Me: Err, hello. Yes, my name is Carolyn and a friend of a friend recommended that I contact you. Ummm....our baby doesn't sleep. (Duh,she is a sleep coach. Why else would I be calling?)
Sleep coach (in an Australian accent): Yes well, describe a typical day for you and baby.
Me: Well.... (as baby is screaming in the background. I put him down 20 minutes prior for a nap, thinking this was a good time to try to make a quick call.That little monkey hates it when Mama is on the phone.) As you can hear, this is nap time. Night time is pretty much the same. He sleeps about 2 hours at a time.I'm at my end.(in my best desperation voice, that I don't even really have to fake)
Sleep coach: He's nine months old, right? (I emailed her all my info prior to the phone call) And he's eating solid foods? Oh, No, no, no. That baby should be sleeping. (This is her 'duh' moment.)
Me: Ya, that's kinda why I called......
Australians sleep well, right? I mean, really, who was this woman? Aside from her website that assured, no, guaranteed sleep success, I really had no idea how she was going to get the sleepless wonder to transform, in about five days no less! I couldn't believe it and yet this woman offered us something that we felt we would not see until our baby was off to University: a full night's rest. It seemed too good to be true, but I didn't care. I also didn't care that it was going to cost us some dough-a few hundred dollars, but hell, at this rate I thought I might never be able to work and earn money again (at least not doing anything which required use of about .1% of my brain). A few hundred dollars seemed like a deal. I was willing to pay her to just sit all night with baby just to catch a few zzzzzs.
All this excitement was short lived, however. Her last question to me was direct: "Are you going away in the next couple of months, like on a vacation?" Was she kidding? I had been on EI for 10 months. The only vacay I was looking at was a trip downtown. "No, not at all." I quickly replied. "Are you sure you are not going to be out of your house for any time at all?" she asked again. Oh crap. I was. We were. A weekend ski trip up north. My husband skis. I hot tub. (What? It's hard work!I prune very easily.) The sleep coach was insistent that we could not start any sleep training prior to going away, even if our weekend trip was nearly three weeks away. She implored me to call when I returned, at which time she'll have written our own personal sleep plan that we would implement the next weekend.
I could do another two weeks. Hell, it had been months, what was another two weeks?
Husband: We can't go. That's it. We're not going.
Me: (groaning) Ugh. This isn't new. Nothing has changed. My family knew when they agreed to come with us that baby doesn't sleep. They won't care.
Husband: It's 4am. He's screaming. We can't do this to people.
Me: (groaning) We are not canceling. I'll just sleep with him and when he attempts to cry, I'll whip out my boob, k?
The plan was set: Wait until we return from our mini-vacay and then contact the sleep coach. My family assured us that baby waking up frequently would be no problem (Ah, they lie so well. I love them.) and I was buzzing with anticipation knowing that in less than a month, we could (and I firmly believed we would) have a baby sleeping through the night. I relayed my buzz to my three girlfriends, all of whom have little babies of their own. One of them piped in, "Hmmm....my cousin hired a sleep coach, I think. I'm not sure if it went so well. Why don't I contact her and get some info for you?" It couldn't hurt. We still had another week to go before we left the city.
A series of emails and phone conversations that would follow changed everything......
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