Baby Percy
Find out how we got Percy sleeping through the night.
By Percy’s Mama
Our beautiful boy Percy has pushed me to my absolute limits. Never have I been more tested then since I gave birth to him. Just when I thought I had a grasp on the world, this baby entered our lives and shook them up. I’ve not talked about that much with anybody, as when you see him, he’s usually very happy and healthy and you’d think I was mad. I also don’t like to dwell on tricky things, rather try and get through and find a solution.
I am also well aware of the many lessons he’s taught me and the absolute joy he brings to our family. He’s one in a million.
Non-existent sleeper
The biggest test by far has been his ability to sleep. Which has been almost non-existent. He’s had quite literally a handful of good nights (out of about 480) but never made it through and we’ve never been able to put our finger on what it is.
Tried everything
Percy was breastfed for a long time, then bottle-fed. We wrapped and unwrapped, dummy and no dummy, we had white noise and silence, we made it warm and made it cool, we laid him on his tummy and on his back, we fed to sleep and didn’t feed to sleep, we patted in his cot and left him to cry, we put a night light on and turned it off. You name it, we did it.
Every single day I lived in hope that today would be the day that he would sleep. Our daughter, Bridie turned 3 a few weeks after Percy was born and really has been a wonderful sleeper. She has just cruised through the night times with no bother or worry. Sometimes I think she’s worse than a teenager and an average night for her has always been 13-14 hours solid sleep. It is only in the last week that I have concluded you’re either born knowing how to sleep or not. But the best bit is, you can be taught.
Waking 4-5 times a night
Percy, on the other hand, would be up on average 4-5 times a night. Every. Single. Night. Sometimes more, sometimes less. He’s had a big winter with various virus’ but recently one turned bad and he wound up in Tamworth Hospital for a few nights with pneumonia. He was a very sick little boy who was really struggling to breathe and quite simply could not sleep laying down. We discovered after having Xrays that he has a condition called bronchomalacia (basically a floppy airway) and with that comes a few complications to do with his respiratory system. This came as no real surprise to me as I’ve always felt something was going on there but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. We medicated him with two different medications early on thinking he had reflux but didn’t last long as it wasn’t helping. We are following up with a paediatrician in a few weeks to see where we go from here.
I do think this has affected his sleep and we’ve developed different habits and got in a real tizz. Last weekend I finally hit breaking point. It took a long time obviously but I got there. Since being in the hospital about a month ago, we were getting up to him up to 15 times a night. Things were out of control. I simply could not go another night. I work part-time and am involved in different things around town as well as trying to keep our house running and it almost all had come to a grinding halt.
Finding help
A friend of mine a few months ago recommended a sleep consultant she’d used. I remembered that conversation late last Sunday night when I was up most of the night. Early on Monday morning I called the sleep consultant but couldn’t get onto her. I then decided to google and phone any sleep consultant until I could speak to somebody immediately.
Enter Aprilla from Bubba Bedtime based in Bondi. Bubba Bedtime asked appropriate questions quickly, got a handle on our situation, pretty much guaranteed me we’d have him sleeping through the night within a week and all would be fine. That was absolute music to my ears, but I had no idea what she could possibly suggest that we hadn’t already done. After filling in a little bit of paperwork via email that afternoon, we had a document ‘Percy’s Sleep Solution’ in our hands ready to attack the following day. I said to Aprilla,
“I just need somebody to tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
My brain was fried. I put all of my eggs in her basket. Percy’s day sleeps have been pretty good for some time, probably because he was so buggered. Aprilla had advice and information on how these might change as we transition but would all work out soon enough. I wasn’t sure how he’d go at daycare and wondered if it might put us back a bit somehow but we are so fortunate in our centre and his educators have bent over backwards trying to be consistent and cooperative with us and he slept really well there last week.
Sleeping through the night
From Tuesday to Friday night, he continued to improve until Saturday AND Sunday nights when he slept through. I’m talking 6:30 pm – about 7 am.
“Aprilla is chockablock full of information about all things to do with sleep and very supportive. I was prepared to sell a kidney to pay for help but I was pleasantly surprised at Bubba Bedtime’s cost and think she is absolutely worth every cent.”
I’ve felt she’s been at my beck and call for a week, although I have not needed her much as he’s doing exactly what she said he’d do. I share this story just in case I might be able to help another mum going through something similar. As the days would draw to a close, I would be filled with anxiety just knowing what was ahead of us. I’ve tried to get on with our day to day life as best as I can as if I was functioning normally but inside my body was shutting down from exhaustion. Not to mention what it was doing to Percy, it’s not good for anybody to have so much broken sleep, let alone a growing baby. It has affected my mind and body in some drastic ways and I so look forward to trying to get back to feeling good again. My tummy would flip if somebody asked how his nights were as I just didn’t want to give it any air time. I was so confident things would improve at any given moment.
I’ve been asked if I wished I sought help sooner and personally, no I don’t. I know I’ve given it my absolute best crack and I have learnt so much from this period, about myself, our kids and our family. I had sought help before (I say ‘I’ mostly because my husband is a nurse and works full time so is either at work in the night or I think it’s most important that he gets a half-decent sleep while he’s home to be able to do his job properly the next day) from Tresillian nurses and the like a few times but didn’t get anywhere. That’s not to say they don’t offer great service because I think they do and they’ve helped me at other times since becoming a parent.
““I wanted to say that if you are going through something difficult with your children, that you are definitely not alone and that help is available. I’ve found Aprilla who’s been able to assist us greatly via skype, email, phone and text.””