'She was waking eight times a night.' Mia Freedman on how sleep school saved her as a new mum.

At 3 am, no one can hear you scream.

That’s precisely how it feels when you’re up in the middle of the night with a baby who doesn’t sleep. I could hear my baby screaming clearly enough. Several times every night. But my own screams? My screams of exhaustion, despair, frustration and loneliness? They were confined to the inside of my head.

For the first few weeks after my daughter was born, I ran on a heady mix of hormones and adrenaline with a generous splash of gratitude that my longed-for baby had arrived safely.

Night feeds were almost a novelty. I felt womanly and invincible, filled with love for my little girl and the world. I willingly slept on a crappy mattress on the floor of her room so my beloved husband could sleep undisturbed in our giant bed. I was so grateful to him for helping create this beautiful creature, it was the least I could do. I was a happy martyr. And hey, since I was breast-feeding and he didn’t have breasts, what was the point of him getting up at 2 am? Let alone 3, 4 and 5 am.

But after more than a month of waking several times every night to feed and soothe my tiny daughter back to sleep, I began to lose my sense of humour. The adrenaline had long worn off, replaced by an overwhelming fatigue that was insidiously crushing the life out of me.

Most mornings I couldn’t recall what had transpired the previous night. I was always certain it had been a train wreck of sorts but the details were hazy. Did she wake at 1.15 am for a feed, 2.25 am for the dummy, another feed at 3.10 am and then dummy again at 3.40 am? Or was it 1.50 am for a feed, 3.20 am for the dummy and a feed again at 4.15 and dummy at 4.35 and 5:50am? Or was that the night before? Or maybe last week? What’s my name again? And who is that person in the mirror? I don’t recognise her anymore.

Despair is the evil twin of sleep deprivation. Despair that your baby will ever sleep more than a few hours in a row. Despair that you’ll ever feel human. Despair that anyone will ever understand how pitifully exhausted you are. Despair that there’s no way out.

It’s easier to just stick in the dummy or the bottle or the boob or bring your baby into your bed… whatever it takes to get them – and you – back to sleep quickly. After months of broken sleep, the quick fix will win over the hard yards of a proper solution every time. You’re just too exhausted to find a way out of your exhaustion. And I was. Again.

Watch: The questions you have about babies before you’ve had them. Post continues after video.

I’d already made this mistake once before, with my son. We attempted controlled crying half-heartedly a few times but I refused to persevere because I was worried it might damage him psychologically. So we waved the white flag and surrendered to the massive disruption of sleeplessness.

In hindsight, this was such a false emotional economy. He didn’t sleep properly until he was four and it caused huge stress in our relationship, compromised my ability to go to work and to function properly on some pretty basic levels. Most devastatingly, it leeched chunks of my joy and my confidence in being a mother. My husband and I swore we’d do it differently next time.

I should note at this point that the dads also do it tough although not nearly as tough as the mums who usually bear the brunt of night waking, especially if they’re breast-feeding. After a long night walking the floor with a crying baby, it’s funny how hearing your husband say ‘I’m tired’ when he wakes at 7 am makes you want to pick up the nearest heavy object and harm him with it.

Every morning, the shattered mother needs an enormous injection of cheerleading and validation along the lines of ‘You are amazing! You are a hero! You are incredible! I don’t know how you do it!’ Frequently, even this is not enough to stem the demoralisng effects of sleep-deprivation or prevent the resentment from building.

I often felt that nothing short of a ticker tape parade should be held for me each morning to celebrate my heroism in getting through yet another night. Yet. Another. Night.

Invariably, if your baby doesn’t sleep, every other baby in your orbit will have begun sleeping through the night from two weeks of age. This will make you feel fantastic. “‘People lie,” a baby health care nurse once reassured me when I asked in desperation why I had the only non-sleeping baby in Australia and possibly the world.

Two of my closest friends had babies within a couple of months of me and despite the fact that one baby did indeed begin sleeping through the night at six weeks, we were each other’s solace. Each morning we’d exchange calls or texts detailing what we could remember of the night before.

After particularly bad nights, when one of us would be in the depths of despair, emergency gourmet food supplies would be left silently at the front door. Meal preparation is one of the first domestic casualties of sleep deprivation and new motherhood. This food was a godsend. The support, even more so.

It was from one of these friends I first heard about Elizabeth Sloane. She had magic powers to make babies sleep through the night. Or so it seemed. My friend had used this Sleep Whisperer a few years ago with her first baby and she’d also worked miracles for other mums we knew.

My first conversation with Elizabeth was when Coco was four-months-old. At that stage, she was waking up to eight times a night for feeds and to have her dummy plugged back in. I was beside myself. The feeling of dread began every evening as the sun went down and the inevitability of yet another excruciating night of endless sleep interruption loomed over me. It reminded me of labour in a way, when the pain of a contraction was made worse by the knowledge that there were dozens more lining up behind it. There seemed to be no end to this. No prospect of a solution, of a night where I could sleep more than a couple of hours in a row. And the thought made me panic.

I felt trapped, helpless, hopeless.

Listen: Elizabeth Sloane speaks to Holly Wainwright and Christie Hayes about sleep school. Post continues after audio.

Over the phone, Elizabeth was a fountain of empathy. Even her voice was soothing. But she was adamant that she wouldn’t do a ‘sleep program’ as she called it, before a baby was six-months-old. Her belief was that younger babies couldn’t really learn to sleep through the night and it was not good for them emotionally.

As disappointed as I was that my parole had been revoked for two more months, this made me trust Elizabeth even more. The last thing I wanted was to damage my daughter. I just wanted – desperately – to sleep.

Still, I may have lied about Coco’s age – cough – a wee bit so Elizabeth would book me in earlier. Which she did, at five-and-a-half-months. The day before she was due to arrive, she texted me. ‘Just checking you still want me to come for the sleep program tomorrow night.’ I texted back so fast I nearly broke my thumbs.’ YES! YES! YES!’’

The next morning, she called. ‘Tonight I’ll be there at 6 pm so I can meet Coco before we get started. That first night can be pretty intense so be prepared for that.’

Gulp.

‘On the other nights, I’ll come at 10 pm and each morning I’ll leave at 6 am. Before I go, I’ll leave you a report detailing how she went. You can read it when you wake up. I usually crack it in three nights but I’ll pencil in a couple more just in case.’

That evening, after her bath, I dressed Coco in her PJs with a mix of apprehension and hope. It felt not unlike taking your baby for immunisations. You know it’s for their greater good but your heart is still heavy with guilt for the short-term pain your baby will have to endure.

I liked Elizabeth immediately. With three small boys of her own and a kind yet no-nonsense attitude, she arrived in tracksuit pants and ugg boots, dressed for the cold, winter night ahead. Straight away, she busied herself in Coco’s room as Jason and I sat nervously watching. She modified the bedding, removed the mobile from the cot – ‘beds are for sleeping not entertainment’ – and made sure the room temperature was correct. She was very sweet with Coco and answered my 84 angsty questions. I was tense but she put me at ease as I listened and learned.

All sleep crutches were to be banished, including dummies, music, bottles, rocking or patting. And boobs. No more milk in the night.

Babies of this age don’t need to eat during the night, I learned. It’s habit not necessity.

The key to success, Elizabeth told us, was that we had to trust her and not crack under the pressure of our baby’s cries. Elizabeth believed that by teaching Coco to put herself to sleep, we were giving her a valuable life-long gift. This was certainly much more palatable to me than the idea I was doing it for my own benefit. Life-long gift? Sold.

And then it was time. I kissed my innocently smiling daughter goodnight with the sense that I was sending her into battle. And after twenty minutes of screaming, the first report from the frontline was not good. ‘Your daughter has one of the more extreme dummy addictions I’ve ever seen,’ Elizabeth announced gravely.

Super. Six-months-old and battling her first addiction. Does that make me her dealer? I supplied Coco with her first dummy at four weeks and encouraged her descent down the slippery slope from casual dummy user to hardcore addict. The instant comfort (hers) and the instant balm of peace (mine) provided by the dummy were sublime. The mere act of buying dummies would calm me.

In these dark, sleepless months, they’d replaced shoes as the object of my retail therapy. But on this night, I struggled to recall the sound of peace balm as Coco’s dummy-less cries began to split my head in two.

Through the crying, Elizabeth would go in at various intervals and kindly whisper, ‘Shhhh Coco, time for sleep’. Then she’d re-tuck the sheets firmly and leave without picking her up or giving her a bottle. Often she wouldn’t actually leave but simply hide in the darkness and observe, making sure Coco didn’t get into any serious difficulty.

Jason and I retreated to the lounge room with a bottle of wine and turned the TV up loud. Thirty-five minutes after she’d been put to bed, the first hurdle was cleared. Asleep! High five! But while Elizabeth was pleased, she warned us that Coco hadn’t really learnt anything, she was simply exhausted.

 

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The night wakes would be tougher, she cautioned.

At 10.30 pm, we went to bed ourselves. We were nervous but relieved that Coco was in the capable hands of a professional. As promised, the night was worse; almost two hours of screaming from 1.05am to 2.50 am. With complete faith in Elizabeth I was reasonably calm but still tortured. I didn’t cry and I didn’t interfere. Life-long gift. Life-long gift.

At Elizabeth’s suggestion, I stayed in bed, switched on the TV and distracted myself with ‘True Hollywood Stories: the cast of American Pie.’ As I watched Tara Reid’s sad journey from starlet to rehab, my husband made sleepy protests at the sound of the TV so I hit him on the head with a pillow.

Finally, all was quiet. The next thing I remember was hearing Elizabeth letting herself out at 6am, followed 45-minutes later by Coco waking up for the day. When I picked her up, I half expected to see betrayal in her eyes, as if to say, ‘So where the hell were you last night, bitch?’ But her face was as open and delighted to see me as ever. She appeared undamaged. Life-long gift.

Night two was better. I put her down myself at 6.30 pm, prop-free, and after some low-level crying, she was asleep in less than 10-minutes. Could this be the beginning of a new life for us? One with sleep in it?

Elizabeth arrived at 10 pm and we had a cup of tea together. I learned that she loved her work. The life-long gift stuff wasn’t a platitude, she resolutely believed that every baby deserved to learn how to put themselves to sleep and every family deserved the knock-on benefits.

Every week she would arrive on the doorstep of families in a state of utter emotional and physical chaos, brought on by a baby or child with sleep problems. She sometimes worked with DOCS families, where the children were at serious risk of harm. There were invariably other factors at play in those vulnerable families but solving sleep issues was always a concrete, crucial step in improving the child’s welfare.

At the less extreme end, occupied by families like mine, she routinely encountered people driven witless by the destructive cocktail of exhaustion and frustration. Couples bickered. Older children were snapped at. The dog was proverbially kicked.

Within days of the baby being taught to sleep, the family was transformed. And the babies? What was remarkable, Elizabeth had discovered, was how much happier the babies were. ‘People often say to me, “I thought I had a happy baby before but he’s a different baby now that he’s sleeping through the night.” But to me it makes perfect sense. Adults and babies are the same. Everyone is happier after a decent sleep.’

And so it was with Coco. The second night was a vast improvement on the first. Forty-minutes of crying at 2 am but not nearly the intensity of the night before. What was most encouraging was that she awoke briefly again at 4 am and put herself back to sleep within a couple of minutes. Night three she slept through. For the first time in six months, I didn’t leave my bed from 10 pm to 6.30 am. It felt like a miracle. Coco was definitely happier during the day.

And me? I was doing wild victory laps around my house, positively giddy with the intoxicating feeling of a full night’s sleep.

Confident that she’d nailed it, Elizabeth decided her work with me was done but left me strict instructions. It was vital that Coco had her proper naps during the day so as not to become over-tired – a classic obstruction to sleep. And we must remember this: now that our baby had endured an undeniably tough few nights, it wasn’t fair to her if we undid everything she’d learned with ‘just one bottle’ or ‘just one cuddle’ in the night if she woke. Hold firm. Be strong.

And we were. I texted Elizabeth daily for the first week or two with many, many questions and she gave me strength, encouragement and advice. Don’t waver. Don’t be discouraged if she slips back a little and begins waking occasionally. Have faith that she’ll get herself back to sleep eventually. Stick to the rules. Listen and interpret. Comfort and leave.

So changed was our life by Elizabeth’s visit, I became utterly evangelical about my genius Sleep Whisperer. As word spread about my experience, friends of friends began to contact me for her number. They still do.

For the first few weeks after Elizabeth came, every morning felt like a miracle. Like Christmas. But slowly, imperceptibly, the unimaginable happened: I began to take my sleep for granted. I went to bed without dread and with the expectation of a full night’s sleep. And I got it.

Two years later when I had my third child, I texted Elizabeth from the hospital. ‘Make a diary note for six months from today please! I have another one for you!’

NOTE:  The experience of having Elizabeth come and sleep train Remy was as wonderful the second time she came into our lives. Elizabeth is a Lady Startup who is self-employed and available for in-house bookings – you can contact her here – and she also has compiled her wisdom into a book which you can also buy here.  If you are sleep deprived and despairing, please know that you’re not alone. Pour yourself a cup of tea (or strong coffee – or wine!) and discover Elizabeth Sloane’s Gift Of Sleep.