Sleep Consultant

Today we began a new step in our journey. We hired a sleep consultant, Flávia Mônaco, located in Brazil in an attempt to help improve our sleep routine. She is a friend of my Sol’s in Brazil and she and Santi are giving this as a gift. My future sleep thanks them. 🙂

We are currently doing most of what is advised not to do in the books and videos out there on sleep training. We are first time parents and as the sleep consultant reinforced “Nothing is right or wrong. Each family does what it can to survive and get by.” And that is what we do. But as an example we put both kids to sleep with them in their bed and snuggle until they are fast asleep and then we leave the room. Lesson #1 of what not to do. And the list goes on. And on. And on. 

Our first step is implementing sleep hygiene, which is what Flavia calls the rituals prior to the kids falling asleep. This begins with a relaxing bath and ends with us giving each kid a hug goodnight while saying a few commands like “It is night time” “Now it’s time to go to sleep” “Mama y Papa will also go to sleep soon”. Other rituals she recommends before sleep time include a massage (physical reinforcement), essential oils (smell reinforcement) and white noise (sound reinforcement). The second phase will be to sleep train Emma and then Mathias. Third phase will include working on the nap routines.

She also made a few recommendations for the sleep environment including creating a space on the floor for their pre sleep routine instead of joining them on the bed as we did until now. She also recommends a gate to be installed in their room so Mathias has a limit and is reminded his space is in his room for the night as he comes to our room every night. 

I will keep you posted on our journey. The sleep training is a three month process so I will share our milestones and improvements.