A New Mom's Story: 'She Wanted to Be Back in My Body!'
Eleanor read The Happiest Baby on the Block before her impatient little daughter, Caroline, decided to be born 3 weeks early. She well understood the bookās main ideas: That snug swaddling, rocking, shushing and sucking help babies calm and sleep. And, that new moms need to give new babies plenty of 4th-trimester care mimicking the soothing sound and motion babies love insideā¦before they are born.Ā
She wasnāt even thrown for a loop when her usually calm infant suddenly got a whole lot fussier. Carolineās colicky symptoms ramped up around her original due date, just as Dr. Karpās baby guide had advised was common for preemies.
Eleanor and her husband Francisco worked hard to do their very best womb impersonations, āWe wrapped her a lot, and we would take turns walking around the dining room table to calm her down. The best wasā¦I had this shirt with a front pocket like a kangaroo. I would stuff her inside, nurse her and bounce on a bouncy ballā¦all at same time! Iād be doing this at 2am, about to fall over!āĀ
To Eleanor, the problem was crystal clear: āShe wanted to be back in my body!āĀ
Thanks to Eleanorās incredible dedication, Caroline slept wellābut almost exclusively in her momās arms. That meant Eleanor slept only in the 45-minute bits and snips that she fit in between sessions of feeding and pacing. Everyone told Eleanor to rest during the day, but she just wasnāt a napper. With every passing day she became more and more sleep deprived.
When Caroline was about 2 months, Eleanor heard about the brand new baby sleeper, SNOO. Ā Bone tired and already a believer in Dr. Karpās baby tips, she immediately ordered one. And, the change was dramatic. Within just days, her little girlās sleep improved substantiallyā¦and so did hers! They immediately started sleeping in 3 hours stretches and quickly advanced to 5 hours at a time.
āSNOO does a great job mimicking what the baby is used to in your bellyābetween the noise, the movement, the swaddle,ā raved Eleanor.
And she was incredibly thankful for the peace of mind she got from SNOOās main safety innovationāthe special swaddle that prevents rolling: āEven when I was just getting 45 minutes of sleep, I would wake up to make sure she was still breathing.āĀ
Not worrying about her babyās safety let Eleanor get a good nightās sleep. The new mom said that - in the final analysis - the confidence that her baby would not roll to a risky position in the middle of the night was what helped her most of all!
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