Gabriel's story

Gabriel, aged 10 months had never been a great sleeper but his parents Sam and James were coping with early nights and weekend naps. However, as separation anxiety kicked in Gabriel’s sleep deteriorated further and he became hard to settle at bedtime and then started to wake every 45 minutes or so from midnight onwards. The only way to settle him was to breastfeed him, which put a lot of strain on Sam and led to her feeling resentful to James who in turn felt helpless as Gabriel would be furious if he ever tried to intervene.

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A friend recommended they seek help with Nicola as they were getting close to breaking point.

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During the consultation they devised a plan together that involved James in the process and weaned Gabriel off of the night feeds. The first two nights were tough and they were glad of the support from Nicola to help them see that it was worth sticking at it, but Gabriel adapted well after this and within a week was sleeping through the night. It took a couple of weeks for the bedtime settling to become routine and the early waking took a week or so more but after 3 weeks he was self-settling at bedtime and sleeping 12 hours through the night for the first time in his life.