Sleep School

Eliza and I went off to sleep school last week - sounds fun doesn't it? I would have been at the top of my class in that school before I had a baby! Really it's an organisation called Tresillian that has been around since 19-oh-whenever and provides support to new mothers. They have a residential unit out in western sydney that is essentially free of charge and available for families who need help with settling, feeding, general baby wrangling or just support. I was recommended there since I took one of those Edinburgh Tests and didn't score terribly high. That and Eliza doesn't sleep much during the day and was regressing in her ability to sleep much at night. They thought they could help me with it.
I figured I'd go because it would be a little like a four day vacation - no cooking, cleaning, or laundry and your first day and night they put your baby to sleep for you. That would be my ideal version of motherhood - just play with, feed and cuddle my baby and then hand her off when it's time for bed! Naturally Eliza went off to sleep like an angel for the Tresillian nurses and even slept through the night for the first time in ages. Then naturally she decided that sleep was overrated when she was back in my care. What they do is teach you a kinder version of controlled crying. You don't feed or rock your baby to sleep, but you put them to bed when they're tired but awake. And they learn to settle themselves. This involves them crying a little bit, which I was never good at listening to at home, and then you go in and reassure them and if they don't calm down and drop off to sleep within 20 minutes or so you go in and pat them until they fall asleep. And then you just have to be consistent and adhere to a bit of a "sleep schedule", which I've never been great at but I'm realising is very important to babies.
And I'm happy to report that Eliza is doing really well, and I'm feeling much more confident about what I'm doing. She has slept through the night for the past four nights and yesterday even had a two-hour afternoon nap!
And at this place I realised how lucky I am to have 'Liza...there were some real handfuls there, babies who woke ten times a night and refused to eat, babies who refused to be put down, and some seriously terrorising toddlers. And mothers who were having a really hard time of it as well - it's hard to feel sorry for yourself when there's a single mother with twins around!