I have had the honour of working with a lot of families this year.
Tired parents, at their wits end, desperate for sleep and wanting to find ways to make that happen with their equally tired children.
Almost without fail a parent will say, at some point, "I know I shouldn't have done this but......" and cringe as they tell me what they have done in order to get some sleep. Common 'admissions' include laying on their child's bed as they go off to sleep or letting their child come into bed with them.
These parents are *smart*. They have done what they needed to do to survive and get through another day.
The trouble is that having a sleepless child is a taboo subject that nobody talks about, a bit like bed wetting. Parents feel embarrassed, and that it must be something they have done wrong, that they are failing. Sleep is tricky to deal with because we don't know enough about sleep. Nobody tells us!
When we do turn to health professionals for help what happens? The health professionals we turn to for sleep support do not have sleep as part of their basic training. Really. I did my specialist public health nursing degree alongside Health Visitors in training. We did not have one session on sleep. Not one. So the Health Visitor or School Nurse that you turn to, unless they have a special interest, will not have anything other than basic sleep hygiene advice to give you. Your GP, unless they have a special interest, won't have had much more than an hour on sleep as part of their training either.
So please don't feel embarrassed about whatever you have done to get through the nights, the days, the weeks, the months. You have adapted and done absolutely the best you can. Compare it to trying to drive a car with no lessons.
This is where I can help. I want to fill in the gaps and offer the basic knowledge that we are all missing. Once you understand how and why sleep happens then you can start to make changes that will work, and I can help you with that.
If your child isn't sleeping it is not your fault. You are not a bad parent. Let me help you to unpick what is going on and find out what is happening and we will be on the way to changing your sleep in a sustainable and enduring way.