Baby sleep whisperer Ingrid Prueher meets Liz, whose eight-month-old son Nate wakes up throughout the night. What Ingrid discovers in the nursery holds the secret to getting Nate to sleep.
[MUSIC] My name is Ingrid Prueher and I used to work with the sharks on Wall street, but now I have a much tougher job, [CRYING] They call me the Baby Sleep Whisperer. [CRYING]. Hi, I'm Liz. I have an 8 month old son and his name is Nate. He is absolutely wonderful. He's the biggest blessing I've ever had in my life. What does a bee do? He is perfect, except that he doesn't sleep. [MUSIC] Thirty minutes in, and that's what he's been doing the whole time. He wakes up, I take him, I sit in the bed and I nurse him, and then I go to put him back down in the Rock' n Play and he screams. So I pick him back up and nurse him some more, put him back down in the Rock' n Play and he screams. Second nap for the day. Nate won't take a bottle. He wants me, he wants to nurse and my husband can't do that. It's 2:50 in the morning and he's been crying for about an hour and twenty minutes. You just start to feel worn down because I can't get anything done. [NOISE]. It's bad. I was at the end of my rope. It's really bad. [MUSIC] Hi. This is Nate. Hi, sweetheart. Ni, Nate, how are you? Are we gonna become friends today? Hm, you'll think about it? [MUSIC] [LAUGH] So here's his room. Beautiful. I don't see anything that I'm alarmed about. [NOISE] Actually, I'm being polite. Let's forget the sleep problems for now, this room is dangerous. But let's talk a little bit about what's happening in the crib. Okay. Okay. This height is really meant for children [MUSIC] Under four to five months of age. With a mattress this high up, Nate could actually climb over the edge and fall out. We're also gonna remove the mobile because now that he can sit up, he can actually pull it down and he could hurt himself. Okay. Sounds good? Sounds good. Okay, awesome. So, let's start working on that. [MUSIC] So we're gonna move this out, we don't need this anymore. No, cuz you're a big boy. Aside, okay. If you want I'll continue doing, working on this and you go feed him. There's no need for us to like, [INAUDIBLE] him or anything. Okay. Creating an environment that's conducive to sleep is one part of the puzzle. So if your child is over the age of four or five months of age you don't wanna take a chance that one day you're gonna come in and your child has already pulled themselves up. That surprise can be dangerous. I always tell the parents to remove pillows, to remove lovies, to remove bumpers. It's not because they're bad parents, it's just that sometimes you just don't know that you're supposed to do it. [MUSIC] Hi Liz. Come back in. Hopefully you're not too surprised with all the changes I've made. [LAUGH] So let me walk you through what I did. We discussed lowering the mattress because of his age, how he was sitting up and starting to try and pull himself up, so it was a good idea to kind of just lower it all the way. I removed the bumpers. I unplugged everything. We covered all the plugs, but I moved [MUSIC] The monitor across the room, given his age, he's more likely to rip it up. To make me nervous. Yeah, exactly. With the safety concerns taken care of we're ready to get Nate napping. I would like to move the white machine close to over there. By the door. Exactly, so it will mask the noise that is coming through there, because right here, we're not masking, it's not really doing anything. Okay. Beautiful. So, it's time for nap time so i'll give you your moment to give him kisses. And what I'll do is I will step outside and I'll wait for you when you're done. Okay? So just put him in and I'll wait for you outside [MUSIC] Ni-night. [MUSIC] So, it's been a little bit close to ten minutes. And he's completely out cold already. Mm-hm. Which is great. Yeah. Right? He didn't need the feet to sleep. He didn't need any rocking. You didn't have to go anywhere to kind of give him that movement sleep. Yep. That we thought he needed. And everything is in place in his room. Mm-hm. Right? How did you feel about that process though? That felt really good. I think like you mentioned before, I have more confidence because you're here. Because you're telling me that I'm doing this and it's okay. Mm-hm. You might be thinking that I just caught Nate on a lucky day, but I see this all the time. It's about confidence, consistency, and safety. Now that Liz knows Nate is safe she has the confidence to put him to sleep with ease. So at night you're gonna run through your routine. Mm-hm. Which involves bathing him, bringing him to his room, putting on his PJs. You feed him. You're going to kiss him goodnight, and then you'll put him down and walk out of the room. Okay. And that's it. You don't have to be 100% consistent every single day. But for the first two weeks that we start this process- It needs to be exact. Absolutely. Okay. That's and that's We don't want to give him any mixed signals. Okay. What so ever. Still sleeping. That's very good. Yay, good job. [MUSIC]
