me for the better. It ultimately led me to start this blog, and is why I decided to become a Baby-Led Sleep and Well-being Specialist.
How did I come to this realization on my own? The best way to answer that question is to share our story. So let me take you back to the beginning of O’s sleep journey. To the hazy newborn days where somehow, in the fog of it all, I learned to trust my intuition and developed a passion for helping other mothers trust theirs.
Our sleep journey began while I was pregnant. After the (well-intentioned) advice from a few family and friends, my husband and I took a popular newborn sleep course. Looking back on this decision, I still can’t believe how little research I put into what we were buying. I knew I didn’t want to sleep train O, yet here I was, watching videos that would ultimately lead me down a path that, if I hadn’t trusted my gut, would have led me to sleep training.
Our baby girl, O, was born in May 2021, and from the moment they laid her on my chest, I knew my life had changed forever. I was struck by an overwhelming urge to protect her and felt an instant love like I had never experienced. To say I developed strong maternal instincts almost immediately is an understatement. Those first few days of motherhood came naturally to me. Of course, I had moments where I had self-doubt, and sure, I made mistakes (I’ll save the details for another post), but I truly felt I knew what was best for O. Luckily, mothers during the newborn phase are encouraged to follow their instincts and snuggle their babies. The saying “you can’t spoil a newborn” is something I heard over and over. To soak it all up because we’ll blink, and it will be over.
So I did just that.
During our first few weeks, O hardly left my chest. We spent our days snuggling skin to skin, baby wearing, and cluster feeding. I had embraced feeding on demand and was even praised by nurses at our Mother Baby Clinic for being so in tune with O’s needs. I was thriving in my new role, and so was O.
When the four-week mark hit, it was time to start implementing all we had learned in our newborn course. It didn’t matter that feeding on demand was working well, that O was sleeping 6-hour stretches on her own in a bassinet at night and was a very happy baby, the course led me to believe if I didn’t act now, I was destined for a sleepless few years. We tried a few of the techniques the course recommended. We tried shifting O’s bedtime earlier, adding in the EASY schedule, using a pacifier, and attempting the infamous “drowsy but awake” a few times. O hated it. And just as important, so did I.
Throughout pregnancy (and during our TTC days), I had this beautiful vision of rocking and nursing my baby to sleep. And now that she was here, that is what felt right! I loved rocking her to sleep. Even at 3 am. I distinctly remember rocking her way longer than I needed to a few nights because it was just so peaceful. Staring at her, sleeping soundly in my arms, was a dream come true. So I decided to pause implementing the newborn course. Each passing week I trusted my gut and kept doing what felt natural.
Until we hit the 12-week mark… it dawned on me that we had not implemented a single practice from the newborn course, and the dreaded four-month sleep regression was coming. So we decided to try a few techniques once again. Everything about this program felt unnatural to me. It was hard on both of us. I vividly remember crying because this life of contact naps and rocking my girl to sleep was ending (spoiler – it wasn’t, but that’s what I thought at the time). I missed our slow mornings where O would nap on my chest in the living room because the course recommended the first nap every day be in the crib. We tried drowsy but awake, and every time O would cry. So I would pick her up and nurse and rock her to sleep, feeling defeated and worried I was creating a bad habit.
After a week or so, O started crying hard whenever she realized it was nap time. She began to hate the rocking chair in her nursery. She’d start crying whenever I closed the curtains. She knew, at three months old, the routine of being put down for a crib nap. I want to reiterate that I never let her cry it out; I always responded and supported her emotions. But even with very responsive parenting, she had still developed a negative association with her crib. I don’t know whether it was my energy she picked up on or whether she genuinely just hated being alone in her crib, but she cried every time we tried a crib nap.
She also somehow sensed the difference between a crib nap and a contact nap. The course said “it was OK” to contact nap later in the day to make up for short crib naps (another spoiler – cat naps are biologically normal for newborns, especially when they aren’t in contact with their caregiver), so we continued with babywearing and snuggle naps after the morning crib nap was a bust.
After a few weeks of this and making no progress, I was wholly consumed with O’s sleep. Nothing in this course was working. I was convinced I was doing something wrong. I started using a sleep tracking app which further exasperated my anxiety. I was obsessed with finding the perfect wake window. I was even toying with hiring a consultant from the company we bought the course. I had lost my confidence as a mom and was desperate to regain it.
Then one day, I stumbled upon a blog post that changed the course of our sleep journey with O forever. The post was titled “why the EASY routine is anything but easy” and resonated with me deeply. In that moment, I threw in the towel. I couldn’t do this anymore. No more drowsy but awake, no more trying to find the right pacifier, no more morning crib naps, no more EASY routine. None. Of. It.
From that moment on, I trusted my instincts. I did what felt right, no matter what the “experts,” other moms or my family doctor said. We nursed to sleep; we brought back contact naps in the morning; we eventually ended up bedsharing (more on this in my next post). We did whatever felt right at the time.
Although I was doing what felt right, I had a lot of unlearning to do. For months I was afraid that I was creating bad habits and would someday regret following my instincts. While I knew I should follow O’s lead, the researcher I am by nature wanted evidence-based non-sleep training methods to help guide me along the way. This led me to start looking for new experts, for information on biological infant sleep, and for blogs, influencers and other moms who had similar values and experiences as I did.
And I found just that: research that aligned with my parenting values and validation that responding to my baby was biologically normal. I learned that our desire to be close did not mean that we were broken; in fact, it was exactly how we were hardwired to be. I finally had the confidence that nursing my three-month-old to sleep was not only ok, but it was also how nature intended it.
The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. It sparked a new passion in me, which led me here, writing this blog post (with a sleeping 16-month-old on my lap), eager to share everything I have learned and will continue to learn as I become certified.
This was only the beginning of O’s sleep journey, and trust me when I say although I had learned to trust my intuition, there were many bumps along the way. Every time we would get her sleep figured out, something would change. And I am going to share it all with you over the next few weeks.
So grab your coffee if you’ve been up all night with a sleepless baby, or settle into your rocking chair as you soothe your little one at 3 am, and get ready to read what normal infant sleep is really like. Our sleep journey is just that, ours. Some pieces of our story may not resonate with you. And that’s OK-in fact; it’s not supposed to. Sleep is not a one-size-fits-all, and I NEVER want to make anyone feel like they need to do things a certain way. That’s why in addition to sharing our story, I will also be writing as I work through my sleep certification, sharing the latest research and eventually offering 1:1 consults. My goal is to help families get more sleep without sleep training, and how this is achieved will look different for everyone.
But the one thing I want everyone to take away from my experience is to trust their intuition. You know your baby best, and I hope I can empower you to lean into your innate ability to read your little one’s cues and tend to their unique needs in a way that feels right to you.
