If your baby keeps waking up at night read this ☝️ — anuncio de Emily Parker

I fed my daughter every time she woke up because that was the only thing that worked, until I found out the reason she kept waking had nothing to do with hunger. My daughters name is Ally and She's five months old and I love her more than I knew I could love anything. But I have to be honest. I hadn't slept more than an hour and a half in a row in weeks. I'm not exaggerating. An hour and a half. That's the longest stretch I'd gotten. And every single time Ally woke up, the only thing that got her back down was feeding her. So I'd feed her. She'd fall asleep. Ninety minutes later, she'd wake up again. I'd feed her again. She'd fall asleep again. All night. Every night. Rinse and repeat. I would tell myself she was hungry. She had to be hungry. That's the only thing that made sense. She must’ve been going through a growth spurt and she needed more milk. It was developmental and It would pass. Except she wasn't eating like she was starving she'd latch for two minutes, maybe three, and be asleep again. And she wasn't taking a full feed She was just using me to fall back asleep. I knew that. I knew it and I kept doing it anyway Because the second I tried not to feed her she screamed and I was so tired, so completely broken, that I always caved. Every single time. And here's the thing that was making me feel insane. Ally went down fine at bedtime. That was never the problem. I'd put her down awake at 7:30, she'd fuss for a few minutes, and she'd fall asleep on her own. No feeding. No rocking. She knew how to fall asleep. So why couldn't she stay asleep? I read everything. I tried everything. I downloaded the wake window app huckleberry. And I adjusted her schedule. I tried not feeding her when she woke up and just rocking her instead. She screamed for forty minutes and I caved and fed her anyway and cried in the bathroom afterward because I felt like such a failure. But the worst part was what was happening to me at night. And I need to say that I love Ally. I need you to know that before I say this next part. I love her more than I knew I could love anything. But at late at night, after weeks of this, when the monitor would go off again and I'd hear her cry, something would flash through me before I could stop it anger. Pure, ugly, irrational anger. At my own baby. Something ugly. Something I've never said out loud to anyone because I was terrified of what it made me. Then I'd go pick her up. And I'd just sit there in the dark holding her, the guilt already coming in, feeling like the worst person alive. And I couldn't tell my husband. I couldn't tell my mom. I couldn't post about it under my real name. So I posted the safe version that night. Just the feeding part. That Ally goes down awake at bedtime but wakes every hour and a half all night and the only thing that works is feeding her And I don't know if she's actually hungry or if I've created something I don't know how to undo and I'm losing my mind. I put the phone face down and sat in the dark. A few minutes later a DM came in and that’s when everything changed Her name is Angie. "I know exactly what you're going through. I was in the same place six months ago. Can I ask does Ally fall asleep fine at bedtime but just can't stay asleep?" Yes, I typed back. That's the part I can't figure out. She knows how to fall asleep on her own. So why doesn't it work in the middle of the night? "Because it's not about knowing how to sleep by herself," Angie wrote. "I spent months thinking I was doing something wrong. Trying to sleep train harder. But it's not behavioral. It's physical." Physical. I read that word three times. But she's not congested, I typed. I don't hear anything wrong with her breathing. "You wouldn't be able to. It's not the kind of congestion you can hear” “It's just tiny airway resistance. Even the smallest amount is enough to make breathing feel like work” “And when breathing feels like work during light sleep, the nervous system goes on alert. Alert nervous system means awake baby." I sat there on the floor reading that over and over. That's why she wakes up every 90 minutes? Not because she's hungry? "Not because she's hungry. Think about it when you feed her, she falls back asleep, right?” “But not because she was full. Because nursing calms her nervous system down enough to drop her back into deep sleep. For one more cycle” “Then 90 minutes later, light sleep again, breathing feels uncomfortable again, body tenses again, awake again." Oh my God. That's exactly what happens. Every single night. I could map it to the minute. "I know," Angie said. "Here's the thing though. There are two parts to fixing it and most people only fix one." What do you mean? "Everyone talks about calming the nervous system. That's why lavender works, why warm baths help. You're lowering stress hormones so the baby's body can relax” “That's the first half. But the other half the part nobody talks about is keeping the airways open so breathing stays smooth during those light sleep phases” “So the body doesn't tense up. So there's nothing to wake her." How. "Fir needle," she said. "It helps open airways, makes breathing feel easier. Like what eucalyptus does for adults when you're congested” “But gentle enough for a baby. When you combine it with lavender one to calm the nervous system so she can fall asleep, one to keep the airways clear so she can stay asleep you're fixing both parts." I had never heard of fir needle for sleep. Never. In all the Googling, all the Reddit threads, all the 2am forum rabbit holes. Not once. "I found this organic sleep cream called Slumberlee. Lavender and fir needle together, with jojoba and olive oil as the base” “I started putting a little on my daughter's chest and feet before bed. Within three days she was sleeping six hour stretches. By the end of the second week she was sleeping through the night." I didn't want to hope. I had hoped so many times and been let down every single time and I knew what that crash felt like. But I also couldn't stop reading what she'd sent me. Because it was the first explanation that actually made sense. Not a schedule to adjust. Not a method to try harder” “A physical reason. A missing piece. Something I hadn't been able to fix because I hadn't known what I was actually trying to fix” I asked Angie for the link. I ordered it at 2:34am It arrived two days later. That first night I rubbed a small amount on Ally's chest and feet before bed. Same routine as always. She went down at 7:30 like normal. 9pm came and went. Still asleep. 11pm. Still asleep. I woke up at midnight in a panic because I hadn't heard her. I grabbed my phone and checked the monitor with my heart pounding. Still asleep. 1:30am. Still asleep. She didn't wake up until 4:30am. Seven hours. Seven hours in a row. I lay there in the dark and I didn't know what to do with myself. I kept waiting to hear her. I kept checking the monitor. I think I cried a little but I'm not sure. I was so disoriented by the silence I didn't know what was real. I told myself it was a fluke. One good night didn't mean anything. Growth spurt ending. Random. Don't get attached to it. The second night she slept from 7:30 to 3am. The third night she woke up once around midnight and I reached for her and then stopped because she fussed for maybe two minutes on the monitor and then went quiet. She put herself back to sleep. I didn't go in. I didn't feed her. She just went back to sleep. By the end of the first week she was doing six to eight hour stretches consistently. By the end of the second week she slept through the night four times. And the thing that got me, the thing that made me sit down and actually cry, was that none of it changed how she went to sleep at bedtime. She still went down awake. Still fell asleep on her own. Still no feeding, no rocking. What changed was that she was staying asleep. She was making it through those light sleep cycles without waking up. Her body was moving from one cycle to the next like it finally had nothing stopping it. And the whole time I'd been sitting on that nursery floor thinking I'd created a feeding dependency. Thinking I'd done something wrong. Thinking it was my fault. It wasn't about hunger. It wasn't about habits I'd built or sleep training I hadn't done right. It was just about breathing. The one thing I hadn't known to look at. I'm not saying Slumberlee will work for every baby. I genuinely don't know if every baby wakes up for the same reason Ally did. But if your baby goes down fine at bedtime and can't stay asleep. If the only thing that gets them back down is feeding them and you don't know if they're actually hungry or if you've just built something you can't undo. If you've tried everything and you're sitting there at 2am on the floor wondering what you're missing. Maybe it's the same thing I was missing. Maybe it's not about the feeding at all. Maybe it's about breathing. Thank you for reading my story I'll put the link below. It's what worked for us. https://slumberlee.com/products/organic-sleep-cream-single