Prenatal Package

What if you could teach your baby to sleep well from the beginning?

If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking that there are 2 things you can count on when your baby is born: they will know how to sleep and eat. Well, that would be true…sort of. Let me explain. Yes, babies know how to sleep when they’re born. In fact, they do a darn good job at sleeping at first! The issue isn’t “can” they sleep, but “where” and “how” they will do it. If you plan on feeding, holding, rocking, or bouncing your baby to sleep, then great! Or if you think they can fit in that Rock-N-Play, swing, Dock-A-tot, or other apparatuses until they’re in school, then hey, that’s great too! But, if you’re thinking that it would be pretty awesome if you could just lay your baby in their crib when it’s time for sleep, and they’ll not only put themselves to sleep, but also sleep longer than just 20-40 minutes (the average length of one sleep cycle for newborns), then keep reading!

Don’t get me wrong, you’re not going to be teaching your one day old to do anything more than learning how to eat and snuggle. But just know that with every day that goes by, you will be teaching your child something. All of those things I mentioned earlier are sleep props, or things that are used to get your child to go to sleep. Those are learned things. Babies don’t come out of the womb asking to be put in a swing, we as parents make the choice to put them there.

What I do with this package is to teach you how to better show your baby from early on what it is that you’d like for them to do moving forward. Knowledge is power! If you can teach baby how to go to sleep from early on, then you have a much better chance of not having to reteach this later on (ie sleep training). Sleep teaching (as I call it) is such a useful tool that I wish all new parents knew about. I knew a little by the time I had my 4th child (I had to sleep train my twins at 7mos, so I wasn’t looking for a repeat), so I made changes to what I was doing much earlier. I still wasn’t smart enough back then to realize that I should have never gone down some of those paths in the first place, but I was smart enough to see the signs before it became much harder to change the behaviors. Luckily, I was able to make those changes quickly and without much backlash, but I know that not everyone is that lucky.

I know that many new parents-to-be will spend time taking classes on childbirth, breastfeeding, car seat safety, CPR, and others (all fabulous classes, by the way), but I just wish that sleep was on these parents’ minds, too. It’s not as easy as it sounds, yet it can be if you knew what to avoid and what to try to do.

All new parents realize that sleep will be lacking in those first few months after the baby’s born. The expectation is that you will need to get up and feed your baby several times a night. But what happens when baby is waking every hour throughout the night, has their days and nights mixed up, is super cranky, is taking horribly short naps all day long, or is sleeping on or next to you most of the night? How do you survive for months with so little sleep?

Sleep deprivation increases a mother’s chances of developing postpartum depression (PPD). When you’re dealing with healing from the birth, possibly trying to breastfeed your newborn, trying to manage fluctuating hormones, maybe handling other children or work, caring all day and night for a newborn, AND sleep deprivation, it can really get you down. More than 75% of the parents I work with have at least one parent who is suffering from either PPD or postpartum anxiety when we first start. I’m happy to report that many are feeling much better after their child is sleeping better and they are, too!

I’ve helped many parents go from feeling completely overwhelmed to feeling like they’ve “got this”! Again, sleep teaching is a great way to gently teach your baby as you go so you don’t have to reteach them later on. There is so much growing and learning your baby needs to do in the first few months that it’s imperative that they get the sleep they need, too. In fact 65% of your baby’s growth is done when they are sleeping. And most of that growing happens during REM sleep, which is when your child has longer, restorative sleep. So if teaching your baby good sleep habits now so you can all sleep better is something you’re interested in, then I can certainly help you!

Below you will see all that’s included in a standard package, as well as additional add-on options if you’re interested. If you plan on breastfeeding, I highly suggest adding in the Breastfeeding Prenatal Package, so we can talk about that too. As a Certified Lactation Counselor too, I understand the journey of both sleep and breastfeeding (both of which can be difficult to achieve). I’ll walk you through both of these things…not as two individual topics, but as a combination. I offer great presentations and e-booklets for these packages, so that you can learn now and refer back to them as needed later on. If you’ve got questions, let’s set up a time to chat for a free 15min phone assessment! Just click HERE to do so. If you’re ready to sign up today, awesome! Just click HERE to shoot me a message about getting started. I promise you that this is one investment you’ll be glad you made!