To this day, one of my most popular posts is a review of the Taking Cara Babies Newborn Class.
We took it when my daughter was a month old, implemented what we learned when she was around 8 weeks, and she is still an awesome sleeper at 3.5!
With our son, we used the tips we had from the Newborn Class and he was an even better sleeper right away. He was also much larger and a better eater which I’m convinced helps – bigger babies sleep better in my two child study 🙂
Anyways, it was smooth sailing until right around 6 months. His minor eczema suddenly became severe. We started introducing food and realized he had severe food allergies – which explained the eczema. This led to some insane nighttime itching and discomfort while we tried to navigate all of this. He started to wake up multiple times a night and the ONLY way we could get him to sleep was nursing.
For months we (I!) were ok with it. He was obviously uncomfortable and there was no point in letting him cry and suffer when he was obviously itchy. Sometimes he would scratch until he bled so we are talking severe, severe eczema. Finally we got everything under control – eczema and allergies – and moved into a maintenance mode with skincare. That took us almost 5 months and we started to consider sleep training around 11 months. We knew he needed to sleep through the night and I needed that as well.
My husband and I knew we wanted to use Taking Cara Babies again because it had worked so well and we loved how she teaches and packages the information. We never had any issues with naps or going to bed – it was only the multiple nightly wakeups where we were having issues. I just needed a plan to conquer that middle of the night.
We purchased the 5-24 month class, watched the videos, and I felt truly ready to go!
The first few nights I did “pop-ins” maybe 3 times in the middle of the night. Then I did one pop-in a night until night 7. After that, he had started to sleep through the night!
Like my previous review, I’m not going to provide details on how the class works or what you do. That is what makes the class great and what you are purchasing. But I HIGHLY recommend it! We would NOT have been as successful by ourselves. We wanted a plan that someone else created and we could just use.
We still deal with the occasional night where I need to go in and give a quick pat or shush – and I’m ok with that. Some days his skin is worse (we still deal with flares obviously!) and that can make him uncomfortable overnight. I don’t feel bad going in to pat him because I know I’m not enabling a habit and he truly needs my calming. Cara says over and over again that you cannot sleep train when a baby is sick or a doctor hasn’t approved, so I felt really glad we waited until we had all our son’s medical things more under control.
Of course you can research sleep training and do it on your own – I’m not saying you HAVE to buy an expensive class. But I wanted to pay for the convenience of someone telling me what to do. And I KNEW it would work because we had so much success with the Newborn Class.
So once again, if you need help with baby sleep, I highly highly recommend a Taking Cara Babies class. We have been so happy with both classes and would pay for them again, no questions asked. Sleep is important for baby development and so important for parents!
Please let me know if you have any questions – I’m happy to answer whatever I can 🙂
