This sweet baby boy…he seriously stole my heart in the 20 nights that I spent with him last year!!! And I can’t believe he’s 1 already!!
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I thought it would be fun to share a little about baby James and what my time with him was like. (with parents’ permission of course).
I first met James and his wonderful parents when he was 5.5 weeks old for a 3 hour in-home consultation. They already had 2 daughters (ages 3 years and 2 years) and they wanted to learn some good newborn sleep tips, so they wouldn’t struggle with the same, almost year-long sleep issues they had with their first two. I remember telling them about protein sensitivity, how it can show up right around the age of 6 weeks, the signs to look for, and how to make baby feel happy/comfortable again quickly if they start to notice the signs.
A couple weeks later, mom contacted me to say the protein sensitivity DID show up very soon after my visit. And she was so thankful to know exactly what to do. We then started discussing how the parents wanted to hire me to come work with baby James overnight. I know my nightly fee can seem a bit scary when parents don’t know exactly how many nights their baby will need my help. So, I decided to test out a new idea that I’d recently had…I gave them a maximum number of nights they’d have to pay me. I knew it was possible that he could’ve started sleeping through the night before reaching that number, but if he still wasn’t officially sleeping through the night when I reached that last night of pay I’d continue to care for him every night until he was.
My first night with baby James was July 27, 2017 (8 weeks + 2 days).
He was a breastfed baby who also took some bottles because mom had gone back to work. But, that very first night that I fed him with a bottle, I could tell that he had an issue with his latch…he didn’t seem to be able to get a good, strong hold on the bottle nipple. I soon found out his daytime bottle feedings were only 2oz (which was really just a snack at his age) and nursing sessions took 45-60 minutes because he needed to stop often to burp. I started asking mom if he had been evaluated for a tongue tie. And she said out of all the nurses, lactation consultants, nurse practitioners, and pediatricians who had seen him since birth, only one had mentioned that he might possibly have a partial tongue tie. After a few more nights, I convinced her that we really needed to have him checked out. She didn’t know where to take him and I told her that I’d been reading pediatric dentists were a great place to go because infant & child mouths are their specialty. And that was perfect because she and her husband were actually good friends with a pediatric dentist (Dr. Parks @ Parks Children’s Dentistry…where I now recommend all my KC families go if I suspect ties). Dr.Parks evaluated James and told his parents that he actually had a pretty severe tongue tie. And even though he had been growing well up till that point, mom’s milk supply could have soon dropped around the 3 month mark because James was not able to latch properly and empty her breasts…he was basically just drinking her letdown. The tongue tie was revised that day, mom immediately felt a difference with his latch, and nursing sessions were soon only lasting about 15 minutes (stopping only once in the middle of feeds to burp and then burping again at the end).
I was still concerned with the small amount James was taking from the bottles while mom was at work…since I was weaning him off the middle of the night feeding, those should have naturally increased. We moved him to a faster flowing nipple during the day to try to match mom’s faster flow as well. That helped a little, but he was still stopping around 3oz.
August 2, 2017 (9 weeks+1 day) was his first night without a middle of the night feeding, but the next few nights he needed 1.5-1.75oz in the middle of the night again. I believed it was because he wasn’t getting the ounces he needed during the day. So, we tried a 6 feeding schedule instead of the typical 5. And mom was trying to come home to nurse him as many times as she could in the middle of the day too.
August 6, 2017 (9 weeks + 5days), my 11th night with him, he slept through the night without a feeding and he never needed another middle of the night feeding again after that. I continued to come each night, waiting for 3 good nights in a row before I officially said my job was done. But, there was still a slight issue happening. He was struggling to go down easily at the beginning of the night (I’d have to pick him up multiple times) and he was occasionally needing to be picked up and burped in the middle of some nights. We gave gas drops after his bedtime feeding and always gave him a good amount of calm time to sit and release any extra burps. But, after putting him down, he would start squirming a few minutes later then do a tiny yell; I would then go in, sit him on my lap, wait for another possible burp, then usually always get one. This would happen a few times each night before he could quietly drift off to sleep. As his mom and I would watch the video monitor together after putting him down, I started to realize how shiny his chin was on the monitor every night …..it was covered in drool. And I noticed that when I would go back in to sit him on my lap, there would be a thin string of drool all the way to my hand. This doesn’t usually start until babies are 3 months old. I checked his mouth for any possible signs of early teething and didn’t see any. So, I started to talk to mom about what else she could be eating that would be slightly upsetting his tummy and causing the drool at his age (the body’s way of trying to neutralize the milk & acid it feels coming up the throat) and extra burps (from swallowing the drool along with the milk & acid coming up the throat). She had already removed soy and dairy for his protein sensitivity. So, the next thing on the list was nuts. Mom was understandably a little sad about removing nuts from her diet at first because those were her go-to for energy during her busy work days. But, it was absolutely worth it. It was truly amazing how quickly his nightly routine changed; he was then able to feed, burp, go down with a smile and a dry chin, then sleep till morning…no more drool on his chin or extra burps bothering him at the beginning or middle of the night.
August 14, 2017 (10 weeks+6 days) mom was really needing him to be better at taking the bottles since she wasn’t always going to be able to get home to nurse multiple times a day. So, I suggested that we might try starting his day with a bottle instead of breastfeeding because some very smart babies will just not want/like the bottle after starting their day with the breast. Mom usually pumped 3oz each morning after his first nursing session. But, without feeding him first on this morning, she pumped 10oz. So, we were hoping he’d take close to 7oz. He took 3.75oz (only slightly better than his then usual 3oz bottle feedings). But, following this new daily routine, the very next day all his daytime bottle feedings jumped to 4-5oz and he was able to go back to a typical 5 feeding schedule. Mom was still able to enjoy the nursing session before he went down for the night. And I told her that she actually could go back to nursing him first thing in the morning and whenever she could come home during the day after about a week or so of him taking the bottle so well….and he should then continue taking any bottles offered without issue.
August 15, 2017 (11 weeks) was my last night going to their home. My job was officially done.
I texted mom to find out how everything was going 5 nights later and she replied…
“Amazing. I’m still in shock. Took him 15 min to put himself to sleep then I woke him up at 730 this morning for church! It has been so easy to put him down at night. Burping has been so much easier. Feedings are very efficient. We are all so happy and just praying this continues!”
They followed my method exactly, so the great sleep did continue through his first year.
Though, one slight issue started happening when he was close to 4 months old. Mom contacted me to try to figure out why he had started quietly laying awake for a couple hours in the middle of each night. After talking, I learned his nanny was putting him down for a nap in his room 4 times a day. And he was such a great, easy sleeper, that that was actually causing him to get too much deep/REM sleep during the day and then just not need at much sleep at night (he was getting a 2 hour nap, 1.5 hour nap, 2.5 hour nap, then 45 min short nap every day). With a slight schedule adjustment, he was on a solid 2 nap/day schedule and back to sleeping great at night. Mom was also thrilled because they could actually start getting out of the house during the day too!
Contact me if you’d like to discuss scheduling an in-home consultation or hiring me to work overnight with your newborn. Or click the link in the top menu to join one of my online, group newborn classes.
UPDATE:: I texted James’ mom on August 16, 2018 to tell her it was exactly one year from the last morning that I had left their home after guiding James to sleep through the night. And this was was she texted back….jpg)
photo credit: RPeters Photography
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