Sleep Regressions
Rhône’s parents Megan and Chris had tried it all. Ferber, “Cry-It-Out”, Taking Cara Babies, you name it. Rhône would bang his head against the wall at night, and nothing was working.
About a year ago we went to our pediatrician and expressed our concern that Rhône was head banging while in his crib. He would wake up with bruises on his forehead. At first, we started down the path of medication but nothing helped. I ended up reading everything I could about headbangers, but it was really hard to find any information (it seemed like there was a big stigma for parents on this topic). When I saw Batelle and the money-back guarantee, I thought “why not, we have nothing to lose”
We came in with the understanding that we had a very, very difficult challenge ahead of us. We had tried a number of other things – almost every method out there – from the cry-it-out to Ferber, to Taking Cara Babies. Nothing – nothing – was working and we were literally at our wits end. We just didn’t know what to do. We were frustrated and sad and just felt like failures as parents. Batelle gave us hope.
The whole process seemed a little odd to us at first when we were told what was going to happen. It’s very difficult to visualize everything until you actually see it! We actually had quite a struggle in Sleep School, while all the other families that were in our group seemed to be having so much success so early on. We ended up having to restart after a week. We just appeared to be at a slower pace as we seemed to have a more difficult challenge. But the team was there for us 100% of the time, even though we had to pretty much start over. We were told “no worries, as long as it takes, we’re here”, which was awesome as it didn’t matter what time of day or night we needed help: we always had support.
“And then the first night that he actually slept through the night we just did a happy dance!”
It was phenomenal – all of a sudden it clicked and we started to see the progress. We would look at each other and say “Is this really happening? Is our child really sleeping four hours or six hours at a time?” It was just mind blowing to us. And then the first night that he actually slept through the night we just did a happy dance!
We had to restructure the way that we communicated with Rhône. Instead of sleep being a stressful thing it became more of a happy kind of experience. Instead of forcing him to go to bed, we were able to make it more of a joyful experience. Miss Megan gave us so many good things to try. She even got on and talked to him and he would listen to her. He’s still convinced she turns on the yellow light! Now at bedtime, he runs into bed to get into his Hug when he hears the cues. He can’t wait to go read books and get ready and just snuggle up. It’s not always a dream where he gets in there and five minutes later he’s asleep, but for the most part it is. We’re not fighting anymore, and there is no more head banging. For the last three nights he slept all the way through.
We are totally thrilled! We’ve even talked to our pediatrician about this. I told him if he has any parent that comes in, with any type of sleep issue or – especially if they have a headbanger – please give them Batelle’s information, because it’s life changing. If we had found this a year ago, I would have been a lot less grey!
