Baby Joanna
Rocking and rolling.
Meet Joanna, a 6 month old who likes to be rocked to sleep. If she was placed in her cot too soon she would wake and then her parents would have to start back with rocking again. She had just begun to roll and was learning to move around the cot. When she ended up on her tummy she was unable to settle back to sleep without a feed. All they wanted was for Joanna to be able to self-settle and for her to enjoy her sleep so that the family could be well rested again.
Rolling
Her parents were taking it in turns to rock Joanna to sleep. However, as she was growing this was getting harder and harder to do. They also found that this method was starting to lose its effect. If she wouldn’t settle, she was then given a bottle to help her calm and fall asleep. They knew this technique wasn’t sustainable and they wanted to find a way of improving Joanna’s sleep.
Solutions
After reviewing Joanna’s sleep assessment form. We worked together to really reduce down her rocking to sleep association. We knew these were big changes for Joanna and that she might be a little unsettled.
Tips on reducing down on rocking to sleep:
Reduce the amount of time you are rocking your little one to sleep.
Place your baby in their cot drowsy and not asleep.
Use a settling technique to help them adjust to self-settling in the cot.
As the days went on she began to adjust to no longer being rocked to sleep. Her parents could see her self-settling faster at the start of naps and bedtime. The rolling leap is always a tricky one, Joanna was also adjusting to having her hands free and not being swaddled anymore. During the day we did lots of tummy time and encouraged her to roll back and forth with help.
Joanna mastered being able to roll back and forth with ease. If she woke overnight her parents were confident that she was able to put herself back to sleep without too much assistance. Joanna did so well embracing all the changes of learning to roll and to self-settle. Her parents’ support and consistency were key on getting her to make these fantastic changes. Even today she is still sleeping like a superstar and no longer needs to be rocked to sleep. Go, Joanna!
Joanna now at 9 months.
“We are so thankful to have come across Aprilla, she was immensely helpful and informative about sleep and routines. All we had to do was make a few tweaks based on her guidance and now we are very confident with our bubba’s naps and night time sleep. Her ongoing support post consultation as part of her packages is invaluable, it was so helpful to be in contact with questions when we were putting everything into practice and having new things come up as we went along that we needed more understanding of. I would highly recommend Aprilla to anyone who needs help with their bubba’s sleep be it night time, napping or both! I do wish I found her sooner!”