TESTIMONIALS & CASE STUDIES

Mon came highly recommended from a mum friend after I complained about serious sleep deprivation! My 14 month old was waking frequently throughout the night and feeding to get back to sleep. Taking into account my parenting style, Mon introduced a gentle technique and with simple changes to our day and a routine to follow, my son is now self settling for his day time naps and at bedtime. He wakes once, sometimes not at all and bedtime is a much calmer and enjoyable time. I would highly recommend Mon to anyone who is struggling with sleep (or lack of!) Thank you so much Mon.

Emily - mum of 14mo, J

14-month-old J had never learned to self settle to sleep and was waking, at worst, every 2-3 hours to be fed back to sleep through the night. So, by the time a previous client recommended Emily to me, this poor mum was finding the sleep deprivation really tough. Adopting a gentle approach to sleep coaching was important for this family, so we implemented changes gradually while also giving J some space to learn to self soothe. Emily was already doing a star job at offering nutritious meals and J’s naps were looking pretty good, so there weren’t any extravagant adjustments needed to be made in terms of nutrition and nap times. We made some minor tweaks to his daily feed and sleep routine, and sleep environment, but our main focus was coaching J to settle himself to sleep. The gentle sleep coaching method was a good fit for J, and mum’s consistency in her response saw them making progress fast! From the first night, J fell asleep independently within 30 minutes, and by the end of our two weeks together, he was waking once through the night, if not at all. After 14 months, both J and mum could enjoy the effects of a full night’s sleep!

“I cannot tell you the positive impact that your routine and guidance have had on J and us as a family. I was so sleep deprived and stressed out and unable to think clearly or logically! I feel so much better in myself and it’s a pleasure to go and wake J up in the morning! You’ve instilled me with the confidence to continue with the routines and methods to ensure that J continues on this positive path forward! Thank you so much.”

I was really struggling with my 6 months old daughter's sleep before I started working with Monica. Naps were a mess, baby was waking every 2 hours at night and was up around 5am every morning - I was utterly exhausted! I'm so grateful to Monica who put together a sleep plan for us and gave me lots of tips on how to resettle my daughter. She was always happy to answer any questions and was cheering me on along the way. Within less than 2 weeks, my baby's sleep transformed! Her naps are now great and she only wakes once at night for a feed! I am over the moon!! I wholeheartedly recommend working with Monica!

Sofiya - mum of 6mo, E

E started every day with an early rise between 4:30-5am and wouldn’t nap longer than 30 minutes without lots of assistance from mum to resettle. While E would initially settle to sleep in her cot with minimal touch, she would still wake frequently through the night (every 2 hours at worst), often needing a feed and taking about 45 minutes to resettle. Moving forward, Sofiya continued to use the same gentle settling method to settle E to sleep and we focussed, instead, on maintaining a consistent response to all wakes and gave E a little more time and space to learn to self settle without as much input from mum. E’s consistent early rise, regardless of when her last feed was, was a clear indication that she was not waking from genuine hunger and that her daily nap structure was likely interfering with the last stage of her night sleep. The more significant adjustments I suggested were to E’s nap timings and duration, and her responses to night wakes.

Gentle coaching methods take a little longer to see significant improvement, so while E still woke frequently at the beginning, Sofiya’s perseverance and consistency saw E resettling herself within 5-10 minutes without even entering her bedroom. By night 10, E was waking just once through the night for a feed, and on nights she’d wake more, it was only brief as she’d resettle on her own within a few minutes. By the end of our 2 weeks together, E was settling herself to sleep without mum in the room, waking just once for a feed through the night and resettling herself within a few minutes in between (if she woke). She was also waking at 6:30am daily and had learnt to consolidate her midday nap to 1.5-2 hours. All without ever being left to cry!

We highly recommend Monica. She helped us with our 10 month old and we couldn’t be more grateful. Our baby went from needing to be rocked and fed to sleep to independently putting herself to sleep (from awake) and self settling in such a short amount of time. Monica is amazing and created a plan that best fit us. She is very proactive and was constantly checking in and providing us with great advice and tips. It was so nice knowing that I wasn’t going through the training alone, that Monica was waiting for my update and just a message away if I needed any quick advice. Monica is a wealth of knowledge and very understanding which I think is super important. Highly recommend if you are thinking about sleep training.

Sophie - mum of 10mo, M

When Sophie asked for help with her 10-month-old, M was being breastfed to sleep with some walking/rocking, and while M was able to resettle quickly with a feed after waking through the night, she was waking frequently (every 40 minutes), so mum would resettle and transfer to her cot, and from 9:30pm, she’d sleep with M in the spare bed. Mum’s goal was for M to settle herself to sleep in her own cot, and for M to be able to link her own sleep cycles together and cut night feeds down so that she could sleep longer stretches through the night.

Feeding-to-sleep and bed-sharing are two significantly strong sleep associations to wean, so we had our work cut out for us here. Or so I thought… This case study was the perfect example of “consistency is key”. Despite M’s strong settle and sleep associations, mum was all in and committed to following through with her plan. We began with a gentle coaching method, Pick-Up Put-Down, but M gave us some clear indications that this was, in fact, too stimulating for her. Mum discovered that when given some extra space and being out of sight, M did a lot better, so we changed tactic and went with a different coaching method; still gentle and gradual, but less hands-on. By day 3, M had discovered a new way to self soothe; she started humming as a way of lulling herself to sleep. So, even though it was tricky for mum to ignore M’s attempts for attention by laughing at her and blowing her kisses, M would eventually just lay down and begin her little hum and mum knew she’d be asleep soon. By the end of our time together, Mum would finish up their bedtime routine, lay M in her cot and leave the room. Most times, M would self settle within a few minutes, and if not, Mum would wait a few minutes before coming in to lay her back down after a cuddle in the cot and she’d happily hum herself to sleep after that. By night 9, M was only waking once or twice, and when she did, she’d self settle within a minute without mum needing to help. She was still being offered a breastfeed if she woke a second time, and Sophie was left with a plan to drop that last night feed when she felt ready.

“Oh wow M's sleep has improved drastically! She can put herself to sleep which is crazy to me. Both me and my partner are so impressed with how she has improved in all the areas we were really struggling with. I also almost feel that M is continuing to make progress with her sleep after our two weeks together. I have learnt so much about sleep and babies and how important the day is in order to have a successful night. A huge thank you, I am so impressed with how M is sleeping and how much myself and my partner have learnt and changed to help set M up for success. Lots of little things that we have changed has made a huge difference and that has all come from your knowledge and your advice and tips. Thank you so so much. Very grateful for your guidance and support. Very impressed with how M is responding and going! 💕”

Have loved and appreciated your guidance throughout as you have helped me nut a few things out to tweak their schedule and make my life a hell of a lot easier so I appreciate that. I would highly recommend Monica for all your kiddies sleep issues. I was a first time mum with twins so to have some guidance and help to nut out a few issues we had. She was also there to answer any questions I had big or small and I definitely appreciated the help to make the whole motherhood process a lot smoother.

Brooke - mum of 14-week-old twins, T & J

T and J were both catnapping, with one taking anywhere between 5 minutes to an hour to settle to sleep, and the other usually within 10 minutes. Life with multiples brings on enough challenges as it is, so our main goal was getting their feed and sleep schedules aligned and for the twins to consolidate their catnaps into longer stretches of sleep. Being only 14 weeks old, we didn’t introduce any sleep coaching techniques. Rather, we made some tweaks to their sleep environment, worked on establishing a more predictable daily routine until the twins were ready for some sleep coaching, if necessary by then, and I offered a modified settling technique to help transition the twins out of their swaddles.

By day 5, T and J were just about following their new routine to a tee; they were settling very quickly and taking longer and longer naps and, if they woke during a nap, they’d resettle the majority of the time with just a dummy replacement. By the end of our time together, the twins’ nap routine was very well established, settling to sleep straight away and having 1-2-hour naps during the day.

Thank you Mon! 💗 we are so so grateful and appreciative of you for taking us on and helping us have some sanity during bedtime especially me (mum), never thought I’d see the day I’d be able to put her to sleep again, and this has gone perfectly. Thank you again, we will definitely use you again for future babes!

Ariana - mum of 16mo, A

A didn’t cause too much of a fuss at bedtime, but only if it was her dad who stayed with her, and she would still take anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour to fall asleep. Despite mum trying everything she could think of, A just wouldn’t settle for her, so she’d have to keep A up until dad would return home from evening training, making for a late bedtime a few nights a week and a very tired toddler. I wanted to address A’s pre-bedtime overtiredness before commencing sleep coaching, so we adjusted the time of A’s nap and aimed for a solid 2-hours. Given A’s playful and inquisitive nature, and mum and dad’s parenting style, we agreed on a method that was most suitable to minimise any inconsistencies so that bedtime looked and felt the same for A, whether mum or dad took her to bed.

Adjusting A’s nap time worked a treat for her; she was self settling without much of a fuss within a few minutes and sleeping for 1.5-2 hours every day. From night two, A was only taking about 15-20 minutes to self settle to sleep at bedtime, and mum was especially happy that she could finally take A to bed and not have to wait for dad to be home.

The support Mon provided was incredible. Mon was the best coach in helping us implement the right method for our family, supportive in our struggles on down days and our biggest cheerleader in our victories. We love the daily journals, it’s amazing to look back on how far we have come in helping our little one.

Lydia - mum of 15mo, Q

Prior to working together, an unsettled Q was being rocked and patted by dad to sleep at bedtime, and for naps, she was either rocked or settled in the car then transferred to bed. Q was also waking once or twice through the night and resettled with a bottle each time. Not only had mum and dad reached their wits end with lack of sleep, Q was also getting too big and heavy for this method to be sustainable! Mum and dad’s goal was to establish a stress-free bedtime routine, for Q to self settle to sleep and ultimately sleep through the night without feeds.

We addressed some sleep environment red flags and I made some suggestions to improve Q’s solids intake so that we could cut those night feeds. Her day naps needed little adjustment, but her evening routine saw some change and bedtime was pulled back a couple of hours. Mum and dad’s attachment style saw us agreeing on a gentle approach to sleep coaching, and while modifications were gradual, Q protested the fact she was no longer being rocked to sleep. Toddlers have the stamina to outlast tired parents, so this push back did not come as a surprise! With lots of encouragement between mum and dad, and cheerleading from my end, Q was taking 15 minutes and no tears to settle herself to sleep by the end of our time together. Q had completely cut out all her night feeds, and while night wakes still happened sporadically, she was settling herself back to sleep on her own. Bedtime was a much more peaceful experience and mum and dad didn’t know what to do with themselves and the extra free time they had in the evenings!

“We felt very supported in this process from the very start which led to gaining confidence very quickly. We quickly learnt that our parenting styles were actually the polar opposite from when we first filled in the questionnaire form, and found great support in each other as well which has led to us being able to learn quickly on the tools we needed, along with the fantastic guidance we were given by Mon. Thank you for listening to us and helping us find a way to help and support Q in such a way that meant we weren't having to let Q get incredibly upset and supported our parenting styles. We felt so supported in every step of our journey and have been given the confidence to continue to keep going. We loved being able to record our daily logs, it was helpful for us to be able to look back on these, but even better was getting the feedback on each day. This meant we were able to make adjustments quickly.”

Monica was amazing. We were at our wits with trying to ditch dummy and have daughter sleep better. Once we established a more gentle method is what she needed, it started to fall into place well. Dummy was gone within 3 days and routine was picked up quick. I loved how helpful and informative Monica was, made the tougher nights easier to get through. We are now 6 weeks from start and daughter is a different person. Even with teething she has kept to it and handled sleep training like a champ. Can't recommend her enough!!

Bethany - mum of 5mo, A

When mum asked for support, she was settling A with a feed and then rocking to sleep with shushing, patting, singing and/or stroking her face. A also used a dummy so mum found she was replacing it 3-4 times in between her 3-hourly feeds throughout the night. Bethany’s goals were for A to learn to self settle to sleep; to establish a calm and positive bedtime routine; and to drop A’s night feeds down to two, and then just one. I suggested some minor adjustments to A’s introduction to solids and her nap routine, and our main focus was going to be teaching A to settle herself to sleep while ditching the dummy. Together, we decided on a gentle sleep coaching method which is generally a good fit for babies who have a rock/feed-to-sleep association.

It was a slow start for A, but after addressing some inconsistent reinforcement and offering some extra encouragement, A had settled herself to sleep on night 5… without a dummy! Mum’s determination just rose from there and A was taking quicker and quicker to fall asleep, taking only 10 minutes by day 7! After 10 days, I made some further tweaks to A’s solids intake which saw her taking much longer and settled lunch naps, and we began our plan to drop A’s second night feed. By the time we had finished working together, A was falling asleep independently and without a dummy for all day naps and night sleep, and having just one feed through the night.

“Monica has been amazing. The constant support and being willing to answer all my random questions has really given me great confidence in being able to settle A.”