This is my story… (part 2)
What happened next…
If you missed the last blog post, you may want to start there as this is the second part of the story. The part where I was sleeping so little I would wake up crying and spent every evening tense and jumpy, waiting for my daughter to wake up and for the cycle to start again.
We survived the first 3 months in 3 hour stretches in a mix of hormones, excitement and fear.
But then… she started waking up more frequently, sometimes 45 mins after going to sleep, sometimes 2 hours. Throughout the night it was the same, she would either wake up and cry, or wake up to feed in 2 hour intervals, and she moved around so much no one else got any sleep.
It was brutal. Without a doubt, the hardest period in parenting.
I knew deep within myself that I wasn’t willing to sleep train and yet I would’ve given my soul away to get a single good night’s sleep. I was depleted and questioning every single decision we’d made up until that point.
And that’s when Aware Parenting found me, six months into the blurry days of babyhood. Her nighttime sleep didn’t improve overnight (at least the naps did), but now I was armed with understanding and certainty. I didn’t need to sleep train, to stop co-sleeping nor breastfeeding and I slowly started to understand that all the rocking, sling-walking and constantly stopping her from crying was having an effect on her sleep. Because what I was inadvertently doing, was to stop her from expressing feelings, which babies do through crying.
I would say this is where I really began my re-parenting journey. Where I understood my baby wasn’t broken and I wasn’t failing as a parent. The biggest shift, was knowing that she had feelings - REAL feelings - and that I didn’t need to stop her from crying once all her needs had been met. Instead, I could hold her and listen, just be there and listen. It was hard, but it was also life-changing.
Knowing this, what would I have done differently?
Honestly, nothing. I wish I had known about Aware Parenting sooner, but I can’t change that.
I have deep compassion for myself back then because I was doing the best I could with the information I had.
I love that Aware Parenting understands that you can repair and heal any past “mistakes” at any point in a child’s life.
I do wish we had reached out to an Aware Parenting instructor sooner, because this was all so new that it took me months to really understand how to listen to her feelings and see a positive impact on sleep.
And once I really understood and embodied listening to feelings, the journey with my son has been completely different.
Are you drawn to learn more about Aware Parenting?
The Aware Baby is a wonderful book to start with if your child is under 2.
Or Raising Resilient and Compassionate Children if they’re older.
If you prefer to listen, then The Aware Parenting Podcast is another great way to start.
If my story resonates, why not work with me on a 1:1, where I can support you to understand what is happening with your baby or child, whether it’s relate to sleep, crying, EC or toileting issues.