Andy's Story

At 4 months old, Andy was an adorable baby who had nightly screaming sessions for hours on end.  His parents were at their wit’s end since consoling, rocking, feeding, and even car rides were not helpful.  He was waking multiple times per night, and many times too worked up to even feed back to sleep. Sleep was non-existent, but crying was exhausting.  Something had to change.

This little one was in a spiral of overtired that only brought more crying and less sleep.  Knowing it just couldn’t get any worse, we began to work together to address how to help him sleep, and more importantly, stay asleep.  As far as the comfort/discomfort in hearing their baby cry, the one thing they knew to be true is that even hands-on intervention didn’t stop the crying, so we really had nowhere to go but up and nothing to lose in trying.

I visited them to just determine how accurate the level of crying and lack of consolation was and they were not kidding!  Together, we determined that he just needed the space and opportunity to sleep, and furthermore, they needed a break from the endless hours of holding a crying baby they couldn’t comfort. At the time that we began, both parents had already returned to work, and were taking turns, kind of dividing and conquering.   To say that their quality of family time suffered would be an understatement! Also a factor was their performance in their jobs outside the home, with trouble remaining efficient and focused in their work.  At home, both admitted to being stressed and more on edge. 

When we devised a game plan to approach getting more sleep, it was surprising for them to learn that sleep begets sleep and that good naps bring better night sleep, and better feeds, as well as a happier baby.  The first couple of nights brought about the same amount of crying, but implementing a solid bedtime routine and focusing on finding the sweet-spot of sleepy toprevent the over-tired screaming was where we found success.  There was crying! But realistically it was not more than he had experienced with mom and dad desperately trying to help.  Once little Andy had a routine, and a crib alone, he was a fast learner in finding his hands and soothing himself to settle.  Mom and Dad both found being so hands-on and changing environments to attempt to calm him were making him over-stimulated, confused, and frankly more frustrated.