Baby sleep is a HOTTTTT topic. There are approximately 1000000000 books you can buy to get your baby to sleep. We didn’t want to do anything extreme, but I am the type of person who wants a plan to follow.
We have a pretty good sleeper – she rarely needed to be rocked to sleep and slept overnight in her bassinet from week 1. Sure there were bad nights (avoiding Pizza while nursing….that was a HORRIBLE night!) and good ones. I did a lot of research before and wanted to share my honest opinion for those who are looking into sleep tips/training.
I didn’t want a more stringent solution – Moms on Call seems to be the most popular with a super strict schedule – so Taking Cara Babies was right up our alley. I’m not comfortable pumping and giving a bottle so I can see how many ounces she’s eating (that is WAY too much work and micromanagement in my opinion – but something you need to do for a book like 12 Hours Sleep by 12 Weeks Old) and I didn’t want her to cry it out at 4 weeks.
I’d been following Taking Cara Babies on Instagram for a long time (no idea how I initially found it!) and watching all her fantastic tips. At around week 5 we decided to purchase her newborn class – and it was 100% worth it.
***TWO NOTES — First, this post and review is completely unsponsored and my husband and I paid for the class on our own. I am sharing this because we loved it so much and honestly have had a great experience.
*** Two, I know there has been a LOT of baby related posts lately, and I know that’s not where my blog originally started. Two plus years ago I wasn’t pregnant, lived in another state, and had another job! Needless to say a lot has changed. I’m continuing to write more baby content because these baby posts have been my most popular posts ever (i.e. 10x more popular than anything else I’ve ever had).
Following Cara’s class gave us the confidence to put our baby down in her bassinet/crib for the night while she was awake! It also gave us tips for naps and a daytime routine. We started implementing all her tips right away and it has decreased any stress or apprehension I had at bedtime and nap time.
She also sets expectations for what your newborn will be able to do, which was super helpful for me. You hear of all these people on IG who have babies sleeping thru the night at 8 weeks and taking insane naps. That just doesn’t happen for everyone, and that’s totally appropriate developmentally! Her success checklists helped me know we were moving in the right direction when I saw people on IG bragging about their 12 hour stretches (And we were only having 4 hours).
I’m not going to share her plan since that is what you buy in the course – but I will say, if you are considering it, do it! Spend the money, follow her plan, and your nights and days will get better. You can get a lot from her blog and Instagram, but you get the full picture when you purchase a class. We went from 4 hour stretches to 9 hour stretches in the course of maybe 6 weeks. That’s a big change and I have to thank her for that!
Hopefully we won’t need to do any more sleep training since she taught us to teach our baby to fall asleep on her own (which she does for naps and bedtime). But if I need to, I will definitely buy her other classes if we have sleep problems in the future.
